Agent’s high street blues

A LONDON travel agent has decided the aggravation of running a retail outlet is too much and plans to sell his shop after two decades on the high street.

Clive Green Travel owner Clive Green is now looking for office space to take most of his business appointment-only.

Blaming time wasters and the local authority after it placed a red route outside his shop, Sheen-based Green joins a growing band of retailers abandoning the high street.

ABTA members on the high street have declined each year since 2000, with the biggest annual fall (4%) last year. BP Travel Services estimates there are 5,998 travel retail outlets.

Last November MyTravel closed 110 Going Places shops.

Green said: “People just see us as a library, it’s too much aggravation.”

He first considered moving off the high street 18 months ago when nearby Going Places and Lunn Poly closed.

“All it has meant is that their time wasters come in here. I am restructuring the presentation to the public by restricting the invitation to wander in,” he said.

Green hopes to relocate to an office where clients, most of whom are repeat customers, can make an appointment. There will be no shop front.