Vocal Voices

I see that M&S and Debenhams are shutting some stores. These follow the loss of Budgens, BHS and Jaeger ... to name but a very few of many.

Cities, in general, appear to be able to ride out these losses, but towns, even big ones, never seem to recover. Otley, an old mill town just north of Leeds, has lost all its national 'names' apart from Boots, Waitrose, Sainsbury's and Asda. Its main street is now mainly a mix of charity shops, booze outlets and takeaways. It is a shame, it really is.

Otley, however, is lucky(?) that it has Leeds on its doorstep for big-ticket puchases and for employment opportunities; other places are in dire straits. People in places in more rural areas with no nearby city must be worried sick. Not everywhere can reinvent themselves or rely on tourism for survival.

Workingman wrote:Its main street is now mainly a mix of charity shops, booze outlets and takeaways.

Exact description of Sleaford.

Online shopping, out of town trading estates and senseless council business taxes in the town have driven this.

Same here it's dire we have a small m/s
By the harbour a young look and couple of dress shops small boots and Tesco morrisons and currys out of town it's charity shops really just basically for holiday makers
I h ave to do all my shopping online I have no option

That's a shame about Otley, I used to go there to see a friend (she lives right opposite Waitrose) and I was only saying to John the other day that it was a lovely little town centre. Sounds like it's gone the way of all others now.

Here in Cannock even two charity shops and one of those short term loan/cheque clearance shops have closed. I know I mentioned a while ago that our Wilko was closing due to a rent increase. That closed at the end of last month so there's now a massive unit standing empty with no rent being paid. Surely the sensible thing to do would've been to keep the rent at the lower rate so that there was some money coming in. There are rumours that Boots is going too.

Here we have a proper High st, no indoor shopping centres.
There is an M&S food hall (some clothes and homeware), right at the top, a Boots about halfway down. A Clarks shop, New Look, Superdrug and Peacocks, a Greggs. Subway right down the bottom.
A Tesco express, Costa and another coffee shop.
Other than those it's all independent shops and smaller franchises like White Stuff and Saltrock.
It's nice, you have to walk up and down the hill...not so nice in bad weather of course
Plus the market on Saturdays, with lots of local businesses/small traders, from artists to bakers and furniture makers.

In Gillingham / Shaftesbury and the surrounding small towns, there aren't any proper M&S stores, just food outlets in Blandford and Frome. There's a single Boots and a single WH Smiths (both in Shaftesbury). If you want High Street chain stores, you're really looking at Yeovil or Salisbury (both around 25 miles away) or Poole / Dorchester (about 35 miles). The Budgens in Shaftesbury closed suddenly a few weeks back, it's just an empty building now; that leaves Shaftesbury with just a Tescos. In Gillingham, we have 4 supermarkets - Lidl, Iceland, Asda, Waitrose, (and Aldi seeking planning permission at a site on the outskirts). The Co-op suffered a fire about 4 years ago apparently, closed and the building remains empty. Gillingham High Street is pretty dead - estate agents, charity shops, takeaways, one independent butcher we support when we can, and similarly an independent hardware store, but interestingly we do have a thriving Costa and a Poppins (café chain). Shaftesbury is more touristy and consequentially has more eclectic independent outlets.

However the biggest worry in this neck of the woods is the High Street banks. Around us, Wincanton, Stalbridge and Sturminster Newton are all set to lose their last banks by the end of the year. These are all reasonably sized small towns, around 6,000 to 12,000 inhabitants. Whatever happened to the pledge never to close "the last bank in town"? In Gillingham we have Lloyds and the TSB - but the TSB are actively monitoring "footfall" into their branch ..... Thankfully Shaftesbury still seems to have all the major High Street banks for now, even if some of them are reducing their hours of opening.

Over in Shepton Mallet, which has already lost all its banks, the Nationwide are looking to move in and open a branch to compensate. Folk are hoping this will be successful and encourage Nationwide to open in the other towns now losing their banking services. Of course the banks say "more people are using online services" - a prime example of a self-fulfilling prophesy ....

It is rather a cruel irony that doing "stuff" online, which was part of the problem but not all of it, is now part of the solution for many people.

What is a convenience for many of us has now become an essential service in some parts of the country. Saundra's shopping springs to mind.

I think we just have to accept that Internet shopping is going to take over to an even greater extent,
and eventually High Street Shopping will become a thing of the past.

I think that out of town shopping centres and trading estates have been killing the town centre for decades. Internet shopping was just the knife in the heart of a dying animal.

We've got a huge designer outlet mall being built soon, just two miles from us and right on the edge of the town centre. Money is being made available for town centre regeneration and the hope is that it'll make the town a more attractive prospect for smaller business and shoppers. Obviously the mall won't be in direct competition with the shops in town - Poundland v Ralph Lauren??
It's going to be quite an interesting time. Unemployment is quite high around here but the outlet mall will create thousands of jobs, I think it's going to have around 130 units...but seeing many of those who are unemployed, without sounding too snobby, they're not the type that the designer stores would look to employ.