Can independent shops save Hitchin?

Up and down the country the state of many UK town centres is a cause for concern.

About 27,000 shops closed in 2023 according to the British Independent Retailers Association, of which 7,800 were independently owned.

In the Hertfordshire market town of Hitchin, some people believe they are bucking the trend by attracting more independent retailers and hospitality businesses.

How successful is the strategy and could it be replicated elsewhere?

Danielle Barry co-owns Arkley Fine Art, a high end gallery that she said fits with the “young affluent” population.

One of the reasons she and her husband chose to locate the business in Hitchin seven years ago was because it was “full of lovely beautiful independent businesses” and they felt they would “slot in really well”.

Similar firms located nearby were “like a family”, she added.

“As an independent business you know how difficult it is right now so you all try and help each other,” she said.

The town centre management say the presence of about 180 independent businesses is not a coincidence even though there are also many national chains.

Visit Hitchin is a business improvement district (BID) which is funded by a levy on local firms and it operates a five-year inward investment plan.

Tom Hardy, the BID’s town centre manager, said it had active conversations with landlords to encourage them to lease premises to independent businesses.

He said they try to match landlords with “good quality businesses” to keep the perception of Hitchin as a “busy, buzzing, London commuter town”.

But he admits the BID “unfortunately” does not have a veto on who landlords lease to. It can be a “bit of a battle”, he added.

This is not a model that can be replicated everywhere, he said. Hitchin was “lucky” to have “very small” ground floor units.

Other towns and cities have “great swathes of shopping centres that they just can’t let, or the business rates are too high”, he said.

Evie McGown, 23, uses the town centre and said there are some “nice little shops opening” but it was “not as bustling as it used to be”.

She is back in Hitchin, where her parents live, on a break from studying for a masters degree in Edinburgh.

She said Hitchin “definitely” has more independent shops than “other little towns” but she felt “a lot of High Streets around the UK are dying”.

She said Hitchin can feel like an exception, but admitted that as a fan of small vintage shops “what I want is probably not what Hitchin wants”.

While there were a lot of shops that she felt were “not targeted” at her, “I appreciate that is what the demographic want”.