The information requested falls within the responsibility of the UK Statistics Authority. I have asked the authority to reply.
Letter from Jil Matheson, dated December 2009:
As National Statistician, I have been asked to reply to your recent Parliamentary Question concerning what estimate has been made of the number of high street shops which have closed in (a) England and (b) North East Cambridgeshire since 1 January 2008 (303715).
ONS does not have statistics on the number of high street shops. Annual statistics on business births, deaths and survival are available from the ONS release on Business Demography at www.statistics.gov.uk. The table below contains the latest statistics available on business deaths of retail businesses for England and the constituency of North East Cambridgeshire. All counts are based on enterprises and not local units (i.e. sites). Where a local unit closes but the enterprise continues to trade at other sites, a death will not be recorded in this data.
England North East Cambridgeshire Retail 20,765 40 471 Retail sale in non-specialised stores 4,050 10 472 Retail sale of food; beverages and tobacco in specialised stores 3,190 5 473 Retail sale of automotive fuel in specialised stores 425 0 474 Retail sale of information and communication equipment in specialised stores 570 0 475 Retail sale of other household equipment in specialised stores 2,430 5 476 Retail sale of cultural and recreation goods in specialised stores 990 0 477 Retail sale of other goods in specialised stores 6,680 15 478 Retail sale via stalls and markets 250 0 479 Retail trade not in stores; stalls or markets 2,180 5