Panic on The Streets Of London

As a retail blog it would be remiss of me not to mention at least briefly, the recent riots in London (and to a lesser degree elsewhere) it has predominantly been about London's High Streets- damaging and looting our local shops.

This has all been terribly depressing. Incalculable damage has been caused to local communities and local high streets.

It's the physical destruction of property- the shops and other buildings that have been vandalised, burnt out, that will be expensive and time-consuming to repair or rebuild (the sad tale of House of Reeves furniture store razed to the ground in Croydon, having previously been successfully run by five generations of Reeves, pictured above) and perhaps impossible for the unfortunate owners without appropriate insurance cover.

It's also the shameless theft of goods- in all honesty these riots seemed to quickly become about simple opportunistic looting in many towns across London. Shocking images of surprisingly young people grabbing trainers, large flat-screen TVs, and other consumer goods from the big chains ('getting their taxes back')- but also stealing from local shops, again who will struggle to afford to replace goods where insurance doesn't cover them against 'acts of terrorism' as this sort of thing is apparently defined- such as the Boots optician franchisee who isn't covered for the theft of £15k worth of frames from his store.

It's also the painful loss or limitation of livelihood for the many shopkeepers and shopworkers involved- both in terms of money having to be spent on rebuilding their business' properties and stocks (literally in some cases)  and the loss of income whilst this process is on-going. There is a large group of people who have seen their disposable cash go up in smoke over the past week, money that now can't be spent on goods and service locally, proving another blow to their local areas (and nationally) in terms of economic recovery.

But finally- it's the intangible damage that is arguably as bad as these things, at least in terms of longevity of effects. I've made the point before about the important role a thriving High Street has to play in its local community, and indeed the pysche of local residents. Conversely a High Street in which shops have been damaged, vandalised, looted from, and even burnt to the ground- this has a detrimental effect both on the local community and on its residents. It's symbolic on both sides- of anger and mistrust, failure and frustration, of hopelessness and despondency- and people get a daily depressing reminder every time they walk through the streets of their town. And fundamentally it makes these areas places we don't want to spend time in, and certainly don't want to shop in. It also makes these areas places that our retailers won't be interested in doing business in, thus the vicious cycle continues. Our local communities and town centres have been struggling enough in recent times- this entirely counter-productive destruction of them by local rioters makes it infinitely more dififcult for those places affected to get back on their feet and try to recover after the prolonged period of economic difficulty this country has been through.

I have no intention of making any political pronouncements on why this  might have happened, whether this could have been preventable, or what should happen now (although must say the efforts of @Riotcleanup on Twitter are admirable)- plenty of other people to make those cases.
All I know is- we should all feel a sense of responsibility for making the places where we live the best they can be, that's the only way we can conscienably make a difference.
Clearly not a view shared by those involved in the riots this week; more's the pity- for them and those around them.