Is your highstreet "dead"?

[Asura]

Saw a thread on Reddit that made me think about this, how some highstreets in the UK feel kinda dead; not in the sense that they feel empty or not busy on a Saturday (though many I've seen in recent years are filled with empty units) but just that we're reaching a point where you would go online for many things you might've previously shopped for.

I am thinking of getting a new watch. Just a cheap one; probably a Timex digital watch for <£50, that I can wear in situations where I don't want to wear my FitBit for concerns I'd damage it.

I live in a major UK city, and there is nowhere I can go to do this. There are watch shops, certainly, but they're the types that selling Breitling and CITIZEN watches; they're no good for what I need. Argos closed up shop at the start of the pandemic.

I accept that a high-street shop might be a bit more expensive than Amazon, but I'd pay a fiver more, for the ease of returns, better guarantee the item is genuine and the chance to try it on etc. before buying.

A month ago, I needed to pay in a cheque I'd received as a Christmas gift. My city branch of Barclays had a huge queue, because they only had 1 machine active, and none of the desks were open; they told me that this branch of a major global bank in a major city doesn't have any actual people staffing the desk on saturdays.

I could go on but I'll stop; point is in recent months, many times, I've found myself wanting to do something I would expect to do on the high-street, and just simply can no longer do. This has been creeping up for years but in recent times it seems to have really increased pace.

Has anyone else noticed this more and more?

[QualityChimp]

Mine is okay because it's in a bit of a bubble with the same mixture of shops for a long time.
Every so often one of the shops closes, but it's not mainly empty like the next biggest town is.

There, you would probably pass your Timex test, but you'd have to walk past a lot of empty units to get to one that does.

It is sad how they're becoming shells of what they used to be.
Doesn't help that my local council has made every single car park a paid one and put up a few camera-trap bus lanes.
It's not worth going in, if I'm honest, so I don't, except for the cinema in the evening occasionally.

[fishbowlhead]

Councils are absolutely dead set of draining every last penny from small businesses on the high-street while giving nothing back, people cant earn a living any more from small shops unless their turnover and profit margins are through the roof, which most aren't. Rates, rent, tax, wages, tax again on the wages, its too much.

[Wools]

I think it's more than just Councils though.

My entirely uninformed opinion is the real issue is how we value buildings and homes as investments. As such, with an average UK house costing £278,000 (Over quarter of a million pounds to those gasping at the back) high streets were places to invest, with landlords reaping the rewards over several decades.

Now the majority of people shop online and with most business shifting to cater to that market, the high street as we know it has dwindled. Landlords, still wanting more cash or more likely; the landlord needing to pay off the mortgage or trying to calm their shareholders who expect 5% interest each quarter, won't drop their rates to business owners from the late 90's / mid 2000's high. So as those business drop out or go bust, there's no one who will take up those shops. And as the next generation of potential shop owners are business savvy enough to be online only it doesn't harm their pockets, and even if they strike gold, do deals for a physical presence with other business so they bare the brunt, the high street looks even more sorry for itself.

What's the solution? I know that during the pandemic, my local town got deals done with little businesses to take over long vacant shops and from the look and feel and talking with 2 owners, business seemed to be booming. It seems that allowing people to work from home, encouraged them to go into town and that started something special. Whether that feeling, and subsidies provided by the council and landlords dropping their trousers, will continue to the post pandemic world remains to be seen.

[Neon Ignition]

Mine is the same it's always been, it fell apart after the mine closures over the 70's and 80's and has remained a chavvy rank looking shell of itself ever since. You're sorted if you want a Poundland or Greggs or Quality Save you're sorted but anything of note is long gone.

It's a shame, like too many towns it attempted to 'modernise' itself which meant stripping itself of every notable feature that now would be considered a draw to itself. But COVID itself hasn't really changed it much, just poor leadership that is now... overseeing Manchester

[Asura]

Greggs

I miss The Baker's Oven.

[Lebowski]

I miss The Baker's Oven.

I don't miss bakers oven as they contributed to one of the worst days of my life! When my son was born we went to register his name and i ended up pouring boiling water all over my hand and getting appalling burns trying to get a bottle warmer ready.

We called in at our local bakers oven for a sausage and bean pastie, which gave me food poisoning so bad i ended up having to go the the emergency room as i kept passing out, While sat in the waiting room i was that violently sick it caused my stomach to twist and my heart to stop which made me pass out and hit the floor pretty hard. I was so out of it the doctors thought i was a druggy and were really rude to me at first, they latter apologized which was nice

I don't miss bakers oven and cant eat sausage and bean pastie's to this day.

