TRADERS and politicians have called for emergency action to stop St Albans becoming a city centre dominated by empty shops.

Local Conservatives are demanding a "wholesale rethink" in the strategy for the city centre after one of the UK's most successful clothing retailers, Next, closed its store in St Peter's Street.

The company's nearest outlet is now its huge store at the Colney Fields retail park in London Colney, where customers can park for free. The closure means there are now at least 14 city centre units currently empty.

Leader of the St Albans Conservative group Teresa Heritage says the time has come to tackle the retail slide, and lays the blame at the door of the Liberal Democrat-run district council.

She said: "Although it's true that any healthy economy should have a decent turnover of shops, we've seen a general decline in the last few years, of which Next is just the latest example.

"As far as anyone can see, the council wastes its money and time on dozens of consultations, plans, strategies and schemes without having one overarching idea to pull it all together."

One independent shop owner, Annie Woods of Ashwood's Art Supplies in the Village Arcade, says the closure of Next has cast a shadow over retail in St Albans.

"It's a huge worry," she said. "When independents start to drop off your knees start knocking, but when one of the big boys goes it's a real wake-up call. Next is a huge company.

"When St Peter's Street starts to look as if it has lots of empty shops then people are going to start panicking. The council should be worried. We've been worrying for months."

The district council's portfolio holder for economic development, former city centre manager Councillor Melvyn Teare, said he believed the situation in the city centre was healthy but that businesses needed to up their game in order to survive.

He said: "When I took on the post of city centre manager ten years ago we had something like 50 vacant units.

"We monitor the number of vacancies that exist and continue to monitor the footfall. Over the course of the last four years there has been no significant drop in the number of people coming into St Albans.

"What's affecting a number of businesses in St Albans is the rental level and the fact that customers have other means of shopping, either by mail order or on the internet.

"We already have a retail strategy, we promote St Albans both from a retail and tourism point of view. We work hard to get people in front of the shops - it's up to the retailers to get those people into their shops."

Councillor Teare said he thought better signs for car parks would make St Albans more attractive to shoppers.

"It's not that the parking spaces aren't there, it's just difficult to find them," he said. "We're hoping that the Conservative county council will put its hands in its pockets and give us signs like they have over in Watford."

Leader of St Albans District Council, Robert Donald, said he was sure the problem was "cyclical". He said: "Obviously we try and give whatever help we can but I don't think it's any worse than it has been in the past."