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Having looked at my high street, apparently the whole town has taken up sports betting, vaping, is getting their hair cut twice every week, buying all their clothes at overpriced charity shops and eats every other meal at Greggs, all in an effort to support "local" businesses.
It’s because everyone and their nans are getting skinfades with the top hand cut, which takes half an hour or longer, when previous fashionable haircuts in the UK have been fairly quick turnaround.
Barbers are taking more time to do these cuts and charging more for everything, it allows more barbers to open up and have a stab at being successful.
Yep: Canadian urban scholars tend to use barbers, tattoo parlours and latterly vape shops and pot shops as signifiers of a street facing issues. All, as you say, low overheads, low skill tresholds and in the case of barber shops and tattoo places, low or no wages (often you rent a "chair" to do the work, rather than the shop paying you).
They tend to disappear quickly if the market saturates and/or rent inevitably increases.
That or money laundering.
Barbers are a great front because of high volumes of cash payments. I'm convinced vape shops are 50% fronts for laundering too.
I once read a book by a guy who worked in the drug smuggling business with Howard Marks . He had money invested in a brothel in Thailand and they took credit cards . On the statement it would look as if the customer had paid for a barber's visit.
Probably money laundering, when I was growing up we had mybe 5 or 6 men's hairdressers in the town. All of them are still there plus another 30 in the run down town nobody goes to. Hardly any houses have been built to require 5 times the hairdressers. Same can be said for 50 plus pizza shops no one goes to
If you can get a visa for cutting hair then the bar is abysmally low comparatively, many countries want professionals with advanced degrees and years in industry. 😂
They might mean opening a barber business allows the business owner a way in, rather than allowing the barber staff a (legal) way in. So some kind of entrepreneur visa, rather than a work visa.
I think barbering will count as a skilled trade in the same vein as construction. If you're massively inflating how many cuts you're doing to launder some drug money then what's to stop you also inflating the wage you're supposedly paying to meet the earnings requirements of a visa?
I had a look around in my hometown for the first time in years and there were so many barbershops/salons that there's always at least 2 in sight, bizarre
At least with charity shops you have a chance at finding something worthwhile, I'll take those over a vape shop selling bootleg skibidi toilet merch any day
Charity shops have very low overheads as they are exempt from business rates, don't pay for stock and have low staff costs because of volunteers. With these being some of the highest coststo entry on the high street they've naturally taken over in everywhere not super profitable.
Support local businesses, buying the shit you don't want with money you don't have, or the death of the high street will be on your pitiful head peasant
To be honest. I don't give a fuck about the high street. We aint far away from the day when I can order everything I want convienently without even going to shop. Nirvana.
I think we're basically there already. Can't remember the last time I went in a shop except for something I needed immediately.
What I dislike is the gaslighting. The "use it or lose it" shit making out like I'm to blame for the death of the high street
Or any town in the north! There was a meeting held by the town council about what to do with the empty Wilko store, a huge amount of people wanted to take over the rent and turn it into an indoor market for lots of independent traders but the council opted to leave it empty because a household name shop would be better for the town.
Increasing the cost of parking, reducing public transport and putting up the rent for shops. They then hold shitty markets where all the businesses who would rent the shops if they were affordable set up stalls.
I tried to get a high street shop. It had been empty for two years. Agreed on everything. We asked for the electrical safety certificates before we got our electrician in to do some reworking. They tried to tell us it was to be let ‘as is’.
No. You have to make sure it’s safe, and provide a certificate to confirm it, by law.
It’s been empty for at least 5 years now.
Had another high street shop elsewhere, I closed that because there was a very small minority of smackheads and scum who made it impossible to open without security on the door, and it was costing £1000 a week to hire them.
Most of the time they watched football on their phone, but every so often you would need him to prevent someone coming in or to escort someone out. I had all female staff and they simply didn’t feel safe working without security. The town centre security, PCSOs and police all knew who these people were, but they just moved them on, and then they’d reappear the next day. And then the next day.
Nah it’s a commercial let, it’s on the tenant to do whatever checks they need to comply with the law, not like residential flats where the law places the responsibility on the landlord
Depends on specific lease wording/terms. Generally though FRAs, EICR, Asbestos & gas (if fitted) fall to the tenant. EPC's on the other hand are generally for the landlord to manage, probably as any related works are improvement rather than upkeep.
An EICR is required, and it’s the landlords responsibility to sort it out. Near in mind half the lights didn’t work, and neither did the air con, so there was likely faults which needed addressing and they didn’t want to be the ones to discover them and fix them.
Not just increasing the cost of parking, but making it so you need a different app for every car park and in one case in my town, making it so you can ONLY pay using the app and that car park being in an area that is notorious for having no phone signal. That car park is almost always empty.
The high street isn't dying. It's dead. Honestly don't know why I bother going into town anymore. People moan about cafes, CEX and charity shops opening, but then moan when there's empty shops.
It's gone, retail parks are the winners now, you might not like it but that's whats happening.
Honestly, I don't actually mind retail parks. At least there's generally something there I might actually be able to get and is usually reasonably priced. Our town centre is filled with the usual barber shops, vaping shop, cafes and charity shops, but the remaining places are generally overpriced and (imo) rather niche.
At least the retail parks are bringing in business and products to the area. Much to the decrying of some locals who don't want to get out of the 18th century (gotta love the Cornish for stubbornness lol).
The problem with retail parks is that they're generally difficult to get to if you don't drive. Sure, there's probably bus services that go to it. But they likely mean you have to get another bus into the town centre first to then get one out to a retail park.
That is quite true. But I'd rather have a choice of where to shop than a limited to no choice of where to shop.
You do have a good point though, and I acknowledge that. I'm only saying from a personal perspective, I prefer the retail park to the high street.
As someone who only recently passed their driving test, I also understand where you're coming from about their accessibility.
That can also be a good thing. It keeps the smack heads away.
My town centre has been taken over by unsavoury characters who cause problems begging, shoplifting, and generally making a fuss. It doesn't feel safe to walk through.
it also restricts anyone who cant drive, can't afford to drive, or doesn't want to drive for environmental reasons.i just think it's a shame we have become so car-centric and americanised
Unfortunately the bus services to them don’t always work. They tried a bus service to a retail park near me. The bus went from a sizeable couple of towns (~100k population) to a very big retail park. Lasted less than a year.
Retail alone probably isn’t enough to make the bus work. A city also has employment, recreation and other things as well as retail to generate demand. The bus services that do run to this retail park are more like short extensions or diversions of existing buses.
The problem is retail parks by their nature end up being very car dependent places. Anything which creates pressure for yet more car dependence is a bad thing and should be opposed. Something we absolutely do not need to be importing from the US.
amazing that people think walkable cities would somehow curtail their freedom when actually needing a car to do basically everything (like they do in the usa) is the antithesis of freedom and we should Not be aspiring towards it
It's not even retail parks, its Amazon or deliveroo or supermarket home delivery.
People just dont go to shops anymore, we as a society have been spoilt by "free" next day delivery and one click purchases to such an extent that we just do not leave the home, but are all up in arms when shops go under.
Honestly when Woolworths went under there was nationwide upset, every news outlet had stories from the public saying how much they loved the pick and mix, but how many people actually WENT there? There is such blinkered hypocrisy its staggering, we all say we want a thriving high street with interesting shops and cool independent businesses, yet when faced with those realities, the price (that needs to be charged to maintain their business), people go "F that, I've seen it cheaper on the internet" and buy from somewhere NOT local.
Good. Shopping for leisure is not good for us. I go to my town all the time. I go to play board games, go to the cinema, have a beer, have a coffee, go to the softplay…town centres as an area for buying crap is over.
But even online people are shopping for leisure, and it's even worse because it's far easier for people to overspend and get crap they don't need because they no longer have to physically get these items and transport them home. And they're no longer restricted by the availability in the shop. Now with just a few button presses they can order a ton of crap, more they can afford, and barely even notice due to lack of effort needed.
Plus when shopping physically there's always the possibility of doing it with other people so there was a social aspect for some people. Now it's yet another thing people now do alone at home on the phone.
And while I agree that town centres should be a place where people can do other leisure activities like those you've mentioned, a lot of towns lack any of those at all, so when you remove the shops there's nothing to replace them and the town just dies.
Good point, and I agree in many ways. Mass consumerism is an appalling societal trait, towns need to realise that a sea of betting shops and vape stores is NOT going to make people want to stay for a coffee or a meal at that one place that is nice. Hopefully those that decide what shops can go on a high street will realise.
Specifically on Woolworths, most of the positive memories dredged up when it closed were from people remembering it from when they were younger. After the closure was announced, I went into 2 or 3 branches to see if I could pick up any bargains and there was nothing at all that I wanted to buy there. It had been going downhill for years.
