Your local High St.

Our village high street has a proper post office, 2 independent butchers (one has won almost every butchery award going), 2 independent greengrocers, a fabulous deli, a wine shop, 3 banks, a Doctor's surgery, a Dentist, a Chiropodist, a beauty salon/spa, a physio/acupuncture clinic, a fairly large Co-op, 2 hairdessers, 4 charity shops (2 of them are local charities), 2 chemists, a Poundstretcher (I hate it, it looks very wrong in our village), a carpet shop, four estate agents, three solicitor's offices, a photographer's studio, two pubs, three independent coffee shops, (one is a Tea Guild Afternoon Tea award winner) health/homeopathic shop, and a library which is now only open for 15 hours per week (our councillors are all semi literate idiots)!
We have an out of town retail park nearby with Asda, Argos, M&S, Mothercare, Next, Boots, Subway, McD's, etc, but we tend to use our high street for almost everything. I feel very much that it's a case of use it or lose it!

Our 'high street' is awful. Pound shops and charity shops. Even the weekly market has got smaller. I tend to do my shopping online or visit the next town. I don't like these enormous supermarkets. I've also just discovered boxed fresh food with recipes. For 3 days a week I don't have to think what to have to eat - it's all in the box and the recipes are really easy to follow. Saves on petrol, saves on time and saves my sanity

Not really a high street but we have a small parade of shops about a 5 minute walk away with a butcher, greengrocer, baker, chemist, hardware supplier and a convenience store. I do try and use them although the greengrocer is a lot more expensive than Tesco which I use for a big shop. But for a couple of items it's not worth getting the car out. A few years ago we had really bad snow and these shops were a a lifeline. A few of them had notices in the windows afterwards saying they were pleased to be there for emergencies and they hoped people wouldn't forget them in good weather which I think is a fair comment.

We bought our washing machine from a local shop and found out later it was £100 cheaper at Currys. We also had a new kitchen put in by a local kitchen shop. It was disaster. They didn't use qualified electricians or plumbers, just their mates who had a go! A lot has gone wrong with the kitchen and the company has gone out of business. The only shops I support now are the charity shops!

Our high street "died" when two new out of town shopping malls opened. All we have are boarded up shops and charity shops. The only reason I go into town is to visit the M&S outlet and bank once a week. We have a beautiful Abbey, but nothing else for people to visit. It is such a shame, as it used to be a very vibrant town.

We live in a small village just south of a town. From reading the comments above, I realise we are very lucky. We have a good butcher in the next village plus a much bigger (and expensive) butcher in the town who also has fresh fish from Cornwall. ?There are two Farm shops oin adjacent villages which we use regularly. Many people say it is expensive but how can smaller shops compete with mega supermarkets. The town has an Italian deli and cafe/restaurant run by the same family for the last 25 years which is wonderful. They make their own bread and buns and many gransnetters would recognise the real doughnuts as they used to be years ago. We even have a hardware shop and a proper haberdashers with curtain material and all the usual odds and ends. The surgery is also very good and in the next village too. We have lived here for 30 years and although the garden is getting to be a struggle how on earth could we replicate what we have here. I use the local shops regularly and top up in Waitrose in Melksham, occasionally having a day out in Salisbury to see the grandchildren and the big Waitrose there is excellent.
My neighbour complains that the local shops are expensive, I disagree as I put quality first. She challenged me back in the summer to write down all our meals for a month and what we spent on food. She was gobsmacked to find out that I spent about £15 less than her! I have yet to convert her to the village butcher but I do what my Mum did, make every scrap of food count.

Do you know you can't buy knickers in Keswick. Recently, our GS was sent on holiday with us without clean underwear, so had to spend frustrating morning trying to buy boy's pants in the Lakes.
I can no longer be bothered with the High St.. There is little choice and poor value for money. I buy everything (except a few cheapies from Primark) online. Even TKMaxx are online and the old man (a right dinosaur)has discovered that Aldi will now deliver wine. Mind you, we live in the sticks.

