One of the earliest victims of the retail apocalypse was MFI. By the time it failed – recorded in Closed for Good? The “Retail Apocalypse” in Britain since 2005 – it had already closed its Margate branch, in favour of the bigger Canterbury one where I worked until the end. The building hasn’t been a shop since.
More predictable, in the burgeoning internet age, was the collapse of Blockbuster. The branch in Ramsgate’s town centre has been empty, I think, for the whole of the two decades – except for when it was raided as a cannabis farm.