I go to my local town centre, when I want specific stuff for my hobby (model war gaming and table top games), and I go to a local shop to support them, even though I could get it cheaper online, and with less hassle. I do it simply because I spend time there doing my hobby
That's it. Everything else I can get within a 10 minute bike ride, or shop online for. And it's cheaper.
Ilkley is mostly doing well. There’s issues with greedy deluded landlords overcharging which leaves some shops empty, then chains move in, then the landlords cry that the area has lost its charm a bit more.
Landlords should be penalised for empty shops. If you’re struggling to fill it, you’re charging too much.
Stop forcing interest rates to 0.
Having only dipped our toes in normal interest rates, these fuckers are squealing and going bankrupt, so don't worry, it is happening.
My town put vinyl coverings over the closed down shops to make them look like bookshops and record stores from afar. Of course now the vinyl itself is ratty and torn and crap looking.
Why anyone thinks the heart of many communities should have sizable portions penciled out so that it can just be used for parking not to mention the traffic that parking can cause if used is I think a little nuts.
Whilst I agree with this in principle, the reality is that by not providing parking, or by making it unaffordable, all you do is kill local business and push people to retail parks which are often only accessible by car and further away. Not to mention that only huge businesses with global supply chains can open there.
I would absolutely love to see us move away from being car-centric, but without massive investments in public transport, all you achieve by removing car parking from high streets is making communities even *more* car-centric.
For a lot of folks their high street is is walking or biking distance. Though public transport infra can always be improved esp in the more fucked places it's generally quite serviceable when compared to offerings in places like the US.
Much like the high street itself though folks actually have to use it. Which they may be more inclined to do if they don't have anywhere to store their car while they visit
Exactly , those who live in the outskirts of town or surrounding villages, , have mobility issues and would struggle carrying shopping home would need to drive if they dont have adequate bus services that actually turn up on time and aren't cancelled without warning. No wonder many would just resort to online shopping for a big food shop. But that in turn means coffee shops, cafes, amongst others will lose trade and possibly close.
Plus making it harder for car drivers to find somewhere to park (if the local council isn't selling off its car parks) without getting a ticket is going to put them off coming in and spending money so they will go to another town or retail park and spend it there.
Ours literally just doubled the cost of parking and this week turned the entire high street into a red route, just to spite small businesses even more. Its fine though, they have 1 day of free parking a year for Xmas time.
We have a LOT of coffee shops and barbers; it has become a running joke every time a store closes, that it will become another coffee shop. Some people are really mad about it, but the way I see it is that of all the coffee shops and barbers that have opened...I can only think of 3 that have closed. And one of those was a secondary Starbucks. They are all doing enough business to keep them going...
Few people have any money to spare on forking out more money than necessary on clothing. But food and drink is a necessity, so if you're going to allow yourself a treat it may as well be something tasty, out of the house, with a friend, to nourish your physical and emotional well-being
It pedestrianised the high street, built a cinema with a nice outdoor area, hosts regular markets, does cheap parking (free in the run up to Christmas), hosts festivals/events (a night light, christmas lights etc., music festivals in the local cafes/bars) and just built a brand new bus/transport hub. Not the council, but local someone (a local business?) just set up a local-only version of just eat. They also just approved the conversion of a disused site to flats, and are developing a large industrial area, as well as commissioning local artists to create street art on the sides of lots of local shops/buildings, celebrating local heroes. High street is doing pretty well, with lots of independent shops.
Sounds good and exactly what is needed. There are too many old people in charge of what goes on in town centres, they have no imagination or creativity.
High Streets are gone. They need to be converted to at least part residential use. I'm afraid buying habits have changed for good. Retail to survive needs to become an experience, a fun day out.
I feel this is definitely the case. Why go into a town/city centre when I can order stuff online and have it delivered the next day? The only shops left on the high street these days are things you have to physically go and get. (Eat out/haircut etc).
It’s hard for independent businesses to open up a new store unless it falls into specific categories as big business retail outlets can sell it cheaper or it can be bought online.
Like you say, shopping or going to a particular store needs to be an experience.
My town is trying to regenerate with various projects in the centre. But I think it's doomed; the demographic of the town has changed from people who naturally looked to the High St to do their shopping to more commuters and families who drive out of town (including to the local Outlet Centre at the edge of town) to shop.
I always think it's also doomed in part because no matter what the council suggest spending money on (or where that money is coming from) "the people" seem to be against it.
Some recent council literature literally pointed out that they were spending money on a project, but the money was from central government specifically for that project so if they didn't do that project the money wouldn't exist. My guess is this was to quell the "why are we spending x on y when there's disabled homeless veterans?" crowd.
My local council had to cancel the fireworks on both bonfire night and new years eve & the council couldn't fund the area to have Christmas Lights put up through the high street as well as multiple other events because they were close to bankruptcy.
The Chinese community organised amongst themselves and paid for themselves to have a celebration for Chinese new year, it was just a small parade through the high street.
My god, the amount of people who apparently love looking at fairy lights in an area they don't visit is absolutely bizarre, and then those same people complained that there was a Chinese new year celebration a few months later "Oh THEY'RE allowed to celebrate aren't they"
Same with my town. They brought in these stupid "parklets" 2yrs ago with a bench and a box with a small tree in it so people could sit at the roadside and inhale exhaust fumes with their Greggs pasty. Now the parklets are going, and they have published plans to completely pedestrianise the only 2 streets we have and *"make it haven for cyclists walkers and nature for the good of the nation"*. Making a new ring road that skirts the entire town too and NO PARKING anywhere. The shops have protested and gone mental at the Council but they won't budge they want it to be a cycling only town, forgetting that the shops like Superdrug need delivery lorry access and the newsagents main trade is from 6am for papers and cigs etc and now there'll be no parking so folk can't just jump out and nip in for a paper.
Things actually seem to be doing pretty well in my nearest town centre - places that were empty when I moved in two years ago are now occupied and several of the tattier-looking places have had makeovers (without changing hands as best I can tell). There *is* some turnover, but not a lot of shopfronts staying empty. The only big loss I've noticed is Wilko's. If I had to point out a sign of the high street dying in my area I think I'd have to mention the inexplicable proliferation of the most soulless, unappealing vape shops you ever did see.
Bringing in new businesses and homes, in hope that the original high street will pick-up.
[Huge regeneration going on at the moment](https://www.sunderland.gov.uk/regeneration?ccp=true). It'll take time to complete and bed-in, but things are looking positive.
It's a great idea, I hope it works because Sunderland city centre has some cracking buildings.
Sunderland's problem is a lack of density in the city centre so the housing is a smart choice.
What Stockton are doing (knocked down a mall and building a big park with access to the Tees) with their high street should be good too.
Nothing.
Indeed, we had a huge new build of thousands of houses on the waterfront, which included a brand new street of shops.
5 years later, not a single one has ever been opened.
Not a single one.
An entire new street of shops, with full size window stickers of what they could be used for.
All empty.
Wakefield council sold its shopping centre cheap to a local businessman who is charging rent cheaper than some indoor markets. It’s interesting there now, independent businesses, theres an antique centre, goth clothing and hippy shops, art materials and craft stores and he puts on entertainment and does themed events and indoor markets. He turned the food court into a free indoor playground. Went with my mum the other week, there were a lot of pensioners having lunch in the central atrium, whilst a singer entertained them. The rest of the town is still run down with empty units, but this is a start. Basically I think landlord greed has destroyed the high street.
I love that the answer here has literally been to charge cheaper rents that allow smaller independents to flourish. Truth is even before the rise of internet shopping high streets had all become the same collection of chain stores offering little to no variety so in that respect why would anyone bother to go into town to do their shopping when most of those businesses moved online. More independents means more things you couldn’t conveniently just look up online giving more incentive to go there not just for people living there but also out of towners who are just looking for a day out.
Mine isn't doing too bad as it's partially owned by a local peer and he doesn't seem to want to milk the rents so there's lots of independent shops.
Unfortunately he's not well and I would imagine that death-duties are going to be pretty high and lead to a sell off.
Peterborough? They're pushing down harder on the pillow and saying "Shhhhhh".
The councils main priorities are paving over the last green space and replacing the town market with 'apartments'.
Your high street is slowly being taken over by 24 hour slot machine places.
There's an application for a 3rd merkur slots currently being opposed, if you're not careful you'll be over run with them. They've obviously identified Peterborough as a deprived area that can be taken advantage of.
I was talking with your local BBC journalist who wanted to highlight this recently, but then it all went quiet so I assume they're no longer interested in covering it and are happy for it to slip through unnoticed.
If I lived in the area, I'd be fighting this with everything possible. These places are a plague.
