It is a dilemma. I really want to support the local shops but they are almost all cafes, tattoo parlours, nail-bars, barbers, betting shops, vape shops and 2 undertakers. Tesco, Lidl, a Frozen foods, a couple of cheapo Pound shops and Greggs the baker.
Until last year we had 3 banks and 3 ATMs. Now there is one bank left and the post office. Most of the, once shopping, street is empty shops , estate agents, 3 charity shops, a food bank and a clothes bank.
To buck the trend the Development Trust and a similar organisation have managed to take on the voluntary running of 3 shop units.
One is the wonderful storehouse which caters for everyone who wants to shop local, save the planet, eat well and wants a community hub.
Then there is a printer and stationers which the Trust bought when the owners were retiring. It is in the form of an old fashioned shop with a counter and a museum out the back. They show schoolchildren how paper is made and printed.
The 3rd is temporary because it is grant funded (and rents & rates are formidably high) but meanwhile it is a tool library, a bike repair shop, recycling and upcycling of fabric. They have a programme of things like foraging workshops, sewing classes, pressing apples for juice and making new greeting cards from old.
There are still 2 or 3 independent shops. An excellent flower shop, a household and carpet store where I have paid a deposit on a new stair carpet but may have to wait until after Christmas to have it fitted, an electrical repair shop.
Plus a vet, a doctor's surgery and a motor parts shop (but I think even that has closed)
I don't often shop on-line but I am close enough to big chains and the city to not feel too deprived.
The demise of the town centres is a tragedy. IMO
When the last proper baker became a funeral director - it said it all really.