Shopping centres get no sympathy from me. Intu were what? A billion or so in debt? Good. I can’t think of a single bit of good those monstrosities ever gave to the communities around them. (and don’t say jobs like being a poxy minimum wage service industry drone is a good thing; that’s not snobbery BTW, it’s experience)

…… Wrong thread

In honesty, that hadn’t occurred to me. Maybe it was ‘down time’ rather than a chore.

Hell, maybe he enjoyed spending time alone with me. (Yeah yeah, I know…)

Well, youve just reminded me of my Nan, who I used to go shopping with on an occasional Saturday morning, i remember the shops less than I remember the tea room which seemed to be the real focus of the excursion. My memory ia too faded now but I think she spent more more time drinking tea chatting to friends than actual shopping.

The trips even had an element of risk to them, in that the Robin Reliant may not make it there and back without breaking down or rolling over. She upgraded to a Vauxhall Shovette at one point which didn’t reduce that risk by much, if at all.

Funny old world, I genuinely used to consider Swaffham a big place.

Anyways, I think my views already been aired but here goes regardless. High Streets need to be places people want to be first and foremost, if thats a smaller, more family friendly more lived in environment that’s all good with me. Not sure going up against home delivery for non perishable goods is goung to work out well apart from a few niches in the market.

Someone also mentioned tourism, which locally is a bit of a mixed bag. Theres a few on our high street that actually lose business to tourism. These are your baker/green grocer type shops. The bakers actually shuts specifically for the tourism peak.

The given reason (uh, theres probably a distortion here with someone desperately trying to make a point that cars should always be favoured) for this is the difficulty in parking at that time of year means people end switching to the nearest supermarket. Given it takes 15 minutes to walk from one end of town to the other, and theres plenty of busses, a fair amount of that is really laziness, not all, but a fair amount.

I think theyd largely solve the parking and loss of business issues by making local public transportation free at the point of use. Cant help but think that would help a lot of town centres.

In the 60s people would shop every day (and shopping bags were smaller). Every meal was cooked with raw ingredients. Freezers were a small compartment at the top of the fridge, forever needing de-frosting. In E London a fish man would come round with a barrow and milk and coal was delivered. As more women joined the workforce shopping had to be concentrated into less time, supermarkets offered everything in one hit, processed food meant less time cooking, microwaves meant less time cooking and the development of the hatch-back made it all easier. The 1988 Ed Act meant a free-for-all for where your kids went to school so the school run (sic) had to be factored in all of this. You would know people who owned/worked in the shops, much less likely in a supermarket. Because you were known you could get tick and pubs didn’t need bouncers.
The result of all this is more people in the workforce, less time for cooking, kids and leisure (more screen time), obesity, increased isolation and declining social capital and more physical and mental ill-health. Oh and increased profits.

Theres a few on our high street that actually lose business to tourism. These are your baker/green grocer type shops. The bakers actually shuts specifically for the tourism peak.

that’s mad. Where is this? All the bakers here locally have queues out the door & down the street in tourist season, and will be closed before mid-day as everything will be gone!! Maybe they need to start making nice cakes or something, stuff that tourists actually want to buy?! Personally I spend a fortune in bakeries/butchers when on holiday, it’s the first thing I make a beeline for if I see one. Possibly just me 🤣

The given reason (uh, theres probably a distortion here with someone desperately trying to make a point that cars should always be favoured) for this is the difficulty in parking at that time of year means people end switching to the nearest supermarket.

yeah that’s BS. If people are driving to the local bakery, they’re not really local are they? 😂 I actually think ALL town centres should be closed off to regular car traffic, it works in loads of places & they’re always much busier & more pleasant. It’ll be forced to happen in the busiest places, otherwise constantly increasing population density will just result in permanent gridlock and zero parking spaces anyway!

I actually think ALL town centres should be closed off to regular car traffic, it works in loads of places & they’re always much busier & more pleasant.

That assumes a compelling reason to visit. If your local town centre has competition from neighbouring towns and few USPs of its own, people will go next door rather than pay 80p to park for a couple of hours. Take as a random example randomly at total Random, Accrington. It has free parking, always has. They flirted briefly with a disc system, get a (free) disc from nearby shops to show your arrival time; people fled to nearby Blackburn and Burnley in droves because they couldn’t be bothered with the faff of obtaining a bit of cardboard and sticking it in their window. Because the elephant in the room is, why the hell would you go to Accy town centre anyway? The only reason is convenience, take that away and it’s even more screwed.