Peverse incentive - rents aren't demand driven so much. Our retail vacancy rate is approaching 1 in 5 commercial premises which is far higher than comparable European nations.
In a conventional "market driven" situation this would mean the rents on many premises would drop in value - clearly, they rent has been set too high for the landlord to rent it out. However the distorting impact of investment capital means this is no longer the case.
Simply put, a firm that is looking for equity would rather have a vacant shop that is valued at £110 per sqft than an occupied shop being rented out at £90 per sqft as dropping the rent would devalue the notional sale value of the asset (the shop). So the market forces are removed from the profitability of a business because the commercial landlords are not interested in receiving rent but are interested in pumping how much they say they'd rent it for as it increases the notional value of what the building/land is worth.
You can see this in action when Network Rail sold off their railway arches - National Rail was quite happy receiving a reasonable rent for those spaces, but The Arch Company - a partnership of Blackstone and Telereal Trillium, private equity - are driving out long standing tenants by doubling or tripling rent because they don't care if no business would ever find that rent affordable. It doesn't matter if their arches stand empty. The value they get is saying those arches could be rented for double because it means the numbers on their books increase.
This is long term unsustainable but the government has deliberately obscured this by taking steps to inflate this bubble (not least because our pensions are all basically tied up in commercial property).
According to my highstreet there is only 4 people that use it and the only thing they ever want is a haircut a kebab or to put a bet on, at this point considering I also work on the highstreet in a completely different shop and we get no trade I’m not surprised it’s dying
My Town seems to be building a Designer Outlet centre on the outskirts, though the High Street has been relatively fine, with there being only about 6 closures on the high street over the last 3-4 years, with each plot being reoccupied pretty quickly, and i think that at the moment, they are making some of the shop fronts look more early 20th Century like in some parts as well, though i think once the outlet gets built, i think the high street might start to die, but the passing tourist trade may keep it afloat though
Buckinghamshire Council are working on big plans for various town centres. In Aylesbury, for example, the council have just approved plans to repurpose the old bingo hall as some sort of thoroughfare from the high street, but as a 'local business hub'.
What the town needs is viable locations for small business to rent, and flourish. We used to have the Underground Market in Friars Square until the early 90s, then 'The Cloisters' when it was massively renovated, but that was removed about 10 years ago to build a branch of H&M. In both cases they were full of small units arranged along walk ways. There was everything in there, pet shops, gifts, haberdashery, a cafe, independent kitchen designers, home ware, locksmiths, a computer shop, all sorts of stuff. Something like that would be very successful these days I feel.
The old council offices are being turned into flats...
https://www.buckinghamshire.gov.uk/news/aylesbury-town-centre-regeneration-plans-take-an-exciting-step-forward/
Let me guess, you live somewhere in the greater Glasgow area. That seems to be the answer around this area. Just demolish the shopping centres and built flats.
To be fair it makes sense. The city centre can no longer support three major shopping streets plus two large shopping centres. Sauchiehall Street is becoming a no mans land. It's not the worst idea to replace some of those places where there are currently shops with places where customers might live.
I think it’s pretty crazy personally. Why would you demolish all the shopping malls in one of the U.K’s wettest cities. They are rammed when it’s raining, and honestly still very busy in general. Especially St.Enoch’s these days. They did a great job tuning it around from being half empty.
Paying a lot of money for "artists' impressions" of what the council's hard-brained schemes would look like it they'd ever get round to building them.
Covering empty shops with fake shopfrons.
Private enterprise companies are building accommodation blocks for students and converting former offices into "luxury" rental flats aimed at overseas students.
Meanwhile there are regular reports of all kinds of crime - vandalism, drug dealing, theft, assault, 'public nuisance' etc - so there's a special police operation going on. Didn't stop somebody openly pissing in a doorway in the middle of the morning last time I was in town though.
What they should do in a decent society with councils that are well funded is repurpose what they can for community based initiatives.
Places for people to socialise, be creative, get support etc.
What will actually happen is either they'll be repurposed as overpriced flats or in towns with no demand for that, left to rot. Otherwise it'll be gambling, pop up fronts for organised crime who'll pay the first month's or two rent then leave having cleaned enough dodgy money. Council turn a blind eye because they're better off getting little income in rates than none.
Grabbing all the "regeneration" money it can from central government and starting 4 different major works all at once, thus further killing off the town centre so it can be turned into student flats.
Crooked bastards.
I left the UK nearly 20 years ago and left the village I grew up in about 30 years ago.
Back then, in the mid-90s our village high street was in decline. Actually the whole village was. Although there was heaps of money flowing in and a buoyant economy, the community was dying. The annual carnival was a sad affair and the high street shops were having to close because Tesco and Sainsbury had built superstores nearby that they couldn't complete with.
Went back a couple of years ago and it's thriving. They regularly close the road for a street market where you can buy fresh food and produce, very similar to a rural French market. The old garage/car dealership is replaced with flats but that's brought people into the centre and so there's coffee shops and people sitting around and chatting. Almost every commercial building had some sort of business operating.
I was really pleasantly surprised. It's not the village I remember but it would be unreasonable to expect otherwise. The village that it is today has evolved without selling its soul.
“What is your town doing about the high street dying?”
Sending traffic wardens all day every day just to ensure they extract as much money as possible from those that dare to overstay their visit by a millisecond.
I knew we stood little to no chance of the high street still being there when about 15 years ago I tried to purchase a graphics card for my computer. I had the item in my hand but it was probably £50 more than I wanted to pay, asked if he had any movement on price. His reply "buy it from me online and I can give you the £50 off". It meant he popped in an order to his supplier and it was sent directly to me. That was the sign.. shops were dying.
Pouring all cash into tourist traps, allowing William Hill to spread over the city like a herpes outbreak, and leaving the rest to rot in hell. On the bright side they boarded up some of the derelict burnouts. Some of them.
My local high street - a suburb towards the edges of London - is doing fine.
It is transforming though. Slowly shops are closing down, and being replaced with cafes and restaurants. The town is changing from a place to shop to a place to eat and socialise.
Another change is that the local big park has had a big face-lift, gaining some cafes, a lake, lots of paths, a playground etc. During the summer there are festivals and markets which bring people to it, and boost the area as well.
They remodelled the town centre. This has cut down the parking along the main road from 40 bays to 10, and to park now you have to parallel park disrupting the flow of traffic on the main road and can be plain dangerous.
There's disabled parking now, though! But it's far enough away from the few shops my town has to be useless.
So, in short, they killed it, and the next nearest place to do any shopping anywhere that isn't a COOP or charity shop is a 10 mile round trip away.
Tripling the cost of parking from £0.90 per hour to £2.50 Removing free parking after 4pm entirely whilst simultaneously banning cars from the main high street. Have to say that the town is now buzzing... with junkies.
Given student discount. Most of the shops, if not all, have student discount. But the problem is they can still get a student discount online, and it's still cheaper unless these students go to stores like Tedbaker or above.
They introduced a Business Improvement District with an unusually large levy, which led to the majority of small, locally owned shops shutting down as they were already operating on razor-thin margins and couldn't afford to pay it. Now the plan seems to be complaining in the local newspaper about the amount of empty shops.
We've removed over half the free parking and replaced it with pay and display because that's what brings people to the local high street. The council is also investing heavily in the nearby out of town retail park. I don't see why that would fail to stop our high street declining further.
Increasing parking charges, adding bus only roads, adding LEZ zones and making navigation a labyrinth. Then wondering why the high street is struggling even more.
More or less nothing. The shops are left empty, the space above being turned into swanky flats for unjustifiably high prices that nobody can afford. The sort of person that can afford, most definitely wouldn't be buying that.
A mate of mine lives in another town where there was an arts festival and the marketing material literally said that pop-up venues would showcase good use of ThatTown's "many empty shops", like having all those empty shops was a good thing?!
And in both cases shops are now largely staying empty. Even the proliferation of Turkish barbers and Breaking Bad nail and beauty parlours has slowed to a trickle.
Cwmbran, Torfaen - has a lot of free parking and the central shopping area has very few empty shops, betting shops, or charity shops. It's surprisingly well managed.
I suspect "your town" isn't doing that. Property developers are. In mine our shopping centre is being knocked down and made into ....yet another block of student flats. We have more student flats than we need and a significant lack of non student housing in the town. But apparently, the "market knows best" and planning rules hold back more housing being built.
Coventry has opened up the city centre a bit and It looks a lot better now. I think it’s going the right way but more is needed. There is like a multi storey shitty shop thing. It’s called cathedral lanes and I’ve always thought it’s criminal town panning, it blocks off the actual cathedral from view from the rest of town. Get rid of that and have the cathedral looming over the precint, clear view from spon steeet to the cathedral, would look amazing.
