In the "dismal science" of economics they talk of rebalancing the economy away from consumer-led growth and overdependence on taxes from financial services. On a thundery afternoon in the prosperous Sussex new town of Crawley the impact of that is distinctly less abstract.
On Tuesday the news had barely started filtering through to shoppers – let alone to staff – that TJ Hughes, for decades a much-loved local department store, had called in administrators, putting 57 branches and nearly 5,000 jobs at risk nationwide.
After three years in which many retailers hoped they had survived the worst of recession, a combination of squeezed pay packets, rising taxes and lower public spending is now culling vulnerable shops and chains of all shapes and sizes. Habitat, Jane Norman, Moben kitchens, Thorntonschocolates, Comet and many other familiar names in Britain's half-cloned high streets are in varying degrees of trouble. Crawley has its share of the casualties. "I think I read TJ Hughes was in trouble in the Sun this morning," says Robin Whiting, a newly retired ex-insurance man sheltering from the rain with his wife, Julie, under the awning of its store on the Broadway. It is part of a network of neat, modernist leafy squares and pedestrianised streets which were a retail revolution in the 60s and 70s.
The Whitings, who live in nearby Burgess Hill, have been shopping in Crawley for years (easier to park and cheaper than Brighton) and liked the bargains they could find in the Liverpool-based TJ Hughes. "We're on a restricted budget now and are trying to spend less. TJ's is one of the places we come to," explains Julie Whiting, who has MS and sometimes uses a wheelchair but was determined to buy a light summer jacket.
During her search (no luck with the jacket) she noticed that some brands were roped off and not for sale and that other stock seem to have been spread out to fill gaps in a credit-uncertain supply chain. But TJ's cheerful staff ("what else can we do?") were in business-as-usual mode and the shop was filled with "deal of the week" bargains unrelated to the firm's crisis. After Easter's "bank holiday bonanza" TJ Hughes moves straight into summer sales – suits £54, shirts down to £4.99, a 16-piece set of Denby china for £29.99. It is part of a pattern of rolling sales that have driven US-style, consumer-led growth and unsustainable credit card debt for 20 years.
"You can buy things much cheaper here than you can the same thing in other shops," say customers and staff. Julie Whiting cites the dinner plate at £1.50 which she saw elsewhere at £8. TJ's sold out of Bellini garden sets at £500; they were £2,500 at a rival store. TJ's will be missed.
This summer Crawley is full of such bargains, putting a brave face on its retail problems and – so far – succeeding in the exercise. With Debenhams as its anchor tenant, the indoor County Mall still looks prosperous – none of the empty shops that disfigure temples of retail consumption in other towns and cities.
Since 2009 the Tory-controlled borough council (the parliamentary seat was Labour from 1997 to 2010) has taken measures to help retail through the hard times, including free business health checks, networking events and free advice. As a cash-flow gesture the council undertakes to pay its own bills to small and medium-size businesses "within 19 working days", tries to speed up planning applications and offers help to start-ups.
Francis Maude, the Cabinet Office minister responsible for promoting such efficiencies, is the MP for neighbouring Horsham. He might wisely look – as Michael Heseltine tried to do 20 years ago – at the major firms of accountants who do not always strive to keep troubled firms afloat, preferring to take their fees the easier way from closure.
Financial engineering via fashionable "pre-pack" selloffs, which cut out unsecured creditors, are starting to attract criticism. The fate of TJ Hughes – founded in 1912 – is now enmeshed in such calculations.
Despite the gloom, there is some offsetting good news. Siemens will create up to 600 jobs at nearby Three Bridges building new carriages for Thameslink trains in a town with a light-engineering history. Gatwick airport, more efficient than Heathrow, remains a major employer.
Crawley, which got its first market charter from Bad King John in 1202, has always been a transport town, mid-point on the coach run from London to Brighton (almost one coach an hour in Brighton's fashionable Regency prime), well-served by Victorian railways, the A23 and nowadays the M23.
But in 2011 it has plenty of town centre office space to let (windows whitewashed in Queens Square) and its secondary and tertiary shopping area are clearly suffering. Qube's liquidation sale ("all stock must go") is under way. Moben's half-price sale is no more: it was closed on Queen Square on Tuesday. Nearby Slaters has also shut despite its £119 suits being reduced to £49.
Primark, H&M and Burton have been cutting prices by up to 50%, even M&S has a sale. Poundsavers, on the other hand, looks large and bustling. In the central shopping area the only shop that seems to be opening is Warren Smith the jeweller.
The Thorntons manager tells the Guardian the shop is doing fine. So does the man at Gamestation, despite reports that electronics – including the video-games sector – is suffering nationwide. But – like other managers – they cautiously refer inquiries to head office. There is also a sale at Ann Summers, the sex shop ("if we took any more off it would be obscene"), but the woman behind the counter thinks the business is relatively recession-proof: "People have to do something to compensate."
The grief comes from all directions and at ages.
"Sure, I'm spending less," says a young support worker. "Certainly don't have as much money," agrees a mother sweeping into a discount store.
Hafed Sherwi, a Libyan employed by a US oil firm, doesn't have their problems. The father of three has lived in Crawley – quiet but a good, safe place to raise children – for eight years and came home from Tripoli when the Nato bombing started. What he noticed after a two-year absence was his grocery bills – "My weekly food basket is 20% up," he says – though he is paying only £600 a month on his tracker mortgage compared with £900 before the Bank of England slashed rates to help offset the wider economic contraction.
The problem for policymakers in Whitehall is that, in their determination to eliminate the structural hole in Britain's budget by 2015, it is squeezing everyone, middle earners like so many Crawley residents, as well as the poor. Middling wage jobs have been shrinking in advanced economies for decades and those that still have them have seen their pay stagnate or even shrink in real terms.
It is not clear where, even in a prosperous southern town like Crawley, relief from such pressures will come. For Sue Attwood, shopping in the Broadway on Tuesday as she has done all her life, relief cannot come too soon.
Her grandson, 20, who lives with her has lost her job. Her husband's disability payments – once £1,300 a month – have been cut back to statutory sickness pay, £300 a month.
As a senior support worker in mental health she has, at 60, become the family's main breadwinner.
It is no consolation that mental health work is not something that is drying up in the protracted squeeze: "Money worries, people losing their jobs, financial difficulties – we're seeing more people."
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