The demise of town centres

Yes, very sad for our local town but our village has been reinvigorated which has been great.

I call it the 'fairy ring' effect as covid has offered locals the chance to patronise the walking distance village facilities which have developed near homes, and then use it regulary with buggies & dogs with subsequent hybrid working, to change their focus to a less stressed daily life. Unfortunately that means the local town's attraction has been reduced.

I agree with those who have been saying that town centres should re-think themselves as more community areas and less consumer-orientated.

I confess to being an online shopper, simply because you can look around online for things that local stores can't or won't stock because it's not viable. On line I can find exactly what I want from a variety of suppliers, and pick the size, colour and design I want at leisure. I don't enjoy high street shopping when it means spending hours in overheated department stores only to find that your choice of size or colour is not available.

Where I live used to have lovely shops but now they are all charity shops. It's either charity shops or coffee shops. Dire situation.

JackieB don’t you find it annoying with a) the time wasted
( maybe a week or more to get it back and get another one sent out) and b) the expense or inconvenience of having to send it back if it doesn’t fit or come up to your expectations
I do buy online ..l have too no shops to go to but how much easier to go and try something on and reject or accept it on the spot

NanaDana We must have walked past each other ! We made our annual trip to Berwick upon Tweed last week too. I was shocked and saddened to see how many shops had closed, my favourite one had gone too, Wilkies always had something i needed to buy.

I divide my time between a quite deprived area of London, and Dover. My local shopping centre in London has very few empty shops, and shops don't seem to stay empty for long. You can get practically everything you need at a reasonable price. The nail has been in Dover's coffin since a dual carriageway split the harbour/sea front area from the town, and the sea front is accessed by a murky underpass. We have lots of history which is not promoted. The town centre is dreadful. A whole line of empty and abandoned shops. We have charity shops, plenty of barbers, but we could do with a choice of clothes stores, and a shop that sells household goods besides Poundland and B&M. Nothing wrong with those stores, but more variety would be nice. I believe the overheads are very high for the independent retailer. A new little shopping area was built two or three years ago, but it is hidden away, so unless you are local you don't know it is there. A retail park has been built and expanded out of town, and on top of a hill! Walking there is not an option, and the bus service can be confusing. It is easier for me to take a bs to Canterbury, which whilst it is not the same as it used to be, it still has quite a variety of shops. However, I think a lot of people shop on line, not due to laziness, but because the shops often don't stock much of a choice. They look attractive, but the choice is limited. I would much rather buy in a shop than online, and see what I am buying. Recently I bought three dresses online. When they arrived they were like tents. I had to return them, and re-order the same dresses but two sizes smaller. It would have been so much easier to try them on n the shop, but they sell that particular item online only.

What I think would be a shame would be if centres disappear and we all live in groups of houses (whether villages, estates or conurbations) that are basically interchangeable, with no centres at all.

People need to meet informally. If we only see one another 'by appointment' many people will be stuck in their homes, and loneliness will increase, along with associated mental health problems. 'Going to the shops' often used to mean 'going out to mix in the world, and I wonder whether that is what people hanker after, rather than the act of shopping itself.

I started online shopping years ago when I was much busier than I am now. Running a home, working full time and looking ofter two children with a husband who was often not there left little time for shopping. I don't drive, so it wasn't possible to go to our of town centres, anyway. Local food shops are good, but the big supermarkets are miles away, and going to the butcher, deli, greengrocer etc separately would take too much time out of family and 'me' time. Online shopping was revolutionary and I've never looked back.

But when I was 16, I loved going to the city centre on Saturdays. I would meet friends in an ice cream parlour or cafe, and we'd window shop, try on clothes and just 'hang out', often bumping into other young people by accident or design as we went. We only had our pocket money, so did very little actual shopping, but the whole experience was very much part of our lives. David Attenborough could have made a programme about the courtship habits of the greater spotted teenagers ). That still needs to happen, I think.

Also things like popping into coffee shops after dropping the children at school, where mums met up informally and talked about crying babies or stroppy toddlers. That was a support base that was invaluable. Older people too often enjoy a stroll around the town, and a cup of tea watching the world go by. It's exercise, and makes people feel connected. We do need that connection, and I think it's vital that councils factor that in to whatever replaces 'shopping', as the purpose of town centres. Whatever we have instead of shops needs to let people get together, and just 'be'. Ideally it will cater for all ages and income bands - there is no point in having 3 Michelin star restaurants, or a choice of child-friendly cafes with nothing for other groups. It needs to be planned.

I really hope they have the imagination to think beyond profit and remember the other functions of town centres. It's up to us to remind them, though. If my local council is anything to go by, they won't - they work on the assumption that everyone has a car that they want to take everywhere, so they can charge for parking. They are stuck in the past and want to rake in money from high commercial rates, and they listen with half an ear to requests for public transport and other services that may not be profitable - even our public toilets have been phased out, which makes life very difficult for the young parents, the older residents and those from outside the immediate area who can't just pop home for a wee. We must ask relevant questions when they are up for election and let them know that these things matter.

Doodledog Mon 03-Apr-23 09:48:37

Excellent and interesting post!

