The heart of the community?
I was in a small market town this morning. Much to my surprise, it boasted a full complement of coffee shop chains and so I headed off to my favourite. I was quite surprised at how quiet everything was, even though it was nearly 10AM and there are only 10 days till “Winterval”. The town looked reasonably prosperous, with even the local “Woollies” replaced with a decent-looking (and enormous!) “pound shop”. But while it was not eerily still, I was taken aback at how quiet it was.
I was chatting to the chap making the coffee about this and he said that with the departure of Woolworths from the town, there wasn’t really anywhere you could buy toys in the town. Consequently, most of the people had taken to doing their shopping in the nearest city. And while they were buying the toys, they would be buying everything else there as well.
I was a bit taken aback, but it did make sense.
It was curiously sad and pathetic to be in a place that was that still at this time of year. I fear that it will soon be a hollow shell, filled with boarded windows and graffiti on the walls.
I hope I’m wrong.
TJW is an itinerant blogger who lives in East Angular. He grew up as a fascist, mellowed into a Tory and was converted to anarchism in his middle age by the Devil's Kitchen.
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Just as so many village “communities” have now atrophied with the loss of shops and services, it could be that the smaller and more vulnerable market towns could be losing their retailers and others and on their way down.
Tesco’s are advertising bicycles on the telly at the moment. So now they sell bikes as well as all the toys, DVDs, CDs, peg-bags, children’s clothing, dishcloths, crockery, lawn-feed blah blah blah that Woolies used to sell. If I want to buy a music CD I now have to go to my nearest supermarket rather than to Woolies (or OLWORT ‘S as my local was known once some of the letters had fallen off the wall) and since I despise my nearest supermarket for every little it helped bring about the demise of Woolies, no-one will be getting a music CD from me this year.
Thaddeus,
Sadly you won’t be wrong. My local town (spit) is full of empty shops….(I was hoping that was a paradigm but I don’t think it is..Help!!) The local council has attempted to hide the truth by having their windows papered over with joyous scenes which fool no one…not even the depressed young mothers and their absent fathers….last of all…me!!
Tunbridge Wells (Iain Dale’s stomping ground) has been similar. The out of town “Retail Park” was very busy on both of the last two weekends, with nowhere to park for ages, queues at changing rooms & tills. But TW town centre was strangely half-empty. It cannot just be the lack of Woolies – there seems to have been a shift in people’s habits, which bodes ill for High Streets everywhere.
Maybe it’s just towns in the south – all to an identikit formula of New Look, Boots, Jessops, H. Samuel, Carphone Warehouse etc. I know of several small towns in the North East boasting wide and elegant High Streets and not a chain-store anywhere to be seen but lined with independent boutiques, jewellers, cafes and restaurants, clothes shops selling Prada, D&G etc – and appearing to do a thriving trade.
There are sound business reasons to do out of town retailing – cheaper business rates for a start. Starting from scratch with an open space means plenty of car parking and nice big shops. The reason high streets are choking is cost. In my town there has been a steady churn of ‘hobby shops’ run by people who have a bit of cash (inherited, downsized their home, extended their mortgage etc) and burn it up trying to earn an honest living.
This situation seems to have come about through planning authorities allowing big retail chains to set up shops here, there and everywhere. It has also not been helped by neverending fiddling with the tax regime and employment law that usually favours the big chains. Big businesses will usually be more efficient and better able to exploit their many advantages. This is in the interests of the consumer to some degree except it seems to be reducing choice as well as prices.
I went shopping in York at the weekend and was astonished at how few shoppers there were. Car parks are normallly heaving and the streets chockablock with zombie like people keen to splash a little cash. It wasn’t like this at all. One shop had already discounted their wrapping paper twice – first half price and then a bit more off.
I don’t think it is just due to out of town retail though. There just isn’t enough of that about to explain it. Battening down the hatches? Credit cards maxed? We can’t be buying that much on the internet. Something is up somewhere. The fiscal reckoning is upon us.
Don’t worry folks, there will soon be a chain of ‘Ainsworth and Brown’ shops opening up in every town all across the country giving away huge wads of someone elses cash in exchange for your vote and you will also be able to purchase one of their raffle tickets, first prize a ride in a helicopter.
On my visit last week to England I made a specific trip to Tesco Colchester to get a BMX bike for son no. 1 at 1/3 of the cost it is here in Italy. What a depressing, soul-sucking experience it was. Still, I have
I live in Ilfracombe on the beautiful North Devon Coast. Our High Street is also empty, as everyone is either shopping at Tesco (we only got one last year) or in Barnstaple. We did a head count of empty (or closing down) shops last week and there are now more than 50% of our High Street shops, either closed or closing. When asked, most owners did NOT cite Tesco as the problem – the main problem was the fact that the business rates (due to an historical mishap 15 years ago when the Town Clerk ran off with the ENTIRE Town Council precept for the year – we had a “one off ” massive increase that somehow never went away) are higher on our High Street than they are in Mayfair. Our business rates are, on average, around 3 times the amount of rent. To give an example – one shop, with a turnover of around
Where is the Ministry for Communities and Culture in all this?
Same place as the Ministry of Truth, I’d imagine.
Brings a whole new meaning to the term ‘Sold Out’, does it not?
YM x
Ah, so Tesco don’t buy up bits of land outside the existing town centre and somehow manage to secure planning for a nice super-outlet which is built in the middle of empty fields, only then to be in-filled with nice new housing, thus expanding the town and further emptying the dear old (possibly Georgian) town centre? And is this developed land ever found to be owned by …. Tesco? Hmm?
Nah. Surely not. You’d never find that happening, any more than you would find mortgage and banking leaflets set out for perusal while you sling your shopping onto the conveyor belt at the Tesco checkouts.
Nah, Glo, you’re just a cynic.
I’m afraid small town centres have priced themselves out of the market: if you look at parking, for instance, most small town centres charge a lot for parking for even the shortest of visits.
So people stay away and go to the out of town retail parks where parking is free.
My local shopping centre is enlightened enough to have a large free car park (I believe owned by the shops) and its always busy.
Compare that with on-street and council parking which costs anywhere from
Delphius1 is pretty much spot-on.
In my local town, they’ve whacked up the town centre parking charges (