I hope you have a decent Co Op ...funeral plan, save us all the cost of an idiots burial.

If you have a pension (which I doubt you have ever earnt enough to invest in), economies drive progress, not the Hovis theme tune and Last of The Summer W(h)ine. Cleggy.

Yes, economies drive pensions but as Mrs Thatcher taught you, tying up capital in old, failing industries is not the way forward. Retail shops fall into that category and, as we will soon find, a lot of commercial property too (as part owner of a commercial property in London that will not be good for me).

If/when the likes of Marks & Spencer and Debenhams finally turn off their life support machines there will be holes in city centres akin to the blitz bombings. Nobody will ever take over retail spaces that big again. The huge BHS in Wakefield has been stood empty for years. It's a symbol of a failed retail model and the financial mismanagement that goes with it.

Landlords are suffering too, especially with tenants such as well known restaurants chains and coffee shops as tenants and especially if they (the landlords) have bank loans. Chains seem to be just saying to landlords, at least the smaller ones, they are not going to pay their rent for months.

Come on big lad, put forward a counter argument and tell us how / if city centres can be re-invigorated and cut out the schoolyard stuff.

A man without an opinion is just a sheep SUBMISSION:

The town planners have to take some responsibility too.
They keep on building shiny new shopping centres, which are in direct competition to the existing shops/stores.
All this does is move the shoppers around and with so many doing an ever increasing amount of shopping on line, the city centres will become white elephants.
Wakefield is a classic example of this very trait.
30(ish) years ago, we had the all singing / all dancing Ridings centre, which was a success and pulled some bigger names into the city.
However, opening up Trinity walk, which although very nice, has killed off the other half of the city centre.
Pre covid, there were already as many shops closed and boarder up, as there were occupied units.

If fashion/habits change and peole stop feeling the need to pay £3-4 for a cup of coffee to carry around and having their hair/nails done, there will be nothing left - it's depressing.

What should they have put in it's place, what about a new rugby ground for Wakefield Trinity.

THey should have re developed (in stages) The Ridings.
Keep the city centre tight and accessible, rather than have a shiny new "mall" but, the cost was killing off the Cathedral side of town, which is an utter embarrassment.
The once vibrant part of the City, is now a ghost town, half boarded up and the rest of that side desperate for some life.
As for a new Trinity ground, progress was again thwarted but, we keep waiting and hoping.

Hull is the same,built Princes Quay, which killed Whitefriagate and Prospect Centre, built St Stephens, which killed Princes Quay.Hammonds now being converted into flats, BHS remains empty and Debenhams will be gone by the end of the year. M&S have no city centre prescence, but it's all going to be OK, they want to build a new Ice Arena and more flats...!

You still haven't mentioned in your capacity as a town planner what you would have planned for the land allotted to the trinity walk scheme, as for building a new ground for trinity, that was pure sarcasm btw.