Patrick O'Brien

Well, in the 2010s, really, what we saw was shopper behaviour changed, the competitive environment changed.

Wilco didn't really change, or at least they didn't change rapidly enough.

We're going through a period where real wages were stagnating.

People were looking to save money, were looking to trade down to cheaper brands, cheaper retailers.

And then you had the emergence of some really strong competitors in the likes of B&M, Home Bargains and The Range.

And they were really, really aggressive on price.

You had the supermarkets, which started to be a lot more competitive in non-food areas also.

because of the rise of Aldi and Lidl that were coming onto their turf.

And you also had Amazon Prime, of course, which expanded rapidly, where people would look to Amazon as their first port of call to buy something rather than go to the high street.

So what you had was a completely changing competitive and shopper behaviour.

I think it did.

They had quite large stores with what would have been high rents on high streets where through the 2010s, footfall was diminishing year on year, about 1-2% a year.

So it was a real struggle to keep revenue stable.

increasing in the stores when you've got less people walking past.

You had those competitors that I mentioned, B&M, The Range, Home Bargains, they were opening on retail parks predominantly.

And those places were offering free and convenient parking, which has always been a problem on the high street.

And they were having cheaper rents there as well.

And we saw a lot of retailers fall away in this period.

because they were locked into long leases that they had no ability to renegotiate the price downwards.

So you're left with that position of whether you should stay and hope that things get better or effectively pay to get out of the lease completely.