Ghost town Britain, is this your town?

[justasking111]

The CBI are saying we need to get back to the workplace to save our towns.

"Carolyn Fairbairn has warned commercial centres risk becoming 'ghost towns' if offices don't reopen soon
The director-general of the CBI said getting staff back to offices was as important as children being in school
Asked the Prime Minister to match the rhetoric used to get children in schools to get workers back to offices
Audit of major employers reveals most have very few workers back in the office until at least the new year"

Now we are in a tourist area in Wales so very busy.

Is your town a ghost town now?

No. It's been heaving since lockdown was eased.

Yes it was dire before Covid19, even worse now. Many shops not reopened, many more earmarked for closure, cafes empty. Even the numerous betting shops are closing.

My town looks ok - shops and cafes seem to be doing well.

Its a harder sell isnt it? My children need to be in school for the equipment and live interaction with a teacher. This hasnt beem replicated at home very well. Its a poor substitute.
My DH works just as well at home and doesnt have the expense of travelling in. Its very job and life stage dependent, but the company has now invested in remote working and is less keen to invest in a big building.

Ours is not a touristy town & actually it has seemed quite busy.

We are heaving because of tourists N Wales area, no idea what will happen when they are gone for the winter.

Mine is alright... it’s heaving with locals who tend to work just outside of the town, but the big company who employs a lot of people are making a lot of redundancies.

Lots of shops and restaurants are closing for good. Just not the footfall....

I live in a commuter town and it’s really busy at the moment. Restaurants and cafes are packed (Mon -Weds) and the whole town just feels busy. There are a lot of people working from home who would usually be in London spending the money here instead of there.

@Deardonkey so the money has just moved out into the suburbs that is interesting.

Our town is a ghost town. And our local council are all idiots.

It’s packed here, just at different times of the day!

pre lockdown, trains would be absolutely heaving at 7-8am, so when I would travel long distance on a day off I’d book for around 11-12. Peak and off peak have completely switched around now. I couldn’t believe the amount of passengers at my local station at 1pm today, it was like bank holiday levels of people.

No! It's bloody busy. An average town in the West Midlands, no tourist draw.

We are in Lincoln on a few days away, town was mobbed earlier and we failed to get booked in for dinner anywhere. Certainly busy here!

Hard to tell with restaurants with the Rishi effect Mon to Wed. But here in the winter restaurants often only open Thursday, Friday, Saturday. Just ticking over. Something we are used to. Lots of retired people who like lunch out on those days too.

Commuter town really busy, much more so than before covid. As pp upthread said, money Is being spent here instead of London, what with lots of city people working from home. You can’t get a table in the restaurants. The tube is really quiet. The tue car park had a handful of cars in it for months, now maybe 15 cars when I go in at 6.40, it’s unsettling.

What I have noticed is that supermarkets are busy during the day every day. No more dragging yourself out after work to shop on the way home, now people seem to be shopping when it suits their new lifestyle perhaps.

It's was already a deprived shit tip with big employers going bust before lockdown.

It's just as shit now.

There's no change, as most people avoid the place to go elsewhere to shop and there are fewer and fewer shops and offices open.

Interesting question . There are a few extra shops closed down near me , although in my local town shops closing happened quite frequently anyway . Drove through another, poorer town earlier today which has a lot of cheap cafe type places and a lot of these haven't survived. Traffic on the road though, was very busy.

I visited Aberystwyth in mid Wales over the weekend, and I'll admit I don't know it well but it seemed that a lot of shops / cafes were closed in the town centre . There were people about but I don't know now it would compare normally.

Has everywhere managed to reopen in your area @justasking111 ?

Considering town centres and impact of people working from home, I am wfh at present , and to be fair , I am more likely to be out and about visiting places whilst I'm WFH as I have more time available . I work part time but have quite a commute so i would be driving , working , then returning home whereas now I'm finishing early afternoon and have the rest of the day available so like today we went out for a meal mid afternoon.

@shinynewapple2020 hard to know if everywhere has re-opened town is so busy us locals tend to avoid and leave it to the tourists until September. Laura Ashley is closing down. Monsoon vanished overnight in March. But apart from that with furlough money and other financial help business hung on hoping for tourists to return, which they have in greater numbers this year. Down to people not going abroad perhaps. The banks are on very short hours now which is a pain.

This is just about London really isn’t it? Surely we’re spending more time in our towns, not less. More empty units in ours but they are the big nationals (pizza express, Laura Ashley) rather than small locals

The main shopping streets are still busy, but not as crowded as they were before lockdown. However, many shops, restaurants and other businesses are still closed and some won’t re-open.

I know it is tough for hospitality hotels and the like in the cities losing the meetings, conferences, heads on beds. But to be honest I loathe city hotels so expensive for such a poor experience. Whereas hotels outside the cities have to work harder to make it pleasurable to stay in them for much less money.

London is a ghost town - or certainly has been. It's picking up a bit now but the lack of workers and international tourists will kill off a lot of the retail and restaurants/bars. Very sad but I'm not sure there's much to be done now.

Our market town has turned the square into an outdoor eating area. The restaurants book a section week by week so there are many different restaurants through the month. That, combined with the eat iutnvouchers has business doing really well.
Plus, as others have said, we have the normally london bound commuters. Notna tourist spot so hopefully these measures will help the town as we go into winter as not relying on tourist trade.

No one at Birmingham New Street station at 8am this morning.

So are we reinvigorating the towns we live in at the expense of the cities we normally work in? Is it just redistribution or bad news going forward.