What's going to happen to our small towns?

[Confettishower]

I live in the small market town that I grew up in. As a child and teenager our town was thriving. My parents owned a small business and it was always busy. We had a market day on a Thursday which coincided with the livestock market. Buses would come from the villages and other towns and it would be packed. The market stretched up the entire length of the high street and spilled into the surrounding street .

My brother is here to visit at the moment, he hasn't been for a while as he lives abroad. He is so shocked at the state of the town. Last week on Market day there were 4 very sad looking stalls. Half the shops are empty but we have quite a few charity shops and a disproportionate amount of barbers. We have a big problem with anti-social behaviour and teenagers at the moment but actually there is nothing for them to do. There is a skate park full of people smoking weed and that's it. No amenities or youth clubs. No sports clubs left for kids as the facilities are poor so people take them elsewhere. There is a swimming pool which has very limited availability - it was taken over by serco from the LA and they can barely staff it. There used to be an outdoor pool which was packed for the entire summer but they got rid of that.

There are a couple of big employers in the town but they are not aspirational, more minimum wage type factory work. The GP practice is on its knees and the local secondary school is currently RI and has been for 6 years. Those who can seem to elect to send their kids on buses to schools in other surrounding towns. There are no public transport links anywhere though. To get to a train station you would have to drive 25 minutes or do a 50 minute bus journey. And yet they seem to keep building more and more houses. However they're on the edge of town and seemingly a large amount of people just bypass the town itself and again use other local towns with more leisure facilities and things going on.

It has actually made me really sad and for the first time I'm really considering moving away. There is nothing for our DC here. They wouldn't want to move back here (we did to stay near family) but they won't have the same opportunities that we did even 20 years ago. What is going to happen to towns like ours? Are they just going to steadily die out and essentially become a large housing estate? What can we do to stop the rot?

You could have described the town where I live. I don't have the answer. It's very depressing.

That's so sad and doubtless being repeated across the country

send their kids on buses to schools in other surrounding towns.

So the other small towns are doing ok?

I dunno. I live in a small town near a cluster of other small towns. Some are more prosperous than others. Was ever thus. Ours do all have some public transport, though. The old folk are being bussed in tomorrow for market day :).

Yes we need more housing & people moan & object about more housing or even something as exciting as a new pub, without realising that more housing means more likelihood the schools or GP surgeries will expand and these new residents bring money to spend rather than be like the old folks (existing residents) who spend almost nothing ever. Except when bussed in for market day, I suppose.

Here too OP, my town has changed beyond all recognition, and none of it positive.

I think most towns are like this now. There is a new eco town near me that has been built no shops want move in. Its a massive ex army base, hundreds of new houses. Dead shopping centre with three charity shops, wliko and Lidl that's it. Regeneration promised but shops are struggling, why would they won't to expand I guess. Its the sad reality of online shopping. Maybe it will come full circle one day?

I agree. Online shopping post pandemic has started to kill off the high street and town centre and not just in small towns.
I was in prosperous Guildford the other day and it used to once have a great range of shops on the High Street. So many now closed down and many properties still empty. The House of Fraser is just depressing since it's takeover by the Soorts Direct man and has been stripped back to the bone in terms of upkeep, stock range, cleanliness and staffing. Very sad really

It's really sad.

I hear all this talk of '15 minute cities'. Well, we used to have them! But people stopped using their local butchers, greengrocers etc in favour of out-of-town shopping centres.

Not blaming people, I know it's impossible to get to a greengrocers that opens 9am-4pm if you work. And I know local councils make it extremely difficult to park.

But if you can use your local independents, please do. I worry we are headed for a world with nothing but soulless Tescos on every street corner. Not to mention that buying fresh, whole food in paper bags is far better for you and the planet than aisles of ultra-processed plastic-wrapped stuff.

I live in a town of 22,000 and it became run down a few years ago. We had a change in council and MP (although they are different parties) and they've worked together to sort it out. They sold some (brown field) land to a developer and set the cash aside for regeneration. And recruited a sponsorship manager

They applied for every grant and opportunity available. They did things that were low priority such as tidy up the parks, plant them up, repair the facilities that were there, and install cameras in children's play areas so it all looks clean and safe. The bandstand was repaired and is used most weekends.

They hold a farmer's market every Sunday & Wednesday, and quarterly speciality markets. The focus is on artisan and local producers rather than cheap clothes & plastic.