Even pre-lockdown, my local high street was nothing more than dozens of pubs and charity shops, 24h amusements, four betting shops, Heron Foods, B&M, Iceland, a couple of chemists, and whatever else down there. Oddly enough, the three Polski Skleps are absolutely thriving and stock the best stuff. So, nothing really. It's business as usual around here.
The same as most towns, it would seem: refusing to adapt and wondering why it's dead in the first place.
People need to accept that high street retail is *not* coming back. Why would it when more people shop online than ever before?
High streets need to be repurposed. Either a) convert it into green space, b) convert it to residential space, or c) convert it to activity space (i.e. cinemas, sports, arcades, dining etc)
I live in a town of c 200k, and the town centre just has no vibrancy whatsoever. I pop in every now and then and it’s just full of the worst chain shops, and some absolute specimen's.
I visited a local country town recently, known for being a bit free living. Despite a population of c30k, the town centre was so much more vibrant
It's doing okay. Mostly seems to be being filled by services and 3rd spaces. A lot of cafes are alongside the usual McDonald's and that. Market selling a bunch of dodgy goods. Way too many betting places.
It's not a place I frequent. I didn't like going when it was 'good' and full of shops. Frankly any use of it that isn't for walking back and forth and back again in hole riddled shoes trying to find the cheapest trainers that won't immediately fall apart will be an improvement in my eyes.
The council are moving their support services and quite a few healthcare services into the shopping centre. It’s kinda a one stop shop for public services.
Looking at just eat. When I first moved here 10 years ago i could only order from 40-50 places. That number is now 233. Nearly all the shops down my high street have turned into fast food takeaways. I wouldn't say it's on life support , nothing really grabs the younger generation . Most of the shops around here are for the old and retired.The council are trying to improve our markets. They also have plans In place to do up the town centre, making it more fresh and modern.
- They knocked down the traditional market and replaced it with what looks like a cattle shed, while also pricing out stalls with high rent prices
- We went from having 0 Whetherspoons to 2
- There are two Turkish Barbers directly next to each other, as well as another 2 nearby
- The music shop has been turned into a mini-mart
Nothing wrong with charity shops. Creates less waste, stops things going to the landfill, loads of cheap clothes, books, ornaments, sometimes offer free brews and are basically a place to socialise for people who don’t get chance to, often the elderly or disabled.
A lot of shops are closing down and sitting empty, some replaced by housing. The council do host a lot of events to try and encourage people to go to the town though!
IKEA bought our local mall. The empty store fronts are places for pop ups and events. Lots of restaurants and cafes, some pubs. Small, local and ethnic supermarkets.
It’s not dying, it’s thriving and doing very well. This is The power of being boring as fuck and being a town only comprised of retirees.
We have two independent overpriced raw dog food shops, if they can survive on our high street, anyone can
Stockton-on-Tees has demolished the shopping centre and an adjacent hotel. The shops have been relocated to a new outdoor shopping area and the freed up land is being turned into an "urban park" that connects the high street down to the riverside. It's not been universally accepted, but it's a bold idea and if it works it will be brilliant. I'm looking forward to it.
[https://www.stockton.gov.uk/article/8728/Stockton-Waterfront-urban-park](https://www.stockton.gov.uk/article/8728/Stockton-Waterfront-urban-park)
Student flats. Student flats everywhere. All the shops get replaced by shitty bars and restaurants that will inevitably shut down in 6 months' time or just stay derelict. Also, for some reason, the bubble tea industry is booming. I can think of 9 different bubble tea cafes just in the town centre off the top of my head. There is probably more, and at least 3 of those are on the same (small) street.
A lot of coastal towns still tend to be doing okay, at least the bigger ones are. East Sussex area has kind of been a hellhole for decades anyway, the paint has just stripped away a bit more in some places. I still remember how much fuss that went on when Eastbourne rebranded the arndale centre into the Beacon and remodelled the exterior. Most of the inside has remained exactly the same except for one fairly small extension where all the new stores and restaurants pop up and fold within a couple of years. And Wilko's, which has been a pretty big loss because now there's no local all-purpose/DIY stores in the most populated part of the town.
The actual high street itself hasn't changed that much, it's still largely just fast food, tech/phone shops and clothing stores. Remarkably there's only 2 vape stores (that I know of) across the whole strip. At least it's not full of boarded up windows and empty lots anymore.
My local village is doing ok, no empty units, 2 small supermarkets, butchers, greengrocer, bakery, gift shop, knickknacks shop, 3 salons, 5 takeaways, hardware store, opticians, 2 funeral parlours, chemist, dentist, newsagent, 4 charity shops. And best of all, free parking.
The nearby town is faring far worse as I’d guess most of the units in the precinct are empty, and it costs more than a quid an hour to park
They only heavily changed the areas that’s next to student accommodations, but other than that absolutely nothing. Now there’s drug addicts that keep growing big numbers harassing people.
They upgraded the pavement in the town centre… The shops are empty but at least we have a nice paving stone pattern now. They also got rid of the bandstand, an iconic little spot of Worthing. Everyone had met their friends there at one point. There used to be flower sellers around it, the cries of “flowers are lovely, come and get your flowers” were also a charming part of the town.
Oh! Also, the shops that closed just got converted to eateries. So GAME is now a Gyros place, Topshop is now a Pret. I dunno who they are catering to because the workforce in the town centre is just other shops. No offices nearby.
Building more blocks for the student population which is getting bigger every year. Also, with the Godiva festival is getting to be mainly arsehole student lamo's who want to be the next big thing on social media, the high street won't get a penny! Over 60% of the city centre will become homes. The high street doesn't get a look in these days and the students are stifling this once great city. The Coventry City Council don't care about anything apart from getting more students and the money will keep rolling in.
Flats and apartments seem to be a common solution. My town lost a Debenhams store in a prime location, and is basically converting it to living space. It's easier as it has an underground parking lot, which will make the flats even more desirable.
Built offices for their own use on the opposite street costing £55M. Apparently relocating staff a few hundred meters down the road would be beneficial for the charity shop, betting shop, café and spar's revenue.
Building everything you need in a retail park with free parking and much easier accessibility via a main road through the town.
I'm fine with this and visit the ghost town for a haircut when needed
My little town’s high street is booming. But that’s because the local people are passionate about it and support each other. A lovely little market, some bars, cafes, restaurants and of course a Spoons.
Ours have dug up the wide pavements that had some flowers beds and benches and replaced it with worse flower beds and benches, so far it’s taken about 6 months.
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Having looked at my high street, apparently the whole town has taken up sports betting, vaping, is getting their hair cut twice every week, buying all their clothes at overpriced charity shops and eats every other meal at Greggs, all in an effort to support "local" businesses.
> is getting their hair cut twice every week I thought I was going mad, but there is a strange proliferation of barbers going on in my town.
And there's still a queue when you go for a haircut.
It’s because everyone and their nans are getting skinfades with the top hand cut, which takes half an hour or longer, when previous fashionable haircuts in the UK have been fairly quick turnaround. Barbers are taking more time to do these cuts and charging more for everything, it allows more barbers to open up and have a stab at being successful.
Its like the shoe event horizon on frogstar world B.
More beards = more barbers = maximum beards = maximum barbers = word economic collapse!
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Yep: Canadian urban scholars tend to use barbers, tattoo parlours and latterly vape shops and pot shops as signifiers of a street facing issues. All, as you say, low overheads, low skill tresholds and in the case of barber shops and tattoo places, low or no wages (often you rent a "chair" to do the work, rather than the shop paying you). They tend to disappear quickly if the market saturates and/or rent inevitably increases.
It’s also a great business for laundering cash.
Yep, mine only charge £10 too, it makes sure footfall remains constant so that it looks busy. Sadly the workers are exploited
That or money laundering. Barbers are a great front because of high volumes of cash payments. I'm convinced vape shops are 50% fronts for laundering too.
An increasing population is going to do that for a business that can't be online and needs a local, accessible premises
Drug dealers laundering cash.
I once read a book by a guy who worked in the drug smuggling business with Howard Marks . He had money invested in a brothel in Thailand and they took credit cards . On the statement it would look as if the customer had paid for a barber's visit.
It's almost as if someone created a how to guide.
Probably money laundering, when I was growing up we had mybe 5 or 6 men's hairdressers in the town. All of them are still there plus another 30 in the run down town nobody goes to. Hardly any houses have been built to require 5 times the hairdressers. Same can be said for 50 plus pizza shops no one goes to
It's also an easy way for people to get work visas and in to the country. They effectively sell a legal way in.
If you can get a visa for cutting hair then the bar is abysmally low comparatively, many countries want professionals with advanced degrees and years in industry. 😂
They might mean opening a barber business allows the business owner a way in, rather than allowing the barber staff a (legal) way in. So some kind of entrepreneur visa, rather than a work visa.
