What will happen to our towns if we all shop online?

Hi Brownow1564

You have my sympathy re Scotland and council funding. The SNP have reinvented themselves over the years but I remember when people called them the Tartan Tories.

Our historic High Street in Devon now has lots of Charity shops, but I have noticed how much their marketing has improved. Now there are neat, colour coded racks of clothes, and often a good selection of books and bric a bric. Some specialise in vintage clothes, which I remember from younger days!

. I know they have limitations, but I do buy in them sometimes and that's got to be better for the planet than bulging wardrobes of clothes that we don't wear often.

Mummer you say apartments are difficult to sell Where on earth do you live? Yes there are blocks of flats with cladding problems that are dificult to sell, but otherwise flats sell well and briskly. In my local town, those small industrial premises that always hid around the shops have all been redeveloped as flats, 2-4 stories, brick-built, interspersed with a couple of houses. When they come on the market they sell quickly, the same with flats in the village I live in.

It’s not just shopping online. There are so many out of town outlet centres that most high streets can’t compete with. We went to a new one in Cannock recently.

All very high end and ridiculous prices but very busy with long queues to get into some shops. First time I ‘ve come back empty handed!

We buy a fair bit online, we have a 100 round trip to our small city for main shopping to it's just not possible to keep popping in for one or two items. Food shopping and other odds and sods are done n a small local town, 40 mile round trip! And the odd thing in local village shop 10 mile round trip!! So as you can see online is much easier. Yes I do feel guilty and do try to visit real shops when I can as I still like to try before I buy and actually it's nicer to see the products for real.. The downside of living in a remote area!!

Times change people adjust.Not one of the Never [sad}used to be like this.?

Not many shops left now ...even in the shopping centres which used to be full of lovely chainstores as well as a lot of independent small shops selling allsorts ...the City centre is almost bare apart from Charity shops and coffee shops ....and this is a big city .....Metro, busses etc all suffering as no one is shopping any more...Universities have been closed for so long ...people working from home ....the only busy part of town is the seafront ....from my home to the beach is 1 minute ....this weekend, lovely weather ...walked from one village to another and back ....en route there are no less than 6 coffee shops, then in the middle two coffee and fast food vans, then at the other end, another three coffee shops ...and just off the sea front yet another 2 plus 4 more in the village ////all I can say is we may not be able to get 'shopping' but we're sure ok for coffee ............ and no, I refuse to shop online .......too much hassle to send things back ! I USED to, but after having my card scammed never do now if I can help it !

Maybemaw The Trafford Centre went into administration with mind- boggling debts.

The lovely town we used to shop in put the parking charges up from under £2 to £8. Coupled with lunch at a minimum of £5 a head it meant spending £20 before we bought a thing we’d gone out for.

The nearby smaller town has a Tesco’s with a free two hour park. And we can pop home for lunch.

No brainier.

Our local town has nothing to offer but has at least 5 supermarkets, the county city no longer has a Department store. Why visit when you can sit at home in comfort find what you want easily, not pay astronomical parking fees and have to buy lunch?
The councils who run these towns need to make them more appealing to the public. Low rents for shops other than Charity shops and low parking fees. Sometimes you cannot get a space at the local Sainsburys as the parking is free and only a short safe walk from the town centre.
It is not the buyer who has killed them but the councils who have allowed multiples of the same shop that is all other towns and not encouraging private enterprise. This started long before Covid.

I agree with JaneJudge. That's the way things are going. I moved to my current address almost 40 years ago and, at that time, we had a lovely small town with lots of small shops but still three or four large, well known, shops. Gradually about two-thirds have shut down and are boarded up with the remaining ones being charity shops, £-shops/Bargain shops, vaping cafes (so called because you can buy vaping accessories) and occasionally an empty shop will have a temporary shop for a few months while "all stock must go".

I live in a small market town that prides itself on the many independent shops. Unfortunately they are mostly those that I would only use once in a blue moon if ever, fascinators, jewellery, antiques et c and the few food shops are only for those with a much better budget than mine, no affordable clothes or shoe shops at all. As I don't drive and the next town is 50 minutes away and not very well served by bus ,I do almost all my shopping online and have for a few years now. I also find it too hard to carry much shopping home from the local supermarket now so have all that delivered, only occasionally venturing into the town centre for the card shop, post office or bakers

There is a template drawn up for the future pf the high street which will not exist in the next generation as the way we know it.

Town centres will be service towns for what you can't do online. It will be coffee shops, restaurants, spa's, hairdressers and so on.

Towns will be turned into apartments, muses, flats and houses. The land being parks and spaces to mingle

There will be a little more in places of interests and to visit however this is the future. I have been told about these plans by a friend in the industry

I feel lucky in picking where I live now, tbh it is thriving here and 3 more small shops have opened up. We have only 2 charity shops and no betting shops. It is a market town with a lovely ambience, butcher, bakers, greengrocer etc