Shutters are down

If you've lived long enough you can remember when shops didn't have steel shutters lowered over the windows at the end of the trading day. Come on, it wasn't that long ago. But in urban areas from the high street to the little parade of outlets it is now the norm. Sometimes you walk through a street of shops and you don't know if they have gone out of business or are simply not open that day.

Hardy Lane co-op store shewn here in the livery of the United Co-Operative Society before the refurbishment in 2009, but after the merger with The Co-Operative Group in 2007.