In light of the fact shoppers will have to wait until 2017 for the refurbishment of Oxford’s Westgate Centre, and the news that Banbury may not get its own out-of-town shopping centre, we should be grateful popular clothes chain H&M is coming to Oxford as part of the Clarendon Centre’s £6m revamp.

Planning permission has been approved by the city council for an extension to the centre in order to accommodate the new store, which naturally will not only offer shoppers more choice but will also create more jobs.

The Currys Digital Store, close to the centre’s Shoe Lane entrance, will be demolished, with a new three-storey building put in its place.

Graham Jones, chairman of traders’ group ‘Rox - Promoting Oxford Business’, sums it up nicely when he says: “I think this shows that major retailers still want to invest in the High Street.”

Adding as a swipe at companies who trade only over the web: “The disadvantage of the Internet is that you can’t try things on.”

And he’s right. The Internet is vital for commerce, but so too are our high streets where, by and large, shopping is still enjoyed by many purely on its own terms as an entertaining pastime.

Indeed, without the high street, towns and cities would lose their identities as well as their major income generators.