The demise of town centres

There’s a similar shop just outside Newcastle, on Gosforth a High Street, called Thorpes. We always say if you can’t get ‘it’ there, then ‘it’ hasn’t been invented yet.

My town centre is absolutely thriving. I think because it offers what people - of all ages - need and want.

The shop with the most footfall - sometimes it's so packed you can't get in - is the hardware shop. It sells a jumble of a bit of everything, a real Aladdin's Cave of a shop. Anything from items that the modern DIY / builder / tradesman might want, to some old-fashioned ceramic and enamel cookware. Lots of stuff is on display outside the shop - it's reminiscent of those photo's you see of shops in Victorian times - with the assistants standing outside in their long aprons.

I sometimes go in for something that my partner wants for his DIY projects (his disability prevents him from going in himself) and come out laden with all kinds of things that I didn't know I needed.

Our town centre is dire. Closed up shops, and the pigeons have taken roost in the awnings, with no-one to clean up the droppings.

The retail industry has changed so much. Unless you are a tourist town, small downtown shops do not offer enough variety and competitive pricing in order to stay viable.

In years gone by, you went to the grocer, the butcher, the baker, stopped in to look at the book store, and a newsagent to get a paper and some treats. Now all of that can be done in one large shop.

You are so right Galaxy. I’d only gone into the City for a face to face at my Bank.
There are still plenty of cafe/bars, packed out by the more affluent students.

My nearest city is full of empty shops. What was once an attractive place is now dull and a bit seedy. And, believe it or not, another shopping centre is planned not far from the outskirts of the city. The planners must need their brains tested.

Our town is looking more and more like a ghost town. We`ve lost M & S, plus a locally owned department store, when shops close they`re replaced with phone shops or charity shops. One street, one of the main streets in the town, is like walking into a foreign country, every building is an E.European shop or cafe, plus more dotted around town.

I live near a small market town, which is in a tourist area. It hasn’t succumbed to many major stores - we have Boots, WH Smith and Peacocks, but also a plethora of mountain wear shops (6 I think), and at least 10 cafes. However, we still have local butchers, bakers and independent shops too, there aren’t many empty shops at all. Still the locals moan.

I agree it is use it or lose it but I don’t think the town centres themselves do enough to encourage people to visit. I’ve just visited my ds in America for the first time in four years and was again reminded of the high level of customer service offered there, with plentiful attentive staff, well-stocked shelves and longer opening hours, supplemented with convenient and free parking.

Contrast that with my local town where a campaign of many years duration has been conducted against cars but also bus stops have been removed from convenient situations. A lack of staffing (Boots now has just the one till for both prescriptions and OTC medicines, so it takes an age to get served) and poor stock in the shops also deters one from going into town.

All the big stores apart from M&S have closed and they have such a limited range that even if you wanted to kit yourself out there for a wedding, say, you’d be hard pushed to get all you wanted.

I’ve kind of accepted now that this is the future and there’s no point any more in fighting it.

We live a couple of miles from our local city centre. My husband, age 93, cannot walk very far at all. We only go into the city centre if we have to. Even with a disabled badge parking is dire and the pedestrian zone with bollards has now expanded to stop cars actually getting anywhere near most shops or restaurants. The new library has street parking for about half a dozen cars and is not in an area I am happy to walk through. There is also a lack of seating outdoors apart from near the cathedral. The council killed the market off and got rid of it.
On the other hand a small town in the other direction has cheap/free later in the day parking next to the shops, mostly independent, and does thriving business. It also has a good market. Unfortunately the library there, on the edge of a car park, closed down for refurbishment and never reopened.

I rarely visit my local town other than for the opticians, hospital and dentist. Went in yesterday for a letter box from a wonderful old family hardware shop, still flourishing and also to Boots to buy their serum. Bought the wrong one because no assistant to advise me; the only ones to be found were trapped behind tills dealing with long queues, so means a return trip to exchange.
I am sure the closure of shops will mean less retail trade, as people are inspired to buy items they didn't know they wanted needed until they saw an attractive display or a demonstration on the shop floor. Looking online doesn't have the same appeal, and magazines are fewer, more expensive and less appealing, to me at any rate.

We need to factor in Climate change too.
Millions of car journeys to OOT malls can't be good for the planet but neither are all the delivery vans.
It would be interesting to know the statistics.

Amazon has a lot to answer for. In my local book shop I regularly see people looking at books and then getting their phones out and ordering from Amazon. I wouldn’t mind so much if they paid their workers decent money and their taxes! I make a deliberate effort not to support Bezo.

Doodledog

But if people are not using town centres why should they be preserved? I find these discussions to be the tail wagging the dog, really. High Streets die because people shop online. People shop online because it is convenient and they are busy. Why is the answer to that to encourage them back to the centres instead of changing the use of high streets to something people do want? Town centres could be community hubs, with social spaces instead of everything centring on retail and consuming. We could zone them, so that shops are in one area, arts in another and sport somewhere else, and subsidise transport links between them. Or something different altogether. There are all sorts of possibilities if we stop thinking in terms of shopping, which seems to have had its day. The worst thing we can do is sit back and watch while nobody rents retail space and just let it decline. We need councils to show some initiative and improve things.

