The High Street

[Rockin' Robin]

The High Street will die, only if people allow it to. I can't help feeling that some of these closures, are part of the plan for a cashless society in Britain. People are being forced to shop on line.

 

[Into_the_tunnel]

My town in the North East is a great place to be if you want to place a bet or if you have £1 to spend.

It doesn’t help that it’s basically just a 20 minute drive to the Metrocentre, with a free car park the size of Bolivia and more choice of restaurants and shops. But even here there are numerous empty units. Something unthinkable just 5 years ago. In truth online shopping is taking over the world. In 10 years time I foresee that Town and City centres will be mainly residential areas.

Just think if Fenwicks closed or JL left Newcastle, Eldon square would be a goner.

My nearest NE town/city is renowned for being a shadow of its former self. It has so many empty lets, the council is blamed for high rates (an issue far more complicated than most people think it is), allowing HMOs to “creep” throughout the city and pushing the residents out and all that is left are coffee shops and TO LET signs. It is so sad.

 

[Kim Mild]

I looked at Wilko during the lockdowns and was considering getting something delivered. It was going to take about a week for delivery and I think it was about a fiver for a small item . Think I ended up ordering from argos.

 

[Melian]

Pre-lockdown, I did enjoy going to shops just for a browse. Now, I just want to get in and out as soon as possible.

 

[Oohthedrama]

I can’t even see coffee shops having a reason to stay open if more people are working from home and less are in the office, it’s not worth paying the rent on the property if you’re barely covering it with the daily lunchtime office workers footfall.

 

[IMissDi]

The rural areas outside of Paris (where I live when not at university in Manchester) has similar problems with out of town malls. But I think Paris itself is coping well with its high street stores.

The issues with high street stores in England probably include the convenience of online shopping and supermarket home delivery. Also the congestion charges and parking charges in some towns are expensive for customers. Public transport is sometimes packed and perhaps not safe during Covid. Also driving into the town centre means using more fuel and petrol is expensive now.

Shops also face high rents and business rates I think. And I think more will go out of business when energy prices rise badly in April after the removal of latest price cap.

A lot of people will have less money to spend when after paying their bills. So want better value at cheaper prices. I think online shopping is a better option in that case.

 

[Notworthy]

I'm quite lucky as I have 2 lovely towns near me with a good selection of independent shops. Too many generic high streets with chain shops
Also some high streets just look awful and some of the fault with the shop owners not creating a pleasant environment. If councils were much stricter with signage it would look a lot nicer.

 

[watermelon sugar]

I’m in a small town, wouldn’t exactly call what we have a high street more like just a rubbish town centre. The Debenhams closed down, there is a Beales, just random market type clothes shops that close down every few months then open up again, a Primark, a New Look, TK Max, loads of pound and bargain shops that also open and close again…. It’s rubbish. Our closest city is Liverpool and that’s not much better either, quite a few empty shops in their city centre too

 

[Yel]

My thinking is that during covid lockdown the council was desperate to fill the empty shopping space so they just put in any old shop and that is why there were so many candy shops.

I think lots of them were there before covid, maybe they replaced some of the souvenir shops which must have had cheap rent or something?

I get M&M world but not all these places where you can spend £8 for a box of GMO, artificial colours and artificial flavors fruit loops. But these American sweets and cereal is also sold in the Selfridges food hall at a premium, albeit a tiny range.

 

[candyland_]

Our local card shop has just closed and they’ve blasted having a Card Factory close by since before it even opened. I know people say to support local blah blah but to me supporting our local branded stores is just as important. The small card shop hasn’t been updated in forever, their cards were expensive and they just don’t have the things that Card Factory do. People also hate our local supermarket with a vengeance. We don’t have a fruit/veg shop or bakery etc and you can’t buy essentials in a hairdressers so I’m not sure what they want people to do but they are hell bent on wanting it closed.

 

[WilmaHun]

I haven't been to my local high street in ages. I find it much easier to go to the retail parks slightly outside of town, where there's free parking and a good variety of shops! I did venture into the high street just before christmas and it seemed like every other shop was empty with a "to let" sign outside. There's 1 clothes shop, New Look, a Savers, Superdrug, Boots, Wilko, Card Factory and WH Smith. The rest are charity shops or pop up shops that last a month or so. It's crap.

Although. If they close my local Wilko I'll be fuming cos when the Pick n Mix is on half price I go there loads

 

[Kim Mild]

Wilko is good for paint and DIY bits and pieces. They often do good offers on Dulux for around £13 a tin.. Even at their full price it is way cheaper than Homebase.