My small town centre is buzzing - it caters for just about everyone.

We have...
Barber
Hair Salon
Solicitor
Hardware Store
Optician
Clothes Shop
Art Gallery (small)
Florist (selling both houseplants and garden plants - and gifts)
Chemist
Antique Shop (reasonably priced)
Two pubs - both serving 'pub grub'
Butcher
Baker
Fish & Chip Shop
Chinese Takeaway
Japanese Tea Shop
'Afternoon Tea' Shop (also serving light lunches)
Newsagent
Pet Shop
Greengrocer
Lamp & Light Shop + 'interior' designs (bit pricey)
Delicatessen & Cafe (with outside seating)
Gift Shop (good prices - with books & toys for under £5)
Jewellers
the inevitable Charity Shop
A refurbished 'Dairy' now a small Cafe (very popular)
Two mini-supermarkets (with Post Office in one)
A shop catering for all sewing needs
Bespoke Kitchen Shop
Library
Estate Agent
Building Society
Beauty Salon
small Gymnasium
... and a 'rug' shop

... and two Dentists.

Lucky you Dickens sounds great. Our area was like that 20 years ago but gradually it lost more and more retailers.
Possibly since they made the High Street only for pedestrians
saying it would be wonderful for shoppers everything seemed to change. I think they done that on purpose once that was done the area changed. It has nothing anymore except chicken shops and take aways. Most of the area is now being pulled down and marked for houses and flats to be built. I think it is time for me to move.

This!

There are a few towns that seem to be thriving, eg Sevenoaks, Salisbury, etc., but many towns and cities that appear to be struggling, with lots of empty premises.

We went to Canterbury the other day and were surprised at the number of closed up shops and other premises, and it seemed scruffier than it used to be.

Where we live, in London, the local shopping mall is being significantly enlarged. Predominantly, however, any spare piece of land or unused building is being replaced by sometimes very high blocks of flats that are not necessarily in keeping with the local surroundings. There is a huge demand for housing, especially in cities, and it seems developers have realised that they can make the most money from leasehold flats - many of which are quite small and I believe are not good value. I think that is especially so when they are part own/part rent. A Conservative politician was suggesting the other day that part ownership could be as little as 10%, and I wondered who actually benefits from such an arrangement.

I heard a radio programme the other morning about car park cash machines, how so many of them require use of a smart phone app, inputting a code etc. Not being free, nor taking cash nor, at the least taking a card with swipe facility

Councils are fundamentally to blame. People would go for a walk around if parking were easy and rubbish and graffiti were cleared.

That’s so true, Karma. The most convenient car park in town for us has that phone system and we’ve been fined three times in the last year!! Previously to that, I had had one parking fine in 45 years.

One fine was because I’d accidentally used the wrong pay station - the car park doesn’t have any mobile signal so you have to walk away from it, thus it’s easy to get the location wrong because there are similar sounding names nearby.

Another was because my dd mistyped my car reg number into the phone.

They do have machines that take cash but they’re so low to the ground and badly lit, plus the the keypads are so worn that you can’t see the figures and letters (not Querty) to type in your car number. I think I’ve only been to town once in the past two weeks because it’s easier to go elsewhere.

As Greyduster said - she paid a rare visit to her town centre, which is what most people are doing. The clue is in "rare". This is why shops are closing. Use it or lose it!

In defence of parking by phone- how often have you not had the correct cash for an old fashioned machine in a car park? It was once close to a life and death situation for me when trying to get DH to hospital in London by train. With Ringgo and similar systems you pay for your parking from the dry comfort of your car, whatever the weather and you can also extend your parking without having to go back to the meter eg if your train home is delayed - that has happened too. As for getting your own reg number wrong - that could happen anywhere and you have nobody to blame but yourself. No money in the meters means nobody vandalising them to steal the contents.
Too many people like harking back to some rose tinted past, and frankly the demise of town centres has more to do with online shopping and other retail trends than contactless or cash free parking.

Just to add, the examples quoted upthread bear very little resemblance to my iwn experience.
Ring go have my car colour, make and reg on file and I only have to confirm by pressing “1”, my card details likewise (again “1”) all I have to do from my keypad is input the number of hours (or days) I wish to park. I get a text within 5 minutes to confirm . Once, rushing for the train, I completed the process actually ON the train without any problems. No ticket to stick on the dash, no running to the meter or back to insert the ticket. No code to input - all done by a simple phone call.
Honestly -what a fuss.

Pressed too soon - fuss about nothing

The town centres will be leisure areas and this is because of
*Online shopping
*Out of town malls
*Losing some big nationals
*Covid
*Price hikes
Maybe when we are all dead and gone in a few decades time, someone will say I ve an idea why don’t we try those old fashioned things called shops and thus a town centre will be reborn …but not in our time I m afraid
We ve lost ours we had four or five big nationals in our one High Street and with them gone it is bare and empty

My nearest city centre[miles away] looks more forlorn. But it is still busy. I dont think people are buying as much in city centres now though. Unlike others, there is ample parking there.

The out of town shops are awkward to get to. Traffic is ever increasing, And the out of town shops are not all in the same place either.