Retailers lost £22bn in sales last year after nationwide lockdowns decimated the performance of physical stores.  

Revenues raked in by non-food shops plunged 24% in 2020 compared with the previous year, following a 40% slump in footfall.

The stark figures, calculated by the British Retail Consortium, were revealed as the sector renewed its calls for the government to offer greater financial support to retailers. 

Chancellor Rishi Sunk is set to deliver his Budget on March 3 and retailers are calling for urgent action to reform the business rates system. 

Although retailers have benefited from a rates holiday since last spring, there are concerns about the impact the planned resumption of the tax will have on high street businesses this April.  

Retailers have also urged the government to extend the moratorium on rent collections and reverse the decision to apply EU state aid limits to lockdown grants offered to businesses. 

The BRC said the measures were “crucial to the recovery of ‘non-essential’ retailers and the wider economy, preventing the further loss of thousands of jobs in communities across the country”.

It added: “These short-term actions will be crucial to allowing ‘non-essential’ retail to survive through a prolonged period of closure, avoiding administrations, shop closures and job losses.”

BRC chief executive Helen Dickinson said: “After 2020 proved to be the worst year on record, it is essential that the Chancellor uses the spring Budget to support those businesses hardest hit by the pandemic. 

“Vital support in the form of an extension to the business rates relief and moratorium on debt enforcement, as well as removing state aid caps on Covid business grants, would relieve struggling businesses of bills they cannot currently pay and allow them to trade their way to recovery.

“Tackling the challenge of rates, rents and grants should be the government’s immediate priority to ensuring the survival and revival of non-essential retailers and protecting the jobs of hundreds of thousands of retail workers across the country.

“The investment we provide to retailers now will be repaid many times over through more jobs and greater tax revenues in the future.”

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