I had a Christmas job there once and it was the easiest/chilled place I’ve ever worked

I like wilko own brand paint . The essence nail varnishes good too

 

[candyland_]

Wilko is good for paint and DIY bits and pieces. They often do good offers on Dulux for around £13 a tin.. Even at their full price it is way cheaper than Homebase.

I had a Christmas job there once and it was the easiest/chilled place I’ve ever worked

 

[georgiecait]

Beginning of the end I'm so scared for the future of the high street, especially charity shops who rely on that source of revenue so much.

 

[Libbie]

Also in some rural areas public transport is non existent or so bad it’s hardly worth it - no wonder people are turning to alternatives when it’s a mission to pop into the high street.

Exactly, it’d take you he best part of a day to get anywhere fast, it’s pretty dire in most small towns at the moment, and most of these ‘green initiatives’ are doing more harm than good.
My mum’s local bus service was scrapped and replaced with a ‘Flexi’ service, a ‘dial a ride’ system that you request 1-2 hours in advance, by the time you’ve done that you could have been there and back in your own car! Utterly ridiculous!

 

[IngressUK]

I've noticed that HMV have started to return to some High Streets.

I visited Oxford recently. Years ago there used to be a HMV (and Fopp) there, both of which closed.

In the last few months, HMV have returned to the main shopping street. Although it seems to be more heavily focused than before on merchandise. Things like T-shirts, posters and other such memorabilia.

 

[Yel]

The problem with the high street is parking, the out of town places have free parking, high streets do not.

Exactly, I forget where but I'm sure I read somewhere that a small town had it's parking meters all vandalised but foot traffic in town increased so much that they decided to bin the meters for good.

I put the majority of the blame on local councils and their short sighted views to pull in money from things like parking and out of town places.

Some town centers have huge parts that feel like no go zones.

 

[annanuttall]

If you walk down Oxford street there are about 10+ candy shops.

 

[spongo]

My local city is just empty. The "original" shopping street which is now historic old town, has nothing left. Especially since M&S closed. Just a HMV, The Works, Deichmann and a Heron Foods - but no parking so you won't go do a big food shop.

The big shopping centre suffered terribly when a new shopping centre was built and sucked away key tenants like TKMaxx. The new shopping centre sucked away footfall and many other chains left the high street to the shopping centre, Topshop, a big Next closed down to move to the shopping centre. Phone shops, Boots even.

The first big shopping centre has tried, put a cinema in, bowling alley, tried an outlet store area (what a disaster, just no brands apart from next, and just generic shite, best we got was a pop-up Tommy Hilfiger for a few weeks. Primark is all that shopping centre has left going for it.

The high streets are desolate. Losing boots and Woolworths from another shopping street has left another road empty.

The other two high street parts have not a lot going on.

The city has lost BHS, Debenhams and House of Fraser as big stores. Nothing to replace 2 of them. HoF has turned into office space and a food hall, which opened just before Christmas, unbelievably expensive in a city that doesn't have money. Sales were shocking and half the staff laid off after less than 3 months.

The city is dead. It is too big for what shops there actually are. Needs massively shrinking.

Doesn't help that out of town areas keep popping up with free parking and easier to get to.



Some stores don't help themselves though. Had to go out Curry's for an emergency phone, found one but in spite of all these staff wandering around, nobody was able to sell me a phone. They are asking to go out of business.

Hull.

 

[IngressUK]

I live in Bristol and we’ve just lost the only Marks and Spencer that we had in the city centre, it closed on Saturday after 70 years!

I blame the Councils for allowing all the out of town developments that have sprung up over the last 25 years, cheap rates, free parking etc.. they want people to use public transport and shop local but they need to remember that they helped to create the problem!

It is a combination of factors:

1) Greedy landlords wanting ridiculous rent increases, when they know retailers are struggling. This appears to be a major factor in the Wilko example. Inflexible landlords will be responsible for those Wilko branches that do close.
2) Local Councils - wanting their cake and eating it through business rates, which are typically 50% of the annual rent. Business rates do not include things such as rubbish collection.
2a) Again local councils - ripping the piss with town centre parking charges.
3) Empty retail units (I understand) are subject to rates and tax relief as they are empty. To encourage occupation, this should be abolished ASAP. Why should we subsidise greedy landlords?
4) Changing shopping habits, with many more.now shopping online.