I would agree that there is no longer a town centre in the way it used to be.
Our little town has a very small collection of shops which are sufficient for survival but as there is very little parking it is well nigh impossible to use. We use the local shops for emergencies or the odd thing as in the hardware shop where they will sell you a couple of fixings instead of us having to buy a whole packet of them.
I do most of my shopping online as it requires much less energy!

I live in London and my local high street also does not sell knickers or tights. I think that there are at least 8-9 hair/beauty salons, betting shops, many Asian grocers, Sainsburys, a Pound shop, estate agents but they are fading. The latest is a beautiful fish shop- I hope that he does well. The butcher packed up years ago. There is an excellent Indian restaurant but they do not do home deliveries, a Nandos, Costa and that is about it. I travel a bit further, 2 miles where there is a parade of shops such as Sainsburys, Currys, Aldi DFS, TX mxx and others.

I live in a small town on the edge of Dartmoor which does still have a greengrocer, butcher, deli (fab cheese), small Tesco & Co-op. P.O. is now in Spar shop but I use a small P.O./general store at the end of my road which has local fruit & veg (more expensive? but good quality & I just buy what I need every few days). Also have Doctors Surgery, 2 chemists, pubs, cafes, few charity shops, hairdressers, fish & chip shop, new Distillary (can't wait for tours to start), & a few Tourist orientated shops which locals also visit. It's quite a vibrant town with lots going on for the local community. Nearly forgot a monthly farmers market.

I do have my main shop delivered by Tesco but that is for heavy items to save me having to carry them (cat food, tins, cleaning & laundry products etc)

I can understand the social need to get out and shop and think maybe the way forward is to "seed" residential amongst retail.
I think to put McCarthy Stone type places and "batchelor" pads along the High St., might work.

I rarely go to my local high street. It is full of coffee shops and high priced clothes shops with several estate agents thrown in for good measure. We used to have Sainsbury, Dorothy Perkings, Dollis, a toy shop and a bookshop but that was long ago.

I live an equal number of miles away from three towns, but all of them have independant shops such as jewellers/bookshops/coffee shops and I can spend a long time in one of those towns ( Witney, Oxfordshire) as it has a lot of shops in which you can find just about anything you want, and is a very attractive place to wander around.
Sometimes we go a bit further out, to Burford, which is even more attractive( a bit clogged with tourists ) and has a wealth of little independent shops to enjoy tootling around.

Here in our seaside outpost of a Scottish city we're fortunate to have, in no particular order: several hairdressers, Boots, another pharmacy, local butcher, Greggs, two delis, card shop/newsagents, wine merchants, a few good charity shops, some shops selling gifts etc of no particular use, 3 estate agents/ solicitors, Fatface, an indoor market type place with fish stall, greengrocer & various gift/craft stalls, clothes boutique, two general stores,hardware shop... and a number of coffee shops catering for all tastes from the chintzy to the aspiring hipster. All kept trading by an influx of visitors from the city and beyond as well as locals. I walk down - usually via the beach - most days to top up weekly supermarket shop, but it's generally really to make a reason for the walk. I feel very lucky to be able to do this after reading the foregoing posts.

Ah Roses. You are so fortunate to live in the Cotwolds. It's all so lovely with beautiful country town shopping. We are going to the Blenheim Palace Lit Fest tomorrow and staying in Woodstock.

Have a great time Beam when you return, tell us a bit about the festival, and who you went to see giving a talk.We always buy an annual pass to Blenheim, for the walks and for any exhibitions .

I'm in a London suburb and my nearest high street has a run down scruffy Tesco, which I no longer use, a Superdrug, Boots, Argos, and Iceland. Otherwise it is pound shops, a few stalls, food shops for African, Asian and East European customers, charity shops, betting shops, estate agents, banks, money/loan shops, Greggs and one bakers. There is Specsavers but obviously I only need that occasionally and I've never seen anyone else paying there - everyone else says they are on benefits for free specs.
My next nearest high street is very different. It has a small Sainsburys, Boots, W H Smith and gastro pubs, restaurants and gift shops, along with charity shops and one bank.
I most often shop in the out of town centre with a large Sainsbury's, Next, Curry's, Sports direct and B&Q. My main shopping is on line.
All three of these are around one mile from me.

