The decline of town centres

[Bletchleyite]

From https://www.railforums.co.uk/threads/eu-referendum-the-result-and-aftermath.132044/page-417

And leaving the EU will HELP to recover our town centres? Brexit won't, a Tory government won't, a Labour government probably won't, I don't think even Thunderbirds can save our towns. But as long as Rees-Mogg and his mates spend, spend and more spend in Harrods then that's fine, I suppose.

I don't think town centres can be saved in their present form. After all, out of town supermarkets and Amazon etc have taken a massive bite out of the kind of shopping that used to be done there, while the citizens of Bolton might well enjoy a Saturday out to Manchester or the Trafford Centre (not by Northern train of course!) if they do want a fix of chain store shopping.

To me, the future of small to medium town centres would be a mixture of residential, entertainment (both involving alcohol and not) and small shops, plus perhaps the likes of Tesco Express, Budgens, Sainsburys Local etc for those living there to walk to. But that will need a big shift in terms of reducing rents (and creating smaller premises) to allow such small businesses to set up and thrive.

The funny thing is that this is what the "local centres" in London are by and large already like.

 

[cactustwirly]

From https://www.railforums.co.uk/threads/eu-referendum-the-result-and-aftermath.132044/page-417



I don't think town centres can be saved in their present form. After all, out of town supermarkets and Amazon etc have taken a massive bite out of the kind of shopping that used to be done there, while the citizens of Bolton might well enjoy a Saturday out to Manchester or the Trafford Centre (not by Northern train of course!) if they do want a fix of chain store shopping.

To me, the future of small to medium town centres would be a mixture of residential, entertainment (both involving alcohol and not) and small shops, plus perhaps the likes of Tesco Express, Budgens, Sainsburys Local etc for those living there to walk to. But that will need a big shift in terms of reducing rents (and creating smaller premises) to allow such small businesses to set up and thrive.

The funny thing is that this is what the "local centres" in London are by and large already like.

By making them attractive to the consumer, and by taxing online companies like Amazon in the same way as high street retailers.
That said it is evolving, with more coffee shops, cinemas, barbers, nail salons etc, than traditional shops

 

[Bletchleyite]

By making them attractive to the consumer, and by taxing online companies like Amazon in the same way as high street retailers.

But is that desirable? I don't find chain store shopping in the slightest bit enjoyable, and prefer the idea of spending one afternoon doing all my Christmas shopping using Amazon etc. But if I did want to go chain store shopping, I'd go to a large town centre or shopping mall, not the mediocre scaled-down selection of such stores in a small town, and enjoy the whole day out. I do agree the taxation situation needs sorting out, but it wouldn't stop me using Amazon, as well as supermarket delivery. I am simply not going to go into town to purchase things I can more conveniently obtain online. But I will go into town to do things I can't do online.

That said it is evolving, with more coffee shops, cinemas, barbers, nail salons etc, than traditional shops

That is the way it will go in my view. The kinds of service that cannot be provided online - and are often provided by small businesses. There is of course also a crossover - a small specialist shop in a small unit in a town centre might also be selling online via Amazon, eBay, Etsy or indeed their own website.

 

[DarloRich]

I don't think town centres can be saved in their present form

they can change to offer something else and/or more specialized or "boutique"

 

[Bletchleyite]

they can change to offer something else and/or more specialized or "boutique"

Yes, this is precisely my point. Small businesses, boutique shops, market stalls, places to meet like coffee shops and bars, and some fast food. Add in some residential and a Tesco Express or similar (and maybe even a butcher, baker and proverbial candlestick maker) and you're pretty much there.

And that's what town centres used to be and could be once again. The small-town chain store is in my eyes a bit of a blip, and not really in the great scheme of things a particularly good one. I really don't quite see why some people seem to mourn its passing.

 

[Andrew S]

a small specialist shop in a small unit in a town centre might also be selling online via Amazon, eBay, Etsy or indeed their own website.

Also, some smaller local convenience stores now act as drop off/collection points for online purchases, drawing a (perhaps small) revenue stream but also bringing footfall to the store which might otherwise go to the out of town supermarket.

 

[Howardh]

Q; up in my parts, why is Bury a booming town with a market to die for...yet Bolton 6 miles away is total disaster area? Not been to Wigan for years - what's that like?

Bury has the same issues as Bolton....out of town shopping centres, parking spaces/cost etc, yet it attracts shoppers and visitors (literally on market day) by the coachload?

 

[Bletchleyite]

Q; up in my parts, why is Bury a booming town with a market to die for...yet Bolton 6 miles away is total disaster area? Not been to Wigan for years - what's that like?

Bury has the same issues as Bolton....out of town shopping centres, parking spaces/cost etc, yet it attracts shoppers and visitors (literally on market day) by the coachload?

