The Covid-19 pandemic has prompted widespread concern about the health of city centres and the businesses that trade there.

West Midlands mayor Andy Street, who formerly ran the John Lewis department store business, believes that, despite the impact on city centres of lockdown and the ongoing trend for working at home, people will return – and can do so safely.

Retail will still thrive in big urban centres, which Street says will be reimagined to adapt to the changed environment. They will retain their importance and enable people to work, live and socialise in new ways. He believes that plans to redevelop Coventry, overhauled in the light of the Covid outbreak, show the way forward.

Street also tells Retail Week of his amazement that a retailer of the stature of John Lewis cannot find a way to remain open in Birmingham, where retailers as diverse as Primark and Selfridges trade successfully.

Street spoke to Retail Week before the imposition of the new ‘rule of six’ socialising rules across the country and other local restrictions in the West Midlands.