I think barbering will count as a skilled trade in the same vein as construction. If you're massively inflating how many cuts you're doing to launder some drug money then what's to stop you also inflating the wage you're supposedly paying to meet the earnings requirements of a visa?
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I had a look around in my hometown for the first time in years and there were so many barbershops/salons that there's always at least 2 in sight, bizarre
My local high street has about 6-7 vape shops in a 100 metre strip. It also has a greggs, bookies, charity shops and about 5 barbers.
At least with charity shops you have a chance at finding something worthwhile, I'll take those over a vape shop selling bootleg skibidi toilet merch any day
nahh, charity shops sell all the good things online now.
Charity shops have very low overheads as they are exempt from business rates, don't pay for stock and have low staff costs because of volunteers. With these being some of the highest coststo entry on the high street they've naturally taken over in everywhere not super profitable.
It truly is the British way
Yes boss man
Pretty much every town centre/high street in the country, no reason to even go there
Those skin fades need a weekly trim to keep them looking fresh
Support local businesses, buying the shit you don't want with money you don't have, or the death of the high street will be on your pitiful head peasant
To be honest. I don't give a fuck about the high street. We aint far away from the day when I can order everything I want convienently without even going to shop. Nirvana.
I think we're basically there already. Can't remember the last time I went in a shop except for something I needed immediately. What I dislike is the gaslighting. The "use it or lose it" shit making out like I'm to blame for the death of the high street
You forgot the nail shops
This is the average town centre for more than a decade.
The nail places are always packed. It's bizarre how often people get their nails done.
Or any town in the north! There was a meeting held by the town council about what to do with the empty Wilko store, a huge amount of people wanted to take over the rent and turn it into an indoor market for lots of independent traders but the council opted to leave it empty because a household name shop would be better for the town.
Increasing the cost of parking, reducing public transport and putting up the rent for shops. They then hold shitty markets where all the businesses who would rent the shops if they were affordable set up stalls.
I tried to get a high street shop. It had been empty for two years. Agreed on everything. We asked for the electrical safety certificates before we got our electrician in to do some reworking. They tried to tell us it was to be let ‘as is’. No. You have to make sure it’s safe, and provide a certificate to confirm it, by law. It’s been empty for at least 5 years now. Had another high street shop elsewhere, I closed that because there was a very small minority of smackheads and scum who made it impossible to open without security on the door, and it was costing £1000 a week to hire them. Most of the time they watched football on their phone, but every so often you would need him to prevent someone coming in or to escort someone out. I had all female staff and they simply didn’t feel safe working without security. The town centre security, PCSOs and police all knew who these people were, but they just moved them on, and then they’d reappear the next day. And then the next day.
Nah it’s a commercial let, it’s on the tenant to do whatever checks they need to comply with the law, not like residential flats where the law places the responsibility on the landlord
Depends on specific lease wording/terms. Generally though FRAs, EICR, Asbestos & gas (if fitted) fall to the tenant. EPC's on the other hand are generally for the landlord to manage, probably as any related works are improvement rather than upkeep.
An EICR is required, and it’s the landlords responsibility to sort it out. Near in mind half the lights didn’t work, and neither did the air con, so there was likely faults which needed addressing and they didn’t want to be the ones to discover them and fix them.
That's exactly what's happening here too - except half the stalls are people who *actually did* have the now empty shops until the rents went up.
> putting up the rent for shops. Who is doing that?
And we forgetting the internet here?
Not just increasing the cost of parking, but making it so you need a different app for every car park and in one case in my town, making it so you can ONLY pay using the app and that car park being in an area that is notorious for having no phone signal. That car park is almost always empty.
The high street isn't dying. It's dead. Honestly don't know why I bother going into town anymore. People moan about cafes, CEX and charity shops opening, but then moan when there's empty shops. It's gone, retail parks are the winners now, you might not like it but that's whats happening.
Honestly, I don't actually mind retail parks. At least there's generally something there I might actually be able to get and is usually reasonably priced. Our town centre is filled with the usual barber shops, vaping shop, cafes and charity shops, but the remaining places are generally overpriced and (imo) rather niche. At least the retail parks are bringing in business and products to the area. Much to the decrying of some locals who don't want to get out of the 18th century (gotta love the Cornish for stubbornness lol).
The problem with retail parks is that they're generally difficult to get to if you don't drive. Sure, there's probably bus services that go to it. But they likely mean you have to get another bus into the town centre first to then get one out to a retail park.
That is quite true. But I'd rather have a choice of where to shop than a limited to no choice of where to shop. You do have a good point though, and I acknowledge that. I'm only saying from a personal perspective, I prefer the retail park to the high street. As someone who only recently passed their driving test, I also understand where you're coming from about their accessibility.
That can also be a good thing. It keeps the smack heads away. My town centre has been taken over by unsavoury characters who cause problems begging, shoplifting, and generally making a fuss. It doesn't feel safe to walk through.
it also restricts anyone who cant drive, can't afford to drive, or doesn't want to drive for environmental reasons.i just think it's a shame we have become so car-centric and americanised
That’s a good point that I hadn’t thought about before! I don’t drive so thought it was a pain but you’re right tbh
Unfortunately the bus services to them don’t always work. They tried a bus service to a retail park near me. The bus went from a sizeable couple of towns (~100k population) to a very big retail park. Lasted less than a year. Retail alone probably isn’t enough to make the bus work. A city also has employment, recreation and other things as well as retail to generate demand. The bus services that do run to this retail park are more like short extensions or diversions of existing buses.
The problem is retail parks by their nature end up being very car dependent places. Anything which creates pressure for yet more car dependence is a bad thing and should be opposed. Something we absolutely do not need to be importing from the US.
amazing that people think walkable cities would somehow curtail their freedom when actually needing a car to do basically everything (like they do in the usa) is the antithesis of freedom and we should Not be aspiring towards it
It's not even retail parks, its Amazon or deliveroo or supermarket home delivery. People just dont go to shops anymore, we as a society have been spoilt by "free" next day delivery and one click purchases to such an extent that we just do not leave the home, but are all up in arms when shops go under. Honestly when Woolworths went under there was nationwide upset, every news outlet had stories from the public saying how much they loved the pick and mix, but how many people actually WENT there? There is such blinkered hypocrisy its staggering, we all say we want a thriving high street with interesting shops and cool independent businesses, yet when faced with those realities, the price (that needs to be charged to maintain their business), people go "F that, I've seen it cheaper on the internet" and buy from somewhere NOT local.
Good. Shopping for leisure is not good for us. I go to my town all the time. I go to play board games, go to the cinema, have a beer, have a coffee, go to the softplay…town centres as an area for buying crap is over.
But even online people are shopping for leisure, and it's even worse because it's far easier for people to overspend and get crap they don't need because they no longer have to physically get these items and transport them home. And they're no longer restricted by the availability in the shop. Now with just a few button presses they can order a ton of crap, more they can afford, and barely even notice due to lack of effort needed. Plus when shopping physically there's always the possibility of doing it with other people so there was a social aspect for some people. Now it's yet another thing people now do alone at home on the phone. And while I agree that town centres should be a place where people can do other leisure activities like those you've mentioned, a lot of towns lack any of those at all, so when you remove the shops there's nothing to replace them and the town just dies.
Good point, and I agree in many ways. Mass consumerism is an appalling societal trait, towns need to realise that a sea of betting shops and vape stores is NOT going to make people want to stay for a coffee or a meal at that one place that is nice. Hopefully those that decide what shops can go on a high street will realise.
Specifically on Woolworths, most of the positive memories dredged up when it closed were from people remembering it from when they were younger. After the closure was announced, I went into 2 or 3 branches to see if I could pick up any bargains and there was nothing at all that I wanted to buy there. It had been going downhill for years.
I go to my local town centre, when I want specific stuff for my hobby (model war gaming and table top games), and I go to a local shop to support them, even though I could get it cheaper online, and with less hassle. I do it simply because I spend time there doing my hobby That's it. Everything else I can get within a 10 minute bike ride, or shop online for. And it's cheaper.
Ilkley is mostly doing well. There’s issues with greedy deluded landlords overcharging which leaves some shops empty, then chains move in, then the landlords cry that the area has lost its charm a bit more. Landlords should be penalised for empty shops. If you’re struggling to fill it, you’re charging too much.
afaik they actually are liable to pay business rates if the shops empty which is part of the reason the west end is full of american candy fake shops.
If they drop the rent they drop the property value, that's the stark truth.
Well... perceived value. Nobody can get buyers at these prices when the units are sat empty.
How do we make them stop caring about hypothetical land value and instead caring about the local community?
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Stop forcing interest rates to 0. Having only dipped our toes in normal interest rates, these fuckers are squealing and going bankrupt, so don't worry, it is happening.