[Hirst]

My high street isn't dead, but it has been struggling on and off over the years. The main difficulties are anti-social behaviour, the loss of several large national chains and the managed decline of a market that was doing quite well for itself until the council deliberately choked it out of existence. I think about this a lot and here are my thoughts as to where a lot of it is going wrong.

Online Shopping: This is a key point that gets brought up a lot, sometimes a retail shop can't compete with the online end. What isn't mentioned so often is that most of the high street shops have an online version that usually works counterproductively with the physical shop. This is massively the case with clothes shops - loads of them will often sell the same item more cheaply online than in-store. What's more, they're often useless at stocking a decent range of sizes within the shops - I'm not talking specialist "big and tall" type stuff but often they'll have a shirt and in the shop it's either Small or Medium or they've simply not got it - they've got the full range of sizes online though. Some of them will even deliver it to the shop free of charge, but most either won't or will charge the same to deliver to the shop as they would to post it to your house - end result you're not walking in there. I get most of my clothes from M&S because they simply don't mess around, it's always the same prices in store and out. They've usually got the sizes I want and they'll deliver to any M&S branch free of charge - including motorway service stations (I've tried). All shops should be able to do this and they just don't. It makes the physical shop seem useless.

Rudderless Shops: There's so many major chains out there that are run in a clueless way and seem to have no real direction. I think a key example of this was when Woolworths collapsed - so many people were sad because they had great memories of it, but simultaneously can't remember the last time they'd ever bought anything there. In the final decade it was a giant shop that existed more-or-less as a place to buy slightly cheaper chart CDs than HMV and for confused grandmothers to pay full RRP on board games for Christmas gifts. Debenhams was a similar mess but with products all over the place with no real rhyme or reason, I completely saw that one coming. WH Smith is notoriously useless and seems to survive purely through insane price gouging and the presence of in-store Post Offices. I'd be surprised if GAME does another 5 years too. Carrying the wrong stock, carrying useless products, an almost complete lack of interest as to what customers actually want.

Opening Hours: This one used to infuriate me when I worked away from the town centre. By the time I'd knocked off work at 5pm, everywhere in town would be shut, so I'd just drive past a load of closed shops that I couldn't access until the weekend. This opening hours arrangement seems almost unique to the high street - most retail parks and shopping centres tend to hover around 7pm-9pm. Appreciated that not everyone works 9-5 and some people might be able to get there on lunch breaks or whatever, but it seems daft to me to have shop opening times that correspond to the times when it's most common for somebody to already be at work. As a result, I was getting my shopping done at retail parks, out-of-town shopping centres, outlet villages.

Not Appreciating Markets: Most towns have had a market at some point and in all but a few cases I've seen them steadily decline or disappear. Part of the reason that is often quoted is that people think they're old-fashioned or downmarket (pardon the pun). This could have been solved with investment quite easily, but it was easier just to let it run itself out of town and then sell off the land to somebody who'd give them more money. This would help the councils financially, but the markets had a very big key strength that has a knock-on effect for the high street - markets were a great incubation system for people wanting to try their hand at running a business. If it was the 1990s and I wanted to have a go at selling games, I could have just got an outdoor market stall at minimum risk and low cost. If it worked out well and my business outgrew the stall, I could then take on an indoor market unit. Then if it outgrew that, I could get myself a proper high street retail unit, by which time I'd hopefully have built up enough stock and capital to make it all work. Retail units are an expensive and risky decision if you're not sure a business will even work out, so few people are going to ever try. Markets were needed to grow these business to the point they were on the high street and I think now we're seeing the lasting effects of that - vacant shops that people daren't take on, or new independent businesses that collapse within the year.

Anti-Social Behaviour: This might be more of a "I live in a dump" situation but I'm sure it will apply to many others too. Over the years, a lot of social problems have spilled out onto the high streets being that they're a public place. If you go onto my high street, you will see loads of street drinking, substance abuse, begging (sometimes benign, sometimes quite aggressive panhandling). It can be a quite intimidating and unpleasant place to be, especially when you can just get in the car and go to an out of town shopping centre, where people causing trouble will be turfed out by the security guards. This is a long fix as it requires basically repairing society to some extent. But in the short-term it does mean situations like me not wanting to use the high street cinema for an evening showing because there's I'm worried I'll get my car window done in, being uncomfortable letting my missus wander around while I get my hair cut because the barbers is in a rough end of town, having to pick my mum up from work when she finished on an evening because the bus station has bad sorts gathering by then.

