Northampton town centre's shops that shut for the lockdown but never reopened shows why it's never been more important to support them

It has been a month since non-essential shops were given the go-ahead to reopen again. But in that time, several shops in Northampton have closed again for good or never came back at all.

Countless businesses across the UK were ordered to close in March for the lockdown. At the time, there was no assurance for business owners when they would be free to open again.

Meanwhile, the impact on chain retailers has also been drastic. Several high street brands have announced stores closures or even collapsed into administration.

Restrictions were eased on June 15 for non-essential shops. Now, four weeks later, some stores in Northampton stopped trading entirely.

They include:

- The Bread & Butter Factory, St Gile's Street: The Factory announced on June 25 it would not reopen its doors after claiming it "could not recover" from the financial losses brought on by Covid-19. Owner bee McDonaugh wrote online: "Like many businesses large and small the Coronavirus pandemic has hit us hard financially and is not something I can recover from."

- St Gile's Street Gallery: The town centre art gallery that opened in early 2020 but operated for only three months before it was ordered to close. It vacated the unit during the lockdown.

- Thorntons, Abington Street: The brand-name chocolatier remained shut even as non-essential stores welcomed customers make in June. But this week, work crews took down the shop's sign and removed all the furnishings. A spokesperson said the decision was "not taken lightly".

- St Gile's Garden Cafe: The Garden Cafe was already up for sale in 2019 before the lockdown began. But ealier this week, the cafe announced it would close permanently after briefly returning when restrictions were lifted.

- Accessorize, Grosvenor Centre: The future of Accessorize is unclear after the retailer fell into administration on June 8. The company will reportedly maintain only 157 of its previous 230 shops. But the branch in the Grosvenor Centre does not appear to be one of them.

- Supercuts, Grosvenor Centre: The Supercuts salon in Grosvenor Centre announced its permanent closure during the lockdown.

- British Heart Foundation, Abington Street: The small BHF store vacated during the lockdown.

Northampton BID's operation and development manager Mark Mullen said: "We've seen the phased return of essential businesses throughout the whole of COVID-19, and we've seen as well is that no one sector is successful without the support of the others.

"Yes, we saw a bit of a honeymoon period after the restrictions were eased with loyal shoppers coming into the town centre at their earliest opportunity. However, we haven't seen visitor numbers and shopping levels increase to the pre COVID ‘norm’ since this happened.

"Now, you can not only come in to shop. You can also have a bite to eat, get your haircut, and even visit a beauty salon. There are still parts of the overall town centre jigsaw missing but if more people continue to shop in and visit our town centre the overall customer experience will improve for everyone."

It comes as the Borough Council is accelerating several planning projects to create flats and housing in the town centre area in a "bring people back into" Northampton and stimulate the economy.