I think you answered that one yourself - a thriving and presumably well-managed market. That's attractive in a way a slightly small branch of Dixons (or whatever it's called this week) and Burton's isn't. Indeed, it sort of gives the small market towns an edge over the medium-sized towns which are the ones really suffering.

Markets are about a particular shopping experience, as is going to a large city centre like Manchester for a day out. Going to a mediocre selection of mediocre small to medium sized chain stores really isn't.

 

[EM2]

I spent a couple of days in Tonbridge this week, deep in true blue Tory territory. There is not a single empty shop on its High Street, yet it's within easy reach of Tunbridge Wells and Maidstone. I wonder what they're doing right that others aren't.

 

[underbank]

Q; up in my parts, why is Bury a booming town with a market to die for...yet Bolton 6 miles away is total disaster area? Not been to Wigan for years - what's that like?

Bury has the same issues as Bolton....out of town shopping centres, parking spaces/cost etc, yet it attracts shoppers and visitors (literally on market day) by the coachload?

Does Bury have anything as huge as the Middlebrook retail park with a huge Tesco next to it just a couple of miles from the city centre? (I genuinely don't know - I just know the Bolton retail park!)

 

[underbank]

And that's what town centres used to be and could be once again. The small-town chain store is in my eyes a bit of a blip, and not really in the great scheme of things a particularly good one. I really don't quite see why some people seem to mourn its passing.

I have to agree with that. Retail took over the town centres in the 70s and 80s and pushed out other businesses and residential. It was indeed just a blip. Town centres need to be condensed with fewer shops in a smaller area, and mixed in with other businesses and homes again. Pointless trying to save the High Street - efforts need to be concentrated on remodelling, particularly making them attractive for people to live in again.

 

[Howardh]

Does Bury have anything as huge as the Middlebrook retail park with a huge Tesco next to it just a couple of miles from the city centre? (I genuinely don't know - I just know the Bolton retail park!)

Middlebrook's about 6 miles from Bolton town centre - the Trafford Centre isn't much further (10 miles?) and about the same from Bury - slightly more.

 

[radamfi]

Bury market is quite famous in the region and could be considered to be a tourist attraction.

 

[PeterC]

I have to agree with that. Retail took over the town centres in the 70s and 80s and pushed out other businesses and residential. It was indeed just a blip. Town centres need to be condensed with fewer shops in a smaller area, and mixed in with other businesses and homes again. Pointless trying to save the High Street - efforts need to be concentrated on remodelling, particularly making them attractive for people to live in again.

Pretty much what I was going to post. It hasn't been helped by the obsession with putting extra shopping into former industrial spaces at the fringe of the centre, usually with extra parking which changes the whole balance of shopping.

 

[thejuggler]

I did my Christmas shopping last week. An hour on Amazon to buy 4 items. Done and dusted.

The reason I did this was the last time I went shopping in a store it was to spend vouchers.

None of what I wanted was in stock in my size and I was pointed to their website. I sold the vouchers to a friend and ordered the goods I wanted on line and saved some cash.

 

[Busaholic]

I've been a shop owner, in a town centre, for over thirty years now, and had shops in a couple of other places for a short while before that. Business rates and rents, both going up by more than the inflation rate until very recently at least, and car parking are the main reasons (frankly, do you need others?) for the decline in the high street. If you're in a trade which has been particularly impacted by the internet (and, as a bookseller, I can vehemently state I have) and in a town which has created four separate sites for supermarkets within a mile of the town over that period, with unlimited free parking in each, then you may have a jaundiced view of the planning process which has allowed this. Local authorities don't care, they collect 100% of the business rate on empty properties these days in most cases. Those without cars are the losers, of course. In the end, it'll take the property companies to let the penny drop when they have to allow the likes of that louse Mike Ashley to be excused from paying any rent to help prop up their shopping centres and actually get the government to pay more than lip service to forcing Amazon etc to pay a fair proportion of the tax they owe (morally, at least.) I'm not holding my breath. I expect ten years post-Brexit our citizens will be decamping to Bulgaria and Roumania to work in their care homes.

 

[Senex]

I did my Christmas shopping last week. An hour on Amazon to buy 4 items. Done and dusted.

But how many hours do you then have to waste waiting in for their delivery? Or if you pay for express delivery, have you lost any price advantage there might have been?

