The continuous death of the high street/centre of town....

Ghostleader · Aug 17, 2018

So Poundworld a once successful business started as a Ltd company eventually sold on to one of these "we expert at everything" private equity mobs has been the latest national chain of shops thats went under to most peoples surprise (Well in tough times if 90% of what's sold a £1 then surely they do profit, being most peoples reasoning obviously) I wonder what's going to be left in bricks & mortar to spend our hard earned in? Who will be next? (Who's left?!?!?) and what can be done by local councils ect (Cheaper leases surely make sense?, Especially in tiny towns/ran down towns, what do you guys think? Oh and my prediction for next retailer to go into receivership is Mothercare, their prices in this financial climate are even more ridiculous than they were before, gone before Christmas I reckon.

Lazarus · Aug 17, 2018

Go inside out: Large Shopping Centres and e-Retailing aren't going away, so just repurpose the old-fashioned bricks and mortar model and turn High Streets into much needed dwellings.

Ghostleader · Aug 17, 2018

Lazarus said:
Go inside out: Large Shopping Centres and e-Retailing aren't going away, so just repurpose the old-fashioned bricks and mortar model and turn High Streets into much needed dwellings.

Up here the shopping centres aren't cutting it either, scores of retail units empty, anybody remember every fancy shopping centre used to have one of those "Gadget shops" that sold daft money drones and other big boy toys? While we're on the subject of shopping malls :-)

Analoguesat · Aug 17, 2018

The Borders shopping scene is a disaster area. Some of the towns have seen over a 50% drop in footfall in recent years...

Channel Hopper · Aug 17, 2018

Lazarus said:
Go inside out: Large Shopping Centres and e-Retailing aren't going away, so just repurpose the old-fashioned bricks and mortar model and turn High Streets into much needed dwellings.

All our local shops have at least two floors above them that are 'dwellings' so we must be sorted.

Tesco was buying up a lot of pubs and cornershops a few years back, in really run down areas, then either refurbishing or demolishing completely to build an Express store at the base, and a few floors above with relatively acceptable apartments. I had a hand in putting in the cabling head ends and switches on a couple of them in North London.

Walthamstow - Tesco and Combined Apartments - Sat-Elite

Not my cup of tea as I wouldn't want to live above a 7-11, but they did look like the first -welcome - stage of community area improvement. The important thing is if the local natives wanted the gentrification.

2cvbloke · Aug 18, 2018

The biggest problem with the death of the high street is the lack of income, prices have been rising on a lot of things in recent years, from food to fuel, meaning there's less and less "spare" cash to spread around, less income, less spending, less business, less businesses...

Ghostleader · Aug 18, 2018

2cvbloke said:
The biggest problem with the death of the high street is the lack of income, prices have been rising on a lot of things in recent years, from food to fuel, meaning there's less and less "spare" cash to spread around, less income, less spending, less business, less businesses...

Paisley is just full of cafes, restaurants, bookies & pawn shops......oh and the drug dealers favourite money laundering shops that is Sunbed booths.

Lazarus · Aug 18, 2018

Have you spelled "Pawn" right?

Ghostleader · Aug 18, 2018

Lazarus said:
Have you spelled "Pawn" right?

Afraid so.... lol

sonnetpete · Aug 18, 2018

The 'High Street Death' also happens in France. Larger towns (10,000+ pop) have their small commercial areas just outside with larger supermarkets and electrical shops etc. Our village hasn't had a boulangerie for over 20 years. The nearest village south of us has had two or three boulangers in the last five years or so and the shop currently stands empty. The larger village near to us, used to have three boulangeries but now has two (which goes down to one when the other shop has it's day off). If France struggles to get customers for bread it's not a good sign.

The larger village has over 50% of it's shops standing empty. there isn't a maison de la presse, a cafe (as opposed to a bar), or a hardware store. Though we are used to getting in the car to access what we need, it isn't a good outlook for people who live in the village.

PaulR · Aug 18, 2018

Our village here in France has one boulangerie (albeit a bloody good one), twenty years ago there were three. The local U-express also sells bread so the village legally qualifies for always having a source of fresh bread every day.

Just up the N7 from us there's a village called Mornas which has been advertising for a doctor for ages now, they have a great big banner by the side of the road. They also have no banks nor, as I discovered last year, any cash dispensers.

We visited another village today called Valréas to watch a medieval spectacle. It was very noticeable, as we walked through the old village, how many shops were empty and disguised with a vista stuck to the inside of the windows.

The problem is everywhere.

Channel Hopper · Aug 18, 2018

The rot has truly set in.

Regardless of politics ( which is the legal democratic against the actual - 1 per registered voter) there is no justification for elected members of local government to act against the people they serve.

I fear for France over the 'Bread wars' but in the UK media there has been an uprising against the one chance this country had to get its own crap in order.
A traitorous few , with personal or vested interest perhaps, are doing their best to erase the whole idea of the original referendum from history.

PaulR · Aug 19, 2018

I owe an apology to our village. There are two boulangeries - I completely forgot about the other one. I bought a gros pain there this morning. It's definitely not as good as our normal one; it has a much tougher crust.

PaulR · Aug 19, 2018

Channel Hopper said:
A traitorous few , with personal or vested interest perhaps, are doing their best to erase the whole idea of the original referendum from history.

I'm not sure what you're getting at here CH but perhaps best not to clarify the subject.

jeallen01 · Aug 19, 2018

PaulR said:
I owe an apology to our village. There are two boulangeries - I completely forgot about the other one. I bought a gros pain there this morning. It's definitely not as good as our normal one; it has a much tougher crust.

If the second boulangerie makes bread like that, then maybe there will soon be only one in your village (customers vote with their feet - and their stomachs!)

PaulR · Aug 19, 2018

The "other" boulangerie has been in the same premises (possibly not the same owners of course) since we bought the house 26 years ago. Our favourite boulangerie has only been in its current premises for 10 years or so although, as a family business, they've been around for a couple of hundred years.

The continuous death of the high street/centre of town....

Ghostleader

Regular Member

Lazarus

Retired Moderator

Ghostleader

Regular Member

Analoguesat

Administrator

Channel Hopper

Suffering fools, so you don't have to.

2cvbloke

Regular Member

Ghostleader

Regular Member

Lazarus

Retired Moderator

Ghostleader

Regular Member

sonnetpete

Grumpy Old Retired Moderator and quiz inquisitor..

PaulR

Dazed and Confused Admin

Channel Hopper

Suffering fools, so you don't have to.

PaulR

Dazed and Confused Admin

PaulR

Dazed and Confused Admin

jeallen01

Specialist Contributor

PaulR

Dazed and Confused Admin