I love high street shopping. The thrill of being able to move from shop to shop, picking up treats and bargains along the way from a range of chain stores, department stores and small independent shops, has always been a Saturday afternoon ritual to be cherished writes Emma Iannarilli.

The British high street is an institution that has been part of our shopping culture for a long time – long before the advent of large precincts, retail parks and the Internet.

But this integral part of British life is disappearing and the Midlands is in real danger of losing its traditional high streets.

Look at the evidence. Dudley now has more than 30% of its high street shops empty. Walsall has been blighted by the loss of Woolworths, Evans, Topshop, Miss Selfridge, Next, Topman and Bay Trading from the high street, with the Old Square shopping centre now full of empty shops.

Cannock is another town faced with stores disappearing from its high street. Even the mighty Birmingham has seen many of its stores migrate to the glossy confines of the Bullring.

Our treasured high streets are disappearing fast!

The number one problem facing the high street is the Internet. You can now shop for anything and everything from the comfort of your armchair, avoiding queues, bad weather and parking tickets.

Online prices are often cheaper, with high street stores just unable to compete. But the Internet takes all the fun out of shopping, clicking the ‘Buy’ button can never beat the sheer exhilaration of finding that perfect dress and grabbing the last one in your size, or the fun of a shopping trip with friends, with a coffee and cake break thrown in for good measure.

Out-of-town retail parks are also a growing phenomenon – most Midland towns now have at least one – providing larger branches of favourite stores. These retail parks offer longer shopping hours, often with free parking thrown in and the convenience of stores that carry bigger ranges of goods than your average high street.

But these giant parks encourage companies to desert the high street. Stafford is one town who have lost stores to a retail park, with Mothercare and New Look just two of the companies that have moved to an out of town location.

But not all stores are big enough to move to a vast space on a retail park and many small, independent retailers simply couldn’t afford the rent.

We need our high street to ensure that small businesses and specialist stores don’t just simply disappear in our brave new shopping world.

Think about what we will lose if our high street is allowed to disappear. Independent designers and artisans will have nowhere to sell their wares and charity shops will have to find another way to raise funds.

We need to save our Midlands High Streets, before it is too late.

Emma Iannarilli blogs at fashion-mommy.com. Read her blog here.