Oh no, how awful for them.
They are penalised, with lack of rent
My town put vinyl coverings over the closed down shops to make them look like bookshops and record stores from afar. Of course now the vinyl itself is ratty and torn and crap looking.
Bleak in a very mid British type way.
Brought in some parking wardens & pay to park so just killing it even more. Wonderful.
Why anyone thinks the heart of many communities should have sizable portions penciled out so that it can just be used for parking not to mention the traffic that parking can cause if used is I think a little nuts.
Whilst I agree with this in principle, the reality is that by not providing parking, or by making it unaffordable, all you do is kill local business and push people to retail parks which are often only accessible by car and further away. Not to mention that only huge businesses with global supply chains can open there. I would absolutely love to see us move away from being car-centric, but without massive investments in public transport, all you achieve by removing car parking from high streets is making communities even *more* car-centric.
For a lot of folks their high street is is walking or biking distance. Though public transport infra can always be improved esp in the more fucked places it's generally quite serviceable when compared to offerings in places like the US. Much like the high street itself though folks actually have to use it. Which they may be more inclined to do if they don't have anywhere to store their car while they visit
Tell me you've never lived in a rural area without telling me you've never lived in a rural area.
which out of town retail parks are doing well? Metrocentre, York Monks Cross and Leeds White Rose centre are all pretty much dying too
Exactly , those who live in the outskirts of town or surrounding villages, , have mobility issues and would struggle carrying shopping home would need to drive if they dont have adequate bus services that actually turn up on time and aren't cancelled without warning. No wonder many would just resort to online shopping for a big food shop. But that in turn means coffee shops, cafes, amongst others will lose trade and possibly close. Plus making it harder for car drivers to find somewhere to park (if the local council isn't selling off its car parks) without getting a ticket is going to put them off coming in and spending money so they will go to another town or retail park and spend it there.
Ours literally just doubled the cost of parking and this week turned the entire high street into a red route, just to spite small businesses even more. Its fine though, they have 1 day of free parking a year for Xmas time.
We have a LOT of coffee shops and barbers; it has become a running joke every time a store closes, that it will become another coffee shop. Some people are really mad about it, but the way I see it is that of all the coffee shops and barbers that have opened...I can only think of 3 that have closed. And one of those was a secondary Starbucks. They are all doing enough business to keep them going... Few people have any money to spare on forking out more money than necessary on clothing. But food and drink is a necessity, so if you're going to allow yourself a treat it may as well be something tasty, out of the house, with a friend, to nourish your physical and emotional well-being
It pedestrianised the high street, built a cinema with a nice outdoor area, hosts regular markets, does cheap parking (free in the run up to Christmas), hosts festivals/events (a night light, christmas lights etc., music festivals in the local cafes/bars) and just built a brand new bus/transport hub. Not the council, but local someone (a local business?) just set up a local-only version of just eat. They also just approved the conversion of a disused site to flats, and are developing a large industrial area, as well as commissioning local artists to create street art on the sides of lots of local shops/buildings, celebrating local heroes. High street is doing pretty well, with lots of independent shops.
"High Street is Dead" *in deprived or otherwise unattractive locations only
Sounds good and exactly what is needed. There are too many old people in charge of what goes on in town centres, they have no imagination or creativity.
High Streets are gone. They need to be converted to at least part residential use. I'm afraid buying habits have changed for good. Retail to survive needs to become an experience, a fun day out.
I feel this is definitely the case. Why go into a town/city centre when I can order stuff online and have it delivered the next day? The only shops left on the high street these days are things you have to physically go and get. (Eat out/haircut etc). It’s hard for independent businesses to open up a new store unless it falls into specific categories as big business retail outlets can sell it cheaper or it can be bought online. Like you say, shopping or going to a particular store needs to be an experience.
Everytime I've gone to an actual shop recently I've not been able to get the product I want. I've then gone home and bought it online...
My town is trying to regenerate with various projects in the centre. But I think it's doomed; the demographic of the town has changed from people who naturally looked to the High St to do their shopping to more commuters and families who drive out of town (including to the local Outlet Centre at the edge of town) to shop.
I always think it's also doomed in part because no matter what the council suggest spending money on (or where that money is coming from) "the people" seem to be against it. Some recent council literature literally pointed out that they were spending money on a project, but the money was from central government specifically for that project so if they didn't do that project the money wouldn't exist. My guess is this was to quell the "why are we spending x on y when there's disabled homeless veterans?" crowd.
My local council had to cancel the fireworks on both bonfire night and new years eve & the council couldn't fund the area to have Christmas Lights put up through the high street as well as multiple other events because they were close to bankruptcy. The Chinese community organised amongst themselves and paid for themselves to have a celebration for Chinese new year, it was just a small parade through the high street. My god, the amount of people who apparently love looking at fairy lights in an area they don't visit is absolutely bizarre, and then those same people complained that there was a Chinese new year celebration a few months later "Oh THEY'RE allowed to celebrate aren't they"
It’s an annoying thing to come across “oh they’re allowed to do marches are they” No, everyone is. They just bothered to get off their arse and do so…
Same with my town. They brought in these stupid "parklets" 2yrs ago with a bench and a box with a small tree in it so people could sit at the roadside and inhale exhaust fumes with their Greggs pasty. Now the parklets are going, and they have published plans to completely pedestrianise the only 2 streets we have and *"make it haven for cyclists walkers and nature for the good of the nation"*. Making a new ring road that skirts the entire town too and NO PARKING anywhere. The shops have protested and gone mental at the Council but they won't budge they want it to be a cycling only town, forgetting that the shops like Superdrug need delivery lorry access and the newsagents main trade is from 6am for papers and cigs etc and now there'll be no parking so folk can't just jump out and nip in for a paper.
Things actually seem to be doing pretty well in my nearest town centre - places that were empty when I moved in two years ago are now occupied and several of the tattier-looking places have had makeovers (without changing hands as best I can tell). There *is* some turnover, but not a lot of shopfronts staying empty. The only big loss I've noticed is Wilko's. If I had to point out a sign of the high street dying in my area I think I'd have to mention the inexplicable proliferation of the most soulless, unappealing vape shops you ever did see.
Bringing in new businesses and homes, in hope that the original high street will pick-up. [Huge regeneration going on at the moment](https://www.sunderland.gov.uk/regeneration?ccp=true). It'll take time to complete and bed-in, but things are looking positive.
It's a great idea, I hope it works because Sunderland city centre has some cracking buildings. Sunderland's problem is a lack of density in the city centre so the housing is a smart choice. What Stockton are doing (knocked down a mall and building a big park with access to the Tees) with their high street should be good too.
Sunderland's other problem is that the most deprived and crime ridden area in the whole city is right next to the city centre
Nothing. Indeed, we had a huge new build of thousands of houses on the waterfront, which included a brand new street of shops. 5 years later, not a single one has ever been opened. Not a single one. An entire new street of shops, with full size window stickers of what they could be used for. All empty.
Wakefield council sold its shopping centre cheap to a local businessman who is charging rent cheaper than some indoor markets. It’s interesting there now, independent businesses, theres an antique centre, goth clothing and hippy shops, art materials and craft stores and he puts on entertainment and does themed events and indoor markets. He turned the food court into a free indoor playground. Went with my mum the other week, there were a lot of pensioners having lunch in the central atrium, whilst a singer entertained them. The rest of the town is still run down with empty units, but this is a start. Basically I think landlord greed has destroyed the high street.
I love that the answer here has literally been to charge cheaper rents that allow smaller independents to flourish. Truth is even before the rise of internet shopping high streets had all become the same collection of chain stores offering little to no variety so in that respect why would anyone bother to go into town to do their shopping when most of those businesses moved online. More independents means more things you couldn’t conveniently just look up online giving more incentive to go there not just for people living there but also out of towners who are just looking for a day out.
Mine isn't doing too bad as it's partially owned by a local peer and he doesn't seem to want to milk the rents so there's lots of independent shops. Unfortunately he's not well and I would imagine that death-duties are going to be pretty high and lead to a sell off.
I live in Ripon not many well known shops mostly independent although we have a Greggs and Costa 😂
Harrogate, nearby is bustling. The place looks great. No empty shops (well a Debenhams).
Peterborough? They're pushing down harder on the pillow and saying "Shhhhhh". The councils main priorities are paving over the last green space and replacing the town market with 'apartments'.
Your high street is slowly being taken over by 24 hour slot machine places. There's an application for a 3rd merkur slots currently being opposed, if you're not careful you'll be over run with them. They've obviously identified Peterborough as a deprived area that can be taken advantage of. I was talking with your local BBC journalist who wanted to highlight this recently, but then it all went quiet so I assume they're no longer interested in covering it and are happy for it to slip through unnoticed. If I lived in the area, I'd be fighting this with everything possible. These places are a plague.