That assumes a compelling reason to visit.

exactly. If no-ones coming to your town centre, it’s not working, and things needs to change drastically as it’s dying anyway. As someone said earlier, bulldoze the empty shops & make apartments, parks and other nice spaces, etc, small/cheap units for popups/local indie businesses, etc.

The result of all this is more people in the workforce, less time for cooking, kids and leisure (more screen time), obesity, increased isolation and declining social capital and more physical and mental ill-health. Oh and increased profits.

You forgot increased house prices! Two earners chasing a restricted set of properties just bumped prices up.

House price inflation has been greater than income growth so I’d say it was down to restricted supply, growing population and deregulation of rents rather than demand led by dinkys.

That assumes a compelling reason to visit.

Good point – I very rarely visit the town centre (we have a local high street near us) as there’s bugger all there I actually want / need to visit. Last few times were to go to Vision Express, but its only every few years I get new glasses….

Oh and x2 for opening hours that actually suit the working population.

See, supermarkets already have that nailed.

Local “out of town” (well, only just, but, point stands) 7am – 10pm, Mon – Fri.
Town centre butcher? 9-5.
My work hours? 9-5.
Chances of me ever buying anything from the butcher ever? Zero.

Actually, it gets worse for the town centre specialist artisan boutiques, because Tesco website is open 24hrs a day, so my weekly shop is actually a few visits to a website.

exactly. If no-ones coming to your town centre, it’s not working, and things needs to change drastically as it’s dying anyway. As someone said earlier, bulldoze the empty shops & make apartments, parks and other nice spaces, etc, small/cheap units for popups/local indie businesses, etc.

That’s one of the very few ways of reinventing the high street – businesses come in due to the influx of new residents. Needs to be medium density (so apartments rather than detached houses), ideally close to public transport and ideally not have much in the way of car parking for residents, it needs to cater primarily for those without cars. As a subsidiary to that, you get the sort of convenience shops that you need, not just an endless supply of overpriced cafes.

It works the opposite way too – I work in a little “courtyard” of semi-high-rise office blocks and, pre-Covid, there was a lovely little community of small shops catering for this. Two coffee shops, bakery, little bar/grill lunch place and a small supermarket. All catering to the hundreds of office workers who’d pour into the place daily. Lockdown, everyone WFH and that was the death for all of them. The only place that has reopened is one of the coffee shops. Everything else is still empty units.

that’s mad. Where is this? All the bakers here locally have queues out the door & down the street in tourist season, and will be closed before mid-day as everything will be gone!! Maybe they need to start making nice cakes or something, stuff that tourists actually want to buy?! Personally I spend a fortune in bakeries/butchers when on holiday, it’s the first thing I make a beeline for if I see one. Possibly just me 🤣

Fife, its more of a day trip, rather than multi day trip destination. If they were staying and needed more food than a burger/ice cream things would be different but when the end of the day arrives, they generally go home.

yeah that’s BS. If people are driving to the local bakery, they’re not really local are they? 😂

Youd think wouldn’t you, but allegedly pretty much all custom for those retailers comes from local buyers, small town of 6300. Im sure there are those that drive because its too far them to walk health wise, but by and large its just laziness. My neighbour drives to the high street, its literally a 3 minute walk. And because theres no parking he just parks on the pavement.

Ive actually beaten him to the same shop at walking speed befire, as my route is much shorter.

My neighbour drives to the high street, its literally a 3 minute walk. And because theres no parking he just parks on the pavement.

Ive actually beaten him to the same shop at walking speed before, as my route is much shorter.

There was an article in one of those dreadful local newspapers – the standard photo of a couple looking upset / angry next to some roadworks – about how these long term, significant roadworks between where they lived and the town centre 500m that way —> meant that they now had to drive a round trip of 5 miles to get there.

Seemingly missing the point that it was still just a 500m walk past the edge of the roadworks.

I get the elderly / disabled argument but the vast majority of people driving to a town centre are just lazy. And they can’t all be buying a fridge / 60″ TV / ton of compost. What drives that behaviour is free parking – there are no downsides to the individual to drive there. There are of course downsides to everyone else in terms of pollution, congestion, slower bus journeys, increased road danger and so on but councillors are terrified of doing anything to upset the drivers and most shopkeepers think (wrongly) that drivers and free parking are essential to their survival.

Regarding parking spaces for new flats. If someone is paying £650K for a new flat (rough going rate for a 2 bed in West London)

West London isn’t representative of the rest of the country in any sense.

Our edge of town retail park has recently been filled by some new restaurants and cafes (chains and locals), a climbing wall, a Ninja Warrior place, JD Sports with Evans Cycles. Added to what was there before it suddenly feels very busy down there. But that’s a few hundred metres from the town centre itself.

My high street is great!