You need to be on a local or even regional Council.
All you say is common sense. It does make you wonder where the Councils get their ideas from and do they personally live in the town. I know a Councilor who lived in a beautiful house in the country his local Market town is a ghost one.

Use it or lose it is all very well but our town centre is not worth visiting. Cheap card shops. Phone shops. Fast food outlets. Etc etc. and a few dreary shops and dreary people. Very sad
I was in Cheltenham for a visit last weekend. That has a lovely vibrant shopping centre.

Grammaretto

It has been declining for decades but rapidly lately.
Our small town centre is a ghost town you wonder where everyone is!
There are 20k people here apparently but you only see a crowd if Santa is visiting or Gala Day.
I shop locally and we have a home grown community store where I volunteer once a week.
This and the other part volunteer run arts centre cafe and a paper heritage museum opening its doors this weekend, are a saviour.
There are very few what I would call real shops.
The Council allow betting shops, vape shops, Turkish barbers, nail bars, restaurants, hairdressers galore.
The businesses get the first 6 months rates free I think, so they open for a short time and then close down.

Sounds like our local town, so many empty shops too.

The government needs to rethink charging business rates to retail shops, when online retailers don't pay. They need to level up the playing field.

If I start thinking about my town shopping centre I only become depressed. Long gone are the clothing retail outlets , many of the shoe shops, small boutiques good old M@S also Debenhams the bustling market always busy Thursday until
Saturday and a good florist. All now gone and only boarded up windows and loads of chicken take away shops and one McDonalds so there is little point in going to my High Street,
One section where there were still a few shops is now marked up for bull dozing so they can build flats on it.
My High Street shopping centre is well and truly dead.

We need to re-think town centres, perhaps along the lines of what LauraNorder mentions.

Residential on the upper floors, artisan-type shops and eateries below which are open from lunchtime until late evening so that the people living above (and perhaps working during the day) can make use of them.

Town centres don't need to die, they need to change.

If town centre shopping was wanted it would still be here.

John Prescott once suggested that the areas above town centre shops could be made into attractive residential spaces for say the over fifties or younger childless people. Thus a customer base for small cafes, bookshops, individual clothing and small food shops. This in turn would free up the larger suburban homes with gardens for families.
The next generation are even more likely than us to shop on line or out of town so thinking of using town centre space differently is the way forward.

Our town centre is awful now, only big chain left is Next and even they have a bigger, better store out of town. Personally I prefer the OOT stores, easy parking, more choice and, here at least, well served by bus routes. The town centre is half empty, even the bookies and charity shops are closing, replaced by bars and restaurants. We do have easy access by road and rail (ha ha) to Manchester and Liverpool where there are better shopping opportunities. Personally I would rather sit on an ants nest than go shopping anywhere, but that”s just me.

I agrée Doodledog I’d also like to see more empty retail units turned into desperately needed housing.
This in turn would create demand for smaller cultural, leisure and some retail offerings.

It's no different here in Germany. Every day there is news of another big, well established and often over hundred-year-old chain of shops going bust and the gaping empty shop windows in the town centres are on the increase.

Some shop windows are being used for art displays, many premises are now barbers, nail salons or shisha bars. Some people open cafés. Charity shops are just not a thing here, so that's not an option. I live in a fairly small town, but you also see these empty shops in the larger towns.

However, last November we went to Trier and it was lovely to see actual clothes shops, toy shops and displays of household linen and china. I could have spent an afternoon pottering if DH hadn't been with me. We did get some lovely Christmas presents in one toy shop.

As doodle probably knows I agree completely with her on this . Town centres arent some sort of charity that I need to support. I dont go into rubbish restaurants because I feel sorry for them or want to keep them.

But if people are not using town centres why should they be preserved? I find these discussions to be the tail wagging the dog, really. High Streets die because people shop online. People shop online because it is convenient and they are busy. Why is the answer to that to encourage them back to the centres instead of changing the use of high streets to something people do want? Town centres could be community hubs, with social spaces instead of everything centring on retail and consuming. We could zone them, so that shops are in one area, arts in another and sport somewhere else, and subsidise transport links between them. Or something different altogether. There are all sorts of possibilities if we stop thinking in terms of shopping, which seems to have had its day. The worst thing we can do is sit back and watch while nobody rents retail space and just let it decline. We need councils to show some initiative and improve things.

It has been declining for decades but rapidly lately.
Our small town centre is a ghost town you wonder where everyone is!
There are 20k people here apparently but you only see a crowd if Santa is visiting or Gala Day.
I shop locally and we have a home grown community store where I volunteer once a week.
This and the other part volunteer run arts centre cafe and a paper heritage museum opening its doors this weekend, are a saviour.
There are very few what I would call real shops.
The Council allow betting shops, vape shops, Turkish barbers, nail bars, restaurants, hairdressers galore.
The businesses get the first 6 months rates free I think, so they open for a short time and then close down.