I live in a busy area of London and I have to travel in various directions for shops such as John Lewis,Debenhams, Wilkinsons, Homebase etc. Not one area (that I have yet found) has everything, as the old High Streets used to have. There is a wide range of small shops fronting a bus route that is only 5 minutes walk away and along with the numerous hair and beauty shops, newsagents, off-licences, chemists, pubs, restaurants etc etc, there are various independents, funeral parlour, Planet Organic, excellent butcher, top-class fishmonger and a taxidermist!

radicalnan - Glastonbury is my home town, although I haven't lived there for a long time. I still have family there. None of them into the crystals & fairies lol.

My local high street is the King's Road and yes I do use it - favourite shops Waitrose and Peter Jones.

Swanny is your taxidermist 'Get Stuffed'? My sister lives near there!

oooooooh Riverwalk my friends and I wandered up and down the Kings Road on Saturdays when we were teenagers not to buy anything of course, well we couldn't, lack of funds but it was enough just to be there, never knew who we could have seen. It was the '60s!

I really like my local high street it's got better and better, although sadly we no longer have an independent butcher or greengrocer. Now it's awash with coffee shops, there weren't any when I was a young mum, only restaurants, so we had to go to play groups for our coffees or round each others houses. We have a newly opened Cote, a newly opened Sainsbury Metro a large Marks and Spencers (food only) but big enough for their coffee shop. Several smart clothes shops, a lovely Italian coffee shop and a French one that sells French pastries, A yuppies heaven brunch place where people with too much money take their under fives for boiled egg and soldiers chocca at week-ends, We also have an Indian, Lebanese, Thai, and Italian restaurant plus Carluccios. A super pharmacist called Saleem, better than the doctor we go to his shop for our prescriptions and is excellent port of call for ailment advice. He's now bought the shop next door which now encompasses a dental practice as well, it's quite a dynasty but serves the community well everyone goes to him for their medications rather than the inpersonal Boots down the road. A good hairdressers who have also have bought next door for childrens' haircuts called predictably "Mini Me" Then we have a Waterstones and the usual run of estate agents and a large nasty American multi national coffee shop that I do my best to avoid. The second part of the high street divided by a hump back bridge. This end has a newly opended Nandos, Pizza Express, Costa Coffee, Cafe Nero, Tescos, Boots, WH Smiths, some more independent coffee shops, bakers, deli etc. At one time we lived in a road just off the high street but moved just over a mile away and are now nearer our very large town which has John Lewis and Waitrose a big Marks and loads of newly developed restaurants on the banks of the Thmaes but we prefer our local high street at the week-end as our local town is heaving.

Our village is too small to relly have a high Street, but we do have a good selection of small shops, plus a medium size Tesco. It is the footfall and parking created by Tesco that makes it worthwhile for the small shops, butchers, bakers, hardware, jewelers, chemist etc.

Maldon is 6 miles from us and has a real old world High street with a good selection of interesting shops including M&Co

use mine all the time, we have 2 chemist, small co-op, greengrocer, (no candlestick maker !) hardware store, 3 hairdressers, 2 barbers,betting shop, florist,pet shop, art studio, deli, 2 independent mini markets and a spar with a new post office,small council office,library, 2chinese takeaways and the best charity shop in the world, every local club, society school etc gets a week in the shop to raise funds, it's a brilliant idea. Now that i have written the last i have just realised how fantastic our high street is.

Terribull I also went to the Kings Road at the weekends, in the 60s. My school uniform was available in Peter Jones! I remember persuading my mother to let me buy a dress from 'Granny Takes aTrip' do you remember the shop?

Although we've been Tesco'd our little market town seems to be bearing up surprisingly well. We have most of what we need - doctors, opticians, dentists, solicitors DIY, etc plus all independent food shops and eateries, but no shoe shop and little men's wear. I've only been in Tesco once and then they didn't have what I went in for. Tesco has made the local traders sit up and fight back and shoppers are responding and using them. The locally sourced meat especially is much better value and we're now a Slow Food Town. It's not a good place to stay slim!