Newsagent Muhammad Afzal looks mournfully across to the old BHS, once a busy store and now a boarded-up, graffiti-spattered monument to corporate greed.
It had been a huge draw for shoppers in Sauchiehall Street in Glasgow, and Mr Afzal’s paper shop opposite benefited from the passing trade.
He says: “It was sad to see it go.” It is five years since the dodgy dealings of Sir Philip Green and Dominic Chappell led to the collapse of BHS and its legacy still blights high streets, with 26% of its 160 branches lying abandoned, the hulking edifices an eyesore.
From Glasgow to Cheltenham, Stevenage to Wakefield, they stand as a reminder of the challenges facing the high street – and of the greed and mismanagement that drove a once proud store chain to the wall.
BHS went into administration on April 25, 2016. Thirteen months before, Green had offloaded the struggling chain to a consortium led by Chappell, a former bankrupt, for £1, but with a black hole in its pension fund.
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BHS’s collapse led to 11,000 job losses in what was then the worst high street failure since Woolworths in 2008.
Green had bought BHS in 2000 for £200million.
Five years later, his company Arcadia paid his Monaco-based wife Lady Green a record £1.2billion dividend.
He was accused of under-investing in BHS while focusing on Arcadia’s other brands, especially Topshop.
After the collapse of BHS, amid calls for Green to be to be stripped of his knighthood, a parliamentary probe branded him the “unacceptable face of capitalism”.
In 2017, Green agreed to pay £363m to rescue the BHS pension scheme.
But by then his reputation as king of the high street was shattered. The final ignominy was the collapse of his Arcadia empire last November.
Yet Green carries on living the high life in Monaco, cruising in the Med on his cherished £100m superyacht the Lionheart, as stores once-loved by shoppers lie empty and derelict five years on.
Research last year by the Local Data Company found 41 of the 160 BHS stores – over a quarter – were still empty. Of the remainder, some had been filled by Primark, Next, B&M Bargains, H&M and Poundland.
One former BHS store was an indoor inflatables theme park.
Glasgow’s Sauchiehall Street BHS branch had been there for 50 years, a focal point of the city centre shopping street.
Mr Afzal, 56, who has worked in the newsagent opposite for 17 years, felt the impact of its closure. He said: “We were definitely busier when it was open because we had the footfall from their customers and a lot more people coming to the area.
“Our customers still come in and ask what is going to happen to it.”
Shopper Rebecca Gibson, 79, said the loss of what was once one of her favourite stores marked the death of the high street for her.
The retired insurance auditor, from Cumbernauld, Lanarkshire, said: “It was a shop we would come to regularly.
“BHS was my style and you could get everything you needed there.
“Sauchiehall Street used to be the best for shopping and BHS was a big part of that. Now Sauchiehall Street is a shadow of what it used to be.”
Plans emerged last month to create a new store in part of the BHS building. Planning documents said the tenant would be “a high quality and well-known high street retailer”, who planned to open from 6am until midnight, seven days per week.
There were no details of what would be sold.
BHS’s other Glasgow store, at the St Enoch Centre, was the last to close in Scotland and remains boarded up, although building work is ongoing.
Another BHS which has been empty and abandoned for the past five years is in Stevenage, Hertfordshire.
The 80,700 square foot store, built in 1976, covers five floors.
Last year councillors deferred a decision on plans to convert part of it into an 11-storey block of flats.
Then there is Cheltenham’s BHS, which is also lying empty.
There are hopes that it could finally be filled amid reports that sports chain Decathlon wants to open there.
Where's Philip Green now?
The controversial tycoon once headed a high street empire that included Topshop, Burton, Wallis, Dorothy Perkins and Miss Selfridge, as well as BHS.
Worth £4.9billion in 2007, he and Lady Green lost their billionaire status in 2019, although they were still estimated to have a £950million fortune.
He and 71-year-old wife Tina enjoy a luxury lifestyle, with a superyacht, a private jet and homes around the world.
Sir Philip, 69, is believed to have spent the pandemic in Monaco. He refused to comment when contacted by the Mirror this week.
And where's Dominic Chappell?
The former bankrupt and ex-racing driver led a consortium that bought BHS for £1 in 2015.
Last November Chappell, 54, was jailed six years for dodging a tax bill. He failed to pay around £584,000 tax on £2.2million of income.
Prosecutors said he blew the cash on a £90,000 yacht, a Bentley and a Bahamas trip.
In November 2019, he was banned from running any company for 10 years by the Insolvency Service.
Last year he was told to pay £9.5m into BHS pension schemes.
City still reeling from the impact
A sign thanking shoppers is still visible on the defunct store’s door as a busker standing out front sings the line “no need for greed” from John Lennon’s Imagine.
The singer may be benefitting as the entrance gives him the perfect pitch to serenade passers-by.
But most other Wakefield folk still sorely miss their BHS branch.
And many blasted the bare-faced greed of owner Philip Green.
Just minutes ahead of our visit on Thursday workmen had finished putting up notice of auction posters on the front of the store, which records show is owned by a Guernsey-based property firm.
It was a final nail in the coffin of the once busy shop opposite the magnificent cathedral.
They left the dusty sign from 2016 which proclaimed: “This store is now closed. Management and staff thank you for your custom.”
Up and down the Kirkgate a string of shops are now boarded up.
Allan Jones, 68, has worked his nearby stall for 38 years selling sweets in the summer and roasted chestnuts in the winter.
He said: “There is Philip Green on his boat in Monaco when everyone at BHS lost their jobs and shoppers lost their favourite shop. It’s just not right.”
Allan, who was with his dog Albert, added: “Green had let it run down in the years before it closed.”
Engineer Gary Ablett, 58, was walking past wearing a Leeds United face mask and clutching a copy of the Daily Mirror.
He said: “Philip Green is just like the rest of them. He’s relaxing on his yacht over in Monaco when his staff suffered.
"He should make sure all the pensions are fully repaid. Since BHS shut this has become like a ghost town.”
Celia Quinn, 87, said: “I liked shopping there but one man’s greed has caused all these closures.”
Debra Lowe, 57, who runs Falafel Street Kitchen said: “People were very sad when BHS closed. For a lot of people, that was their favourite shop and when it closed they were very upset.”
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Sonia Nicholson, 78, added: “Since it shut many other shops in the city centre have shut as well.”
Clare Elliott, service director for economic growth at Wakefield council, said the authority wanted to buy and demolish the store, and replace it with a public building.
But its application for cash from the Government’s Future High Streets Fund failed.
She said “As the bid was unsuccessful, a decision was taken not to purchase this building.”
No trade for one in seven UK shops
One in seven shops in the UK are empty, with 5,000 closures since the start of the pandemic, figures show.
Shopping centres have been hit harder than high streets, with around a fifth of outlets now vacant.
The findings come from trade body the British Retail Consortium and the Local Data Company, which warned of worse to come.
Overall, 14.1% of shops were empty in the first three months of this year, up from 13.7% towards the end of 2020.
The figure was the same for high streets, but vacancies in shopping centres rose from 17.1% to 18.4%.
London, despite suffering an exodus of commuters, had the lowest shop vacancy rate, at 10.7%, while in the North East it was 19.2%.
Helen Dickinson, of the British Retail Consortium, said the lockdown this year had “exacerbated already difficult conditions”.