Many skilled retailers – with experience of head office as well as the shop floor – are currently surplus to requirement. Will they be lost forever? I hope not. I believe there should be a concerted effort to keep them and harness their knowledge to revitalise the high street.

We should start laying the foundations for this now. I suggest we will need the government to engage, the property sector to play its part and those of us still in the industry should be ready to add our support.

The time is ripe to encourage a new breed of retail entrepreneurs: there is a surfeit of empty properties; consumers are reassessing their priorities, creating new wants and needs; and there is a movement towards shopping local. We now have a pool of talent that is well placed to create, and staff, the formats of the future.