Tim Godfray: Visit your local bookshop, and help rewrite the final chapter in their dismal story of decline

This is a figure to makes book-lovers wince, and the Booksellers Association (BA), the book sellers’ trade association which I head up, angry and concerned. In Yorkshire, we currently have 135 specialist bookshops, 53 of which are independent.

Since 2006, we have lost 35 independents in the area, though 19 new shops have opened over the same period.

These numbers have led us now to speak out to the book trade, to local and national government, and to book-loving consumers, drawing attention to the situation and pointing out what we need people to do to make a difference.

Because, rest assured, the independent bookshop is not dead. Not by any means. But we need to act now, to make sure that in five, 10 and 15 years’ time, there are still these fantastic shops in our communities.

Apart from being chief executive of the BA, I am also on the Board of the British Retail Consortium, which looks after the interests of retailers generally. This gives me an excellent overview of retailing, and I can say that the best independent bookstores are some of the best retailers on the high street. Because of their profound commitment to their local communities, booksellers have survived long after most other independent retail sectors have failed, swallowed up by the supermarkets and online retailers.

At the BA, we know that a bookshop on the high street of every community makes that community better. Author events and book festivals are now taking place in many towns and villages, thanks to the local bookseller. This creates community pride, as well as a thriving social network locally, where real people get together to talk about real things – indeed, bookshops are vital community hubs.

Bookshops are often cultural focal points in their town. One Tree Books, in Petersfield in Hampshire, for instance, acts as the box office for any theatre event in the town. Simply Books in Pocklington, North Yorkshire, has created a Faraway Tree room, complete with fabulous book illustrations on all the walls, comfortable seating for teenagers away from the adults downstairs and endless activities for children.

Many bookshops run lively reading groups – Simply Books in Bramhall runs weekly Coffee & Conversations, where customers just drop in for a chat about the latest books, and some excellent coffee and cake. Most independents develop incredibly strong links with local schools too – bringing the joys of reading and authors to children who might not otherwise know about them. Silverdell Bookshop in Lancashire regularly takes authors into local schools, creating readers of the future.

Put at its simplest, bookshops bring people together. Bookshops on the high street, both large and small, mean an increase in book readership, an increase in community engagement, an increase in literacy. At a time of outcry from across the country about library closures, in many places the local bookshop – whether Waterstone’s or the local independent – is going to be the only place where books and reading are available. The decrease in retail diversity and the decline of our high streets are major concerns, particularly for those communities with no independent retailers left. Changed shopping patterns – more sales going online and to supermarkets – have created a much harder environment.

Bookshops on the high street often find customers using their stores as showrooms before buying books online. You can forgive them for getting aerated about that – they love the product they sell, are passionate about sharing that love of books, but can’t sustain a business if customers only come in for chat and advice, to touch and smell and browse the books, and then leave to purchase on an internet site.

National Government makes a big play of putting town centres first, but we need to see more evidence of that for our members. Often, a bookshop that is providing an invaluable local community resource is put out of business by an increase in rates and rent. Upward-only rent reviews, rate increases, punitive parking charges that discourage local shoppers coming to the high street – these are all concerns our bookshop members have told us are compromising their businesses, and we need local and national government to act now to stop this decline.

We are helping booksellers to develop this conversation in their own shops and in their communities. We are lobbying within the book trade and to government. We are keen to start the debate across the retail sector.

In the next week or two, we are sending out posters for shops to use in their windows, in order to draw attention to the great places bookshops are. We also run a marketing campaign for independent booksellers, called IndieBound, which focuses on the benefits of shopping locally and the value of a thriving community high street. So, if you have a local bookshop in your town, and you love to read, or you want your kids to read, or you want somewhere to have a coffee on a cold wet day, or you want a local retailer to take books into local schools, or to sweep the pavement of snow in the winter – or if you just love to chat about books with a real person in a warm and welcoming environment, we’d urge you to visit your local bookshop.

You can find the books you want, buy them there and then take them home. And by shopping on your high street, you might just make the difference between the bookshop – or the grocer, the deli, the shoe shop, the fishmonger or the baker – being there tomorrow, or not as the case may be.