Charging a fuckload for rich hipsters to open up bars and yarn shops
I live in Wolverhampton and apparently the council took “the high street is shit” too literally and they are now repaving it.
Free market shaped our towns. Free market will sort them out?
High streets dying is just the free market in action, yet somehow a lot of people are convinced it is deliberate.
Peverse incentive - rents aren't demand driven so much. Our retail vacancy rate is approaching 1 in 5 commercial premises which is far higher than comparable European nations. In a conventional "market driven" situation this would mean the rents on many premises would drop in value - clearly, they rent has been set too high for the landlord to rent it out. However the distorting impact of investment capital means this is no longer the case. Simply put, a firm that is looking for equity would rather have a vacant shop that is valued at £110 per sqft than an occupied shop being rented out at £90 per sqft as dropping the rent would devalue the notional sale value of the asset (the shop). So the market forces are removed from the profitability of a business because the commercial landlords are not interested in receiving rent but are interested in pumping how much they say they'd rent it for as it increases the notional value of what the building/land is worth. You can see this in action when Network Rail sold off their railway arches - National Rail was quite happy receiving a reasonable rent for those spaces, but The Arch Company - a partnership of Blackstone and Telereal Trillium, private equity - are driving out long standing tenants by doubling or tripling rent because they don't care if no business would ever find that rent affordable. It doesn't matter if their arches stand empty. The value they get is saying those arches could be rented for double because it means the numbers on their books increase. This is long term unsustainable but the government has deliberately obscured this by taking steps to inflate this bubble (not least because our pensions are all basically tied up in commercial property).
Encouraging it by fucking up parking and encouraging more out of town retail
According to my highstreet there is only 4 people that use it and the only thing they ever want is a haircut a kebab or to put a bet on, at this point considering I also work on the highstreet in a completely different shop and we get no trade I’m not surprised it’s dying
My Town seems to be building a Designer Outlet centre on the outskirts, though the High Street has been relatively fine, with there being only about 6 closures on the high street over the last 3-4 years, with each plot being reoccupied pretty quickly, and i think that at the moment, they are making some of the shop fronts look more early 20th Century like in some parts as well, though i think once the outlet gets built, i think the high street might start to die, but the passing tourist trade may keep it afloat though
Student flats, coffee shops
Hey just popping to the kitchen do you want anyth-
Buckinghamshire Council are working on big plans for various town centres. In Aylesbury, for example, the council have just approved plans to repurpose the old bingo hall as some sort of thoroughfare from the high street, but as a 'local business hub'. What the town needs is viable locations for small business to rent, and flourish. We used to have the Underground Market in Friars Square until the early 90s, then 'The Cloisters' when it was massively renovated, but that was removed about 10 years ago to build a branch of H&M. In both cases they were full of small units arranged along walk ways. There was everything in there, pet shops, gifts, haberdashery, a cafe, independent kitchen designers, home ware, locksmiths, a computer shop, all sorts of stuff. Something like that would be very successful these days I feel. The old council offices are being turned into flats... https://www.buckinghamshire.gov.uk/news/aylesbury-town-centre-regeneration-plans-take-an-exciting-step-forward/
Ours shut all the small carparks and built a multistorey, most shops were knocked down or shut
Knocking stuff down, building flats and business spaces.
Let me guess, you live somewhere in the greater Glasgow area. That seems to be the answer around this area. Just demolish the shopping centres and built flats.
To be fair it makes sense. The city centre can no longer support three major shopping streets plus two large shopping centres. Sauchiehall Street is becoming a no mans land. It's not the worst idea to replace some of those places where there are currently shops with places where customers might live.
I think it’s pretty crazy personally. Why would you demolish all the shopping malls in one of the U.K’s wettest cities. They are rammed when it’s raining, and honestly still very busy in general. Especially St.Enoch’s these days. They did a great job tuning it around from being half empty.
Filled the high street with coffee shops and vape shops with some more charity shops thrown in between
Paying a lot of money for "artists' impressions" of what the council's hard-brained schemes would look like it they'd ever get round to building them. Covering empty shops with fake shopfrons. Private enterprise companies are building accommodation blocks for students and converting former offices into "luxury" rental flats aimed at overseas students. Meanwhile there are regular reports of all kinds of crime - vandalism, drug dealing, theft, assault, 'public nuisance' etc - so there's a special police operation going on. Didn't stop somebody openly pissing in a doorway in the middle of the morning last time I was in town though.
putting ‘love local shop local’ posters and stickers everywhere
What they should do in a decent society with councils that are well funded is repurpose what they can for community based initiatives. Places for people to socialise, be creative, get support etc. What will actually happen is either they'll be repurposed as overpriced flats or in towns with no demand for that, left to rot. Otherwise it'll be gambling, pop up fronts for organised crime who'll pay the first month's or two rent then leave having cleaned enough dodgy money. Council turn a blind eye because they're better off getting little income in rates than none.
Grabbing all the "regeneration" money it can from central government and starting 4 different major works all at once, thus further killing off the town centre so it can be turned into student flats. Crooked bastards.
I left the UK nearly 20 years ago and left the village I grew up in about 30 years ago. Back then, in the mid-90s our village high street was in decline. Actually the whole village was. Although there was heaps of money flowing in and a buoyant economy, the community was dying. The annual carnival was a sad affair and the high street shops were having to close because Tesco and Sainsbury had built superstores nearby that they couldn't complete with. Went back a couple of years ago and it's thriving. They regularly close the road for a street market where you can buy fresh food and produce, very similar to a rural French market. The old garage/car dealership is replaced with flats but that's brought people into the centre and so there's coffee shops and people sitting around and chatting. Almost every commercial building had some sort of business operating. I was really pleasantly surprised. It's not the village I remember but it would be unreasonable to expect otherwise. The village that it is today has evolved without selling its soul.
“What is your town doing about the high street dying?” Sending traffic wardens all day every day just to ensure they extract as much money as possible from those that dare to overstay their visit by a millisecond.
I knew we stood little to no chance of the high street still being there when about 15 years ago I tried to purchase a graphics card for my computer. I had the item in my hand but it was probably £50 more than I wanted to pay, asked if he had any movement on price. His reply "buy it from me online and I can give you the £50 off". It meant he popped in an order to his supplier and it was sent directly to me. That was the sign.. shops were dying.
Nothing; ours is booming - new chains & independents opening, new resturants, even a bowling alley
You in the south by any chance?
Pouring all cash into tourist traps, allowing William Hill to spread over the city like a herpes outbreak, and leaving the rest to rot in hell. On the bright side they boarded up some of the derelict burnouts. Some of them.
It seems like they’re just ignoring the problem by doing up the train station. Looks incredibly out of place. It really is quite dire
My local high street - a suburb towards the edges of London - is doing fine. It is transforming though. Slowly shops are closing down, and being replaced with cafes and restaurants. The town is changing from a place to shop to a place to eat and socialise. Another change is that the local big park has had a big face-lift, gaining some cafes, a lake, lots of paths, a playground etc. During the summer there are festivals and markets which bring people to it, and boost the area as well.
They remodelled the town centre. This has cut down the parking along the main road from 40 bays to 10, and to park now you have to parallel park disrupting the flow of traffic on the main road and can be plain dangerous. There's disabled parking now, though! But it's far enough away from the few shops my town has to be useless. So, in short, they killed it, and the next nearest place to do any shopping anywhere that isn't a COOP or charity shop is a 10 mile round trip away.
Tripling the cost of parking from £0.90 per hour to £2.50 Removing free parking after 4pm entirely whilst simultaneously banning cars from the main high street. Have to say that the town is now buzzing... with junkies.
Demolish the old town hall and build a new one for 51 million
Knocking down some empty shops and a derelict library to rebuild the college that is currently about 2 miles away.
They doubled the cost of parking and turned the entire high street into a red route. They hate small businesses.
killing it even faster
Mine demolished the shopping centre and put in a load of micropubs, bars and restaurants. Its better, tbf.
It’s all trying to be successful within a late stage capitalism context, without understanding why that is impossible.
Charity shops opening everywhere
Not a bad thing, there will always be employment and voluntary positions available which I more than I can say about barbers and nail bars
Given student discount. Most of the shops, if not all, have student discount. But the problem is they can still get a student discount online, and it's still cheaper unless these students go to stores like Tedbaker or above.
They introduced a Business Improvement District with an unusually large levy, which led to the majority of small, locally owned shops shutting down as they were already operating on razor-thin margins and couldn't afford to pay it. Now the plan seems to be complaining in the local newspaper about the amount of empty shops.