Also Sunday trading hours are a relic of the old days and I'm so glad when I go to another country that doesn't have them.

[Asura]

Opening Hours: This one used to infuriate me when I worked away from the town centre. By the time I'd knocked off work at 5pm, everywhere in town would be shut, so I'd just drive past a load of closed shops that I couldn't access until the weekend. This opening hours arrangement seems almost unique to the high street - most retail parks and shopping centres tend to hover around 7pm-9pm. Appreciated that not everyone works 9-5 and some people might be able to get there on lunch breaks or whatever, but it seems daft to me to have shop opening times that correspond to the times when it's most common for somebody to already be at work. As a result, I was getting my shopping done at retail parks, out-of-town shopping centres, outlet villages.

Yeah, I've always felt this. I had a friend who worked for Games Workshop years ago, back when they opened at 10am 7 days a week, and used to close late 2 nights a week. He confessed to me that between the hours of 10 and 4 during school term-time, he had practically nothing to do. There'd be the occasional customer, and maybe 1 day a week they'd have a stock take and delivery, but honestly, he spent hours just sitting there painting the miniatures purely for something to do.

Anti-Social Behaviour: This might be more of a "I live in a dump" situation but I'm sure it will apply to many others too. Over the years, a lot of social problems have spilled out onto the high streets being that they're a public place. If you go onto my high street, you will see loads of street drinking, substance abuse, begging (sometimes benign, sometimes quite aggressive panhandling). It can be a quite intimidating and unpleasant place to be, especially when you can just get in the car and go to an out of town shopping centre, where people causing trouble will be turfed out by the security guards. This is a long fix as it requires basically repairing society to some extent. But in the short-term it does mean situations like me not wanting to use the high street cinema for an evening showing because there's I'm worried I'll get my car window done in, being uncomfortable letting my missus wander around while I get my hair cut because the barbers is in a rough end of town, having to pick my mum up from work when she finished on an evening because the bus station has bad sorts gathering by then.

Middlesbrough?

[Protocol Penguin]

The passage about anti-social behaviour also describes Bournemouth town centre (or, worse; Poole) versus the out-of-town Castlepoint centre. No wonder the town centres are rapidly emptying of viable shops.

[fuse]

The passage about anti-social behaviour also describes Bournemouth town centre (or, worse; Poole)

Where I grew up! I'm rarely back there these days, but this is still pretty sad to see someone stick the boot in like this. Not criticising or contesting, just lamenting. From when I was there in my youth though I definitely saw the impacts of...

Not Appreciating Markets

I used to love the indoor market in Poole and definitely found that its death (blossoming into a ghastly "Job Centre Plus" IIRC) went hand-in-hand with the steady creep of the high street becoming indistinguishable from any other.

[Protocol Penguin]

Where I grew up! I'm rarely back there these days, but this is still pretty sad to see someone stick the boot in like this. Not criticising or contesting, just lamenting. From when I was there in my youth though I definitely saw the impacts of...


I used to love the indoor market in Poole and definitely found that its death (blossoming into a ghastly "Job Centre Plus" IIRC) went hand-in-hand with the steady creep of the high street becoming indistinguishable from any other.

I remember that place well! Bought some import games in there.

I’m more lamenting than putting the boot in, FWIW. It’s sad too see Poole as it is now, just discount shops and charity shops, the Dolphin Centre half empty of units, the bus station avoided by many local bus services. Bournemouth town centre isn’t in a great state either.

I think the 2008/09 recession was the turning point for our high streets and their decline. Everything seemed to change then, but admittedly not long after that came the rise of smartphones and the mainstreaming of online shopping.

[nakamura]

Sadly both Bournemouth and Poole are not great nowadays, [MENTION=3822]fuse[/MENTION]. I am working in Bournemouth town centre now and it is much rougher than even 10 years ago and there is nothing to separate the two. House of Fraser is the next big thing to close at the coming weekend.

[Hirst]

Middlesbrough?

Wakefield!

[monel]

There are parts of the country that are... Surprising is the only word to use. Sometimes they may be just a mile away from a really well off part. Politicians would be shocked because there is not a single Pret or Starbucks. You might get a Cash Converters or empty Woolworths building.

Anyway, I wondered off my usual path / travels one day and saw a dead rat, in broad daylight, dead on the floor. Never, ever used to see them just out in the open. I wanted to look away but noticed he had a wound in his head, just a small wound (maybe it was a her I dunno sorry). I told someone this later and he said the poor thing probably killed himself.