The closure of non-essential retail in the UK, now extended for another three weeks, equates to 382 million square feet of physical space out of action. This space would have generated £14.5bn of sales over that period based on 2019 sales says GlobalData, a leading data and analytics company.

Maureen Hinton, Global Retail Director at GlobalData, comments: “Measures to stop the spread of COVID-19 in the community is hitting non-food retailers the hardest, particularly clothing specialists, which account for 36 percent of these lost sales.”

Hinton adds “While some of these sales will have transferred online the majority will not be recovered, speeding up the demise of the weakest operators and the permanent closure of even more retail space.”