If Sunderland's shops can’t be used then it would be better to demolish them

The homeware chain’s 400 shops and 12,000 jobs are at risk.

One Wilko outlet is oin Fawcett Street, thereby providing yet another retail Sword of Damocles for Sunderland city centre.

Hopefully Wilko is saved. It hasn’t gone yet. But what if it isn’t saved? What in that case should be done?

We’re getting ahead of ourselves, but what would become of the building? If it can be viably used for another purpose, fine. If not?

We can ask the same question of the cinema, as well as the large disused Travelodge in High Street West, Debenhams and numerous smaller former business premises.

Fawcett Street’s Wilko is not a listed building, but that doesn’t mean it can be automatically bulldozed. Its owners might just have their own opinions.

Whenever a new building or business sets up in Sunderland, it tends to be immediately derided on the grounds that “It’s more shops we need”.

The only exception to this is when it actually is a shop; in which case it should have been a leisure centre.

You can’t help but think that in the unlikely event of an intact, lost Aztec golden monolith being discovered near Witherwack, the reaction from certain quarters would be “Huh! It’s more shops we need”.

The sheer number of empty shops nationally, including in affluent areas, does not lead to any wavering in this opinion.

We can only conclude that evidence to challenge this view can never be spectacular enough.

The expression “If you build it, they will come” is from a silly Kevin Costner film and demonstrably untrue (in common with many other expressions, for example, watched kettles really do boil).

It would be wonderful if all cities’ retail could return to their romantic, pre-internet, pre-supermarket glory. But they won’t and not every building left empty by the drastically altered global economy should be preserved.

Abandoned buildings removed and replaced by benches and trees? Would that be worse?

PS. Shop local.