Crippling business rates and the impact of lockdowns have played a key role in decisions to close stores and to be cautious about new openings, chief executive Helen Dickenson said.
Today, MailOnline visited the town centres of Hartlepool in County Durham and Bolton in Greater Manchester to witness the scale of their fallen high streets.
Figures from the British Retail Consortium lay bare the scale of the decline of Britain s high streets in the North compared to the South, with the highest number of vacant stores in the North East.