Postcard from... Madrid

For thousands of Spanish small businesses – from the Cafe Central, one of Spain’s most famous jazz bars, to the Así toyshop on Madrid’s central Gran Via boulevard, with its teddy bears and train sets – New Year 2015 was anything but welcome. Instead, for many closure looms.

Their sudden mass demise is down to the expiry of a curious piece of commercial legislation on 31 December 2014. It based certain small-business rents on 1994 levels and only permitted inflation-linked rises; its loss means some 19,000 small businesses are now battling soaring rents. Five-to-10 fold increases are not uncommon and, in Madrid’s well-heeled Calle Serrano, some monthly rents have reportedly risen rapidly from ¤1,500 (£1,170) to ¤30,000 (£23,400).

Así has been run by four generations of the Eznarriaga family but is set to close on 15 January. The Barcelona music shop Musical Emporium on Las Ramblas closed the doors on its shelves of leather-bound music scores and violins on 6 January; the popular Cafe Central jazz bar will follow shortly.

Spare a thought, too, for some of the lesser-known cafés, shops and bars that made shopping and travelling here a far less bland experience than in some other European city centres. Many could now suddenly disappear.