 

[chorleyjeff]

I've been a shop owner, in a town centre, for over thirty years now, and had shops in a couple of other places for a short while before that. Business rates and rents, both going up by more than the inflation rate until very recently at least, and car parking are the main reasons (frankly, do you need others?) for the decline in the high street. If you're in a trade which has been particularly impacted by the internet (and, as a bookseller, I can vehemently state I have) and in a town which has created four separate sites for supermarkets within a mile of the town over that period, with unlimited free parking in each, then you may have a jaundiced view of the planning process which has allowed this. Local authorities don't care, they collect 100% of the business rate on empty properties these days in most cases. Those without cars are the losers, of course. In the end, it'll take the property companies to let the penny drop when they have to allow the likes of that louse Mike Ashley to be excused from paying any rent to help prop up their shopping centres and actually get the government to pay more than lip service to forcing Amazon etc to pay a fair proportion of the tax they owe (morally, at least.) I'm not holding my breath. I expect ten years post-Brexit our citizens will be decamping to Bulgaria and Roumania to work in their care homes.

Comparing post millennial in these countries with ours I think you could be right. Hard working, well educated without a great sense of entitlement they will rise as we fall.

 

[sprunt]

Bury market is quite famous in the region and could be considered to be a tourist attraction.

Ahem - I think you'll find it is in fact World Famous! But yes, as HowardH mentions above, the market is superb, it would take a spectacular cock-up by a council with it in their town to let the town centre get as run-down as many have. It's possibly also notable in Bury that rather than a big out-of-town centre, they built a brand new town centre shopping centre.

I was astonished to find out the last time that I visited (it's my home town, but I live in London now) that it's one of the first outposts in Tim Hortons' UK expansion - I'm sure they wouldn't have picked it without doing their research, so it appears that there's business confidence in the town.

 

[Cowley]

I've been a shop owner, in a town centre, for over thirty years now, and had shops in a couple of other places for a short while before that. Business rates and rents, both going up by more than the inflation rate until very recently at least, and car parking are the main reasons (frankly, do you need others?) for the decline in the high street. If you're in a trade which has been particularly impacted by the internet (and, as a bookseller, I can vehemently state I have) and in a town which has created four separate sites for supermarkets within a mile of the town over that period, with unlimited free parking in each, then you may have a jaundiced view of the planning process which has allowed this. Local authorities don't care, they collect 100% of the business rate on empty properties these days in most cases. Those without cars are the losers, of course. In the end, it'll take the property companies to let the penny drop when they have to allow the likes of that louse Mike Ashley to be excused from paying any rent to help prop up their shopping centres and actually get the government to pay more than lip service to forcing Amazon etc to pay a fair proportion of the tax they owe (morally, at least.) I'm not holding my breath. I expect ten years post-Brexit our citizens will be decamping to Bulgaria and Roumania to work in their care homes.

Having had a shop for a few years in the 1990s there’s no way I would consider doing it now.
It was difficult enough then with the business rates and rent, and that was long before internet shopping took off.

 

[Bevan Price]

I would only buy shoes & clothes such as coats / jackets from a proper shop where I can see if they fit me. I know you can sometimes get clothes sent on approval to see at home if they fit you, but having to return the "incorrect" items would be too much of a pain. The main things I buy on line are a few 2nd hand publications, and the type of music CD that you (almost) never find in the few remaining shops that still sell CDs, etc.

The problem with town centres is that - until they closed - too many shops were of the national / international chain category, with the same items in every branch. Meanwhile, most of the independent / intersting shops had gone; now, the problem is too many charity shops , where you might see a very occasional bargain, but mostly they are almost full of uninteresting "tat". (Though I suppose some ladies may appreciate being able to purchase discarded "last years fashion" at bargain prices.)

The other problem for town centres is "lazy people" - they won't go anywhere if they can't use a car, even if adequate public transport is available. Personally I normally use the bus to get into my local town centre; the nearest stop at home is about 100 yards away, and the town centre bus stops are closer to many of the shops than most of the car parks -- using the bus is much easier than having to drive and then search for an empty parking space.

 

[underbank]

But how many hours do you then have to waste waiting in for their delivery? Or if you pay for express delivery, have you lost any price advantage there might have been?

I have most of mine either delivered to the local post office or to an Amazon locker at our supermarket. So, no wasted time at all. I already have Amazon Prime so no extra postage costs either.

 

[DarloRich]

I spent a couple of days in Tonbridge this week, deep in true blue Tory territory. There is not a single empty shop on its High Street, yet it's within easy reach of Tunbridge Wells and Maidstone. I wonder what they're doing right that others aren't.

Affluence.

Bury market is quite famous in the region and could be considered to be a tourist attraction.

Only if you have been locked in a soviet missile silo for the last 55 years! It is a market like lots of other proper northern markets.

Tim Hortons' UK expansion

Who? What? Should i know this chain?

I would only buy shoes & clothes such as coats / jackets from a proper shop where I can see if they fit me. I know you can sometimes get clothes sent on approval to see at home if they fit you, but having to return the "incorrect" items would be too much of a pain. The main things I buy on line are a few 2nd hand publications, and the type of music CD that you (almost) never find in the few remaining shops that still sell CDs, etc.