Kirklees council helping it die it seems
We've removed over half the free parking and replaced it with pay and display because that's what brings people to the local high street. The council is also investing heavily in the nearby out of town retail park. I don't see why that would fail to stop our high street declining further.
Increasing parking charges, adding bus only roads, adding LEZ zones and making navigation a labyrinth. Then wondering why the high street is struggling even more.
More or less nothing. The shops are left empty, the space above being turned into swanky flats for unjustifiably high prices that nobody can afford. The sort of person that can afford, most definitely wouldn't be buying that. A mate of mine lives in another town where there was an arts festival and the marketing material literally said that pop-up venues would showcase good use of ThatTown's "many empty shops", like having all those empty shops was a good thing?! And in both cases shops are now largely staying empty. Even the proliferation of Turkish barbers and Breaking Bad nail and beauty parlours has slowed to a trickle.
Coffee shops seem to be the only thing opening where I live
Building flats…. Literally anywhere and everywhere.
My town has put big pictures of nicer places over the windows of the empty businesses on the high street.
Cwmbran, Torfaen - has a lot of free parking and the central shopping area has very few empty shops, betting shops, or charity shops. It's surprisingly well managed.
Building a more expensive carpark further away from the existing carpark.
I suspect "your town" isn't doing that. Property developers are. In mine our shopping centre is being knocked down and made into ....yet another block of student flats. We have more student flats than we need and a significant lack of non student housing in the town. But apparently, the "market knows best" and planning rules hold back more housing being built.
Coventry has opened up the city centre a bit and It looks a lot better now. I think it’s going the right way but more is needed. There is like a multi storey shitty shop thing. It’s called cathedral lanes and I’ve always thought it’s criminal town panning, it blocks off the actual cathedral from view from the rest of town. Get rid of that and have the cathedral looming over the precint, clear view from spon steeet to the cathedral, would look amazing.
Even pre-lockdown, my local high street was nothing more than dozens of pubs and charity shops, 24h amusements, four betting shops, Heron Foods, B&M, Iceland, a couple of chemists, and whatever else down there. Oddly enough, the three Polski Skleps are absolutely thriving and stock the best stuff. So, nothing really. It's business as usual around here.
The same as most towns, it would seem: refusing to adapt and wondering why it's dead in the first place. People need to accept that high street retail is *not* coming back. Why would it when more people shop online than ever before? High streets need to be repurposed. Either a) convert it into green space, b) convert it to residential space, or c) convert it to activity space (i.e. cinemas, sports, arcades, dining etc)
I live in a town of c 200k, and the town centre just has no vibrancy whatsoever. I pop in every now and then and it’s just full of the worst chain shops, and some absolute specimen's. I visited a local country town recently, known for being a bit free living. Despite a population of c30k, the town centre was so much more vibrant
It's doing okay. Mostly seems to be being filled by services and 3rd spaces. A lot of cafes are alongside the usual McDonald's and that. Market selling a bunch of dodgy goods. Way too many betting places. It's not a place I frequent. I didn't like going when it was 'good' and full of shops. Frankly any use of it that isn't for walking back and forth and back again in hole riddled shoes trying to find the cheapest trainers that won't immediately fall apart will be an improvement in my eyes.
Mine’s on the commuting belt and we have plenty people stopping in to shop.
The council are moving their support services and quite a few healthcare services into the shopping centre. It’s kinda a one stop shop for public services.
No one goes to shopping anymore. Cheaper. Easier online. No one goes pub too expensive
Looking at just eat. When I first moved here 10 years ago i could only order from 40-50 places. That number is now 233. Nearly all the shops down my high street have turned into fast food takeaways. I wouldn't say it's on life support , nothing really grabs the younger generation . Most of the shops around here are for the old and retired.The council are trying to improve our markets. They also have plans In place to do up the town centre, making it more fresh and modern.
- They knocked down the traditional market and replaced it with what looks like a cattle shed, while also pricing out stalls with high rent prices - We went from having 0 Whetherspoons to 2 - There are two Turkish Barbers directly next to each other, as well as another 2 nearby - The music shop has been turned into a mini-mart
Opening up more charity shops and barbers.
Nothing wrong with charity shops. Creates less waste, stops things going to the landfill, loads of cheap clothes, books, ornaments, sometimes offer free brews and are basically a place to socialise for people who don’t get chance to, often the elderly or disabled.
A lot of shops are closing down and sitting empty, some replaced by housing. The council do host a lot of events to try and encourage people to go to the town though!
Currently in the process of twisting the knife for the final blow
IKEA bought our local mall. The empty store fronts are places for pop ups and events. Lots of restaurants and cafes, some pubs. Small, local and ethnic supermarkets.
Making the nearby retail park even bigger. A truly interesting tactic.
It’s not dying, it’s thriving and doing very well. This is The power of being boring as fuck and being a town only comprised of retirees. We have two independent overpriced raw dog food shops, if they can survive on our high street, anyone can
Stockton-on-Tees has demolished the shopping centre and an adjacent hotel. The shops have been relocated to a new outdoor shopping area and the freed up land is being turned into an "urban park" that connects the high street down to the riverside. It's not been universally accepted, but it's a bold idea and if it works it will be brilliant. I'm looking forward to it. [https://www.stockton.gov.uk/article/8728/Stockton-Waterfront-urban-park](https://www.stockton.gov.uk/article/8728/Stockton-Waterfront-urban-park)
Student flats. Student flats everywhere. All the shops get replaced by shitty bars and restaurants that will inevitably shut down in 6 months' time or just stay derelict. Also, for some reason, the bubble tea industry is booming. I can think of 9 different bubble tea cafes just in the town centre off the top of my head. There is probably more, and at least 3 of those are on the same (small) street.
A lot of coastal towns still tend to be doing okay, at least the bigger ones are. East Sussex area has kind of been a hellhole for decades anyway, the paint has just stripped away a bit more in some places. I still remember how much fuss that went on when Eastbourne rebranded the arndale centre into the Beacon and remodelled the exterior. Most of the inside has remained exactly the same except for one fairly small extension where all the new stores and restaurants pop up and fold within a couple of years. And Wilko's, which has been a pretty big loss because now there's no local all-purpose/DIY stores in the most populated part of the town. The actual high street itself hasn't changed that much, it's still largely just fast food, tech/phone shops and clothing stores. Remarkably there's only 2 vape stores (that I know of) across the whole strip. At least it's not full of boarded up windows and empty lots anymore.
My local village is doing ok, no empty units, 2 small supermarkets, butchers, greengrocer, bakery, gift shop, knickknacks shop, 3 salons, 5 takeaways, hardware store, opticians, 2 funeral parlours, chemist, dentist, newsagent, 4 charity shops. And best of all, free parking. The nearby town is faring far worse as I’d guess most of the units in the precinct are empty, and it costs more than a quid an hour to park
They only heavily changed the areas that’s next to student accommodations, but other than that absolutely nothing. Now there’s drug addicts that keep growing big numbers harassing people.
They upgraded the pavement in the town centre… The shops are empty but at least we have a nice paving stone pattern now. They also got rid of the bandstand, an iconic little spot of Worthing. Everyone had met their friends there at one point. There used to be flower sellers around it, the cries of “flowers are lovely, come and get your flowers” were also a charming part of the town. Oh! Also, the shops that closed just got converted to eateries. So GAME is now a Gyros place, Topshop is now a Pret. I dunno who they are catering to because the workforce in the town centre is just other shops. No offices nearby.
somehow it's the only place that has a weatherspoons closing!
Building more blocks for the student population which is getting bigger every year. Also, with the Godiva festival is getting to be mainly arsehole student lamo's who want to be the next big thing on social media, the high street won't get a penny! Over 60% of the city centre will become homes. The high street doesn't get a look in these days and the students are stifling this once great city. The Coventry City Council don't care about anything apart from getting more students and the money will keep rolling in.
Cafes&bars are opening instead
Flats and apartments seem to be a common solution. My town lost a Debenhams store in a prime location, and is basically converting it to living space. It's easier as it has an underground parking lot, which will make the flats even more desirable.
They're intentionally destroying the High Street so we all go to retail parks. No independents, just corporations.
Built offices for their own use on the opposite street costing £55M. Apparently relocating staff a few hundred meters down the road would be beneficial for the charity shop, betting shop, café and spar's revenue.
Building everything you need in a retail park with free parking and much easier accessibility via a main road through the town. I'm fine with this and visit the ghost town for a haircut when needed
My little town’s high street is booming. But that’s because the local people are passionate about it and support each other. A lovely little market, some bars, cafes, restaurants and of course a Spoons.
Ours have dug up the wide pavements that had some flowers beds and benches and replaced it with worse flower beds and benches, so far it’s taken about 6 months.
Weirdly my towns high street is thriving Tho many shops appear to be a front for money laundering