The use of aluminium shop fronts can give a store great protection against shoplifters, incidents of civil disobedience and sometimes worse. But are they really needed in the mid-2020s?

Of these threats, some might look back to the riots after the Southport stabbings to observe how town and city centres can suddenly become battlegrounds, when some will take advantage of the mayhem to commit petty theft or carry out acts of vandalism. Shuttering a shop can prevent a lot of damage.

Shoplifting is another big issue as well, with recorded cases hitting a record high in England and Wales this year, although such acts tend to involve thieves entering and exiting by the door during opening hours rather than breaking in at night. Nonetheless, robust shutters do stop the problem from becoming worse and give extra protection out-of-hours.

A third question is whether these shutters need to be so tough as to be bomb-proof. The arrival of November has brought a lot of news coverage of the upcoming 50^th anniversary of the 1974 Birmingham pub bombings, in which 21 people died, a sober reminder of the kind of IRA threats that were common on British city streets during the ‘Troubles’.

Other cities will have their own memories of such incidents, from various bombings in London to the massive detonation in Manchester in 1996.

The days of violent conflict over the status of Northern Ireland are now but a memory to many and the stuff of history books to a younger generation. However, other forms of terrorism are not, with Islamist suicide bombings such as the 7/7 and Manchester Arena attacks of 2005 and 2017 showing that new threats now exist.

Because of this, the need for barriers to offer protection against bombs as well remains real, although by nature this is more likely to be the case in a major city than in a small town.

Overall, however, there are ample reasons to ensure that shops have strong shutters to protect against a range of different potential threats.