Goodness me! If you buy something off amazon that doesn't fit you send it back just like any other catalogue company . If i want to send it back i walk to my corner shop and drop it off. You get a refund. if you want to make your life harder than it needs to be crack on but don't make out like it is a massive faff to return something. Persoanlly returning to Amazon is easier than returning to a shop.

The other problem for town centres is "lazy people" - they won't go anywhere if they can't use a car, even if adequate public transport is available. Personally I normally use the bus to get into my local town centre; the nearest stop at home is about 100 yards away, and the town centre bus stops are closer to many of the shops than most of the car parks -- using the bus is much easier than having to drive and then search for an empty parking space.

Try a monthly shop for a family of 4 on the bus..............................................

 

[Bletchleyite]

Try a monthly shop for a family of 4 on the bus..............................................

Delivery. Or traditionally, people would take a bus to the supermarket and a taxi home.

 

[DarloRich]

Delivery. Or traditionally, people would take a bus to the supermarket and a taxi home.

I get delivery but it costs extra. It cost me a £1 because I get it delivered at 2230. More family friendly times cost upto a £5. No problem for many people but quite a bit if you are getting the bus to the supermarket.

 

[underbank]

It's possibly also notable in Bury that rather than a big out-of-town centre, they built a brand new town centre shopping centre.

I spent a week in Bath recently. As usual, before going I researched amenities etc and was quite surprised to see they didn't seem to have much in the way of out of town retail parks nor an abundance of out of town supermarkets. They built a new shopping centre between the bus and train stations and the historical centre with all the big names. Seemed a very good bus service too - we got a bus right outside the house we rented on the outskirts straight to the bus station with both M&S and Debenhams in sight! On a different day, we drove in and found affordable/plentiful car parks. Another council doing their job properly, the result being what looked a vibrant and lively town centre and very few empty shops (at least not in the main shopping streets).

 

[Bletchleyite]

I get delivery but it costs extra. It cost me a £1 because I get it delivered at 2230. More family friendly times cost upto a £5. No problem for many people but quite a bit if you are getting the bus to the supermarket.

The single bus fare in MK is £2.50 (day ticket is about 4 quid at last count). So even with delivery at £5, unless you wanted to go out anyway for some other reason, only the poorest people will value over 2 hours of their time at less than £1, and it's often cheaper than that, particularly if you get a "delivery pass".

The only outrider to that is if you shop at Aldi or Lidl which don't offer delivery.

 

[DarloRich]

The single bus fare in MK is £2.50 (day ticket is about 4 quid at last count). So even with delivery at £5, unless you wanted to go out anyway for some other reason, only the poorest people will value over 2 hours of their time at less than £1, and it's often cheaper than that, particularly if you get a "delivery pass".

The only outrider to that is if you shop at Aldi or Lidl which don't offer delivery.

i have been in the position whereby that £5 was a considerable % of my available spending money for that fortnight. Personally i just walked down the town and shopped at the market. It was cheaper.

 

[underbank]

The other problem for town centres is "lazy people" - they won't go anywhere if they can't use a car, even if adequate public transport is available. Personally I normally use the bus to get into my local town centre; the nearest stop at home is about 100 yards away, and the town centre bus stops are closer to many of the shops than most of the car parks -- using the bus is much easier than having to drive and then search for an empty parking space.

That's great if you can get a direct bus from just 100 yards away. In lots of areas, people don't have that. In lots of areas, you're lucky if you have an hourly bus service. In our city, the bus station is at the "wrong" end of town, meaning very long walks across town if you want to go to some of the larger shops or the hospital. It's a mile away from the train station (no shuttle bus), so not usable as a means of transport to get to the train station either. Some towns are really badly planned as regards public transport. My son leaves home at 7.20 to guarantee arriving at school before 8.50 registration and we're only 4 miles away from town - that's nearly a mile walk to the bus stop, a 30 minute bus journey through villages and housing estates, then nearly a mile walk from the bus station to his school - so 90 minutes to travel 4 miles! He'll be driving as soon as he passes his test!

 

[Bletchleyite]

i have been in the position whereby that £5 was a considerable % of my available spending money for that fortnight. Personally i just walked down the town and shopped at the market. It was cheaper.

Of course, where walking to the supermarket, food market or other store is an option, that changes the situation somewhat - it's just as easy to shop more frequently for less stuff, and transport ceases to be a concern. If you've got an Aldi or Lidl at the end of your road (which you near enough do - a longish road, but a road nonetheless, and a Tesco half way ), that's pretty much a "perfect storm" - you have no need of a car for food shopping then. As large supermarkets tend not to open and close very often, it might well be a sensible consideration when choosing where to live, particularly if renting.

The point about delivery is more that it is a good option to avoid a car journey, or a good option for someone choosing to give up their car.