They do fireworks night and Christmas celebrations properly, and link them to the markets. They encourage the local art societies to hold an annual art week, with a joint exhibition, and open studios during summer half term. The latest effort is a spring music festival. Rural crafts too, thatching, bee keeping etc

I noticed today that two new restaurants have opened up, where others closed down during covid. We lost a major employer 5 years ago but impact seems to be limited. It must involve a huge amount of work, but it has definitely helped.

That sounds great @MintJulia - with council elections coming up here in a few weeks it gives me some things to think about when deciding who gets my vote.

Probably end up in a similar way to former mining communities. Hopefully without some of the social issues many still face.

Our (small) town centre is having a lot of funding pumped into it. There are some empty shops but most seem to get filled quite quickly and it always feels busy. So hopefully funding is the answer.

There are two small towns near me, one is just housing and warehouses, the town centre is run down, but still has banks, a library, opticians, Waitrose, etc. The council seems very well run and they are trying to improve the place.

10 miles down the road is an affluent large village, expensive hotel, delis, Hoxton’s bakery, green grocer, butcher, etc. Terrible parking, but lovely place to shop.

Double edged sword of living in a pretty market town that people like to visit. Not as run down as some places, but all the houses that come up for sale in the centre are holiday lets. Lots of new houses on the edge that young people can’t afford. I went to our nearest bigger town a few weeks ago and was shocked, used to be able to spend a day pottering about, I was done in an hour. (Another HoF-is he purposely running them into the ground?)

I live near to two small towns, one is thriving and one isn't(lots of empty shops, few visitors) They are both in an affluent area with good rail links to London, schools are good in both. I have puzzled over the difference and all I can come up with is:

A) The thriving one has a large supermarket in the centre which provides free parking for those going to the other shops. The other town you have to pay for parking

B) The thriving one has more houses around it meaning more people likely to use it. The other town has a lot of greenery around it and very restricted housing.

C) the town which isn't thriving seems to have got into a negative cycle where x number of shops close, less people visit and then more shops close. I spoke to someone who had opened as shop in the town who said they were shocked by how many people visited compared to another shop they owned and were planning to close again.

It is a real shame as this town could be really attractive. It has a lovely leisure centre, theatre and park and does not appear run down other than the shops and limited people.

We've still got banks and a library too. I'm sure they help generally to pull people in.

In fact the only reason I went to town yesterday was I needed to print something (very rare) and the library offers the service for pennies. While I was there I bought lunch, took in some dry cleaning and bought a pair of shoes.

I think this could describe any number of small towns. But it doesn’t have to. Councils seem to be split between those who throw their hands up, blame the internet, and let everything go to waste, and those who actually make changes. One town near us has made all town centre parking free, holds regular markets with free kids entertainers, and - absolute shock horror - is willing to have reasonable discussions about business rates in order to keep the shops open. It still has hundreds of barbers and so on, but very few empty units, which means there is actually life in the centre still.

Building houses without building the associated infrastructure remains a huge problem locally though.

Our small town has a lot of really lovely, free family events at the parks. They secured some lottery funding and it's been put to such good use. There's so many lovely community events going on all the time. The parks are kept in a very good state and very well staffed. It keeps antisocial behaviour down too. The shift from the high street to the parks being the centres of the community has had a really positive impact here.

GP surgeries are over-subscribed everywhere except in some of the tiny villages. So GP surgeries will continue to be over subscribed regardless of any new housing is built. Lack of GP spaces is not a reason to stop new housing.

Schools tend to be undersubscribed in the run-down towns, just like OP described. Run-down towns is where there is capacity for schools to take more pupils.

People around here don't go for bee-keeping or art festivals. What they would like are more factory & manual labour jobs, but there would be outrage if anyone actually tried to site a large new manufacturing hub.

MintJulia I think that is the difference - a council that think about strategy and forward plan. Unfortunately ours seem to do the reverse. I went to stand on the town council but unfortunately I didn't fit the seemingly late middle-aged, white man criteria and the spot went to someone who did.

I posted the other day how busy Gloucester Road in Bristol is at the moment and think it’s down to the demographic. Wealthy neighbourhoods will invest in their local communities and willingly pay more to ensure they thrive. The divide will get worse.

We have independent shops. We also have three (yes, three) Tesco metros within less than a mile and a large Tesco a couple of miles away. No banks, of course, they've all moved out - the local joke is they'll probably be combined burrito/vape/mobile phone/Tesco consortiums. And this is a prosperous London borough.

People don’t go into towns to shop anymore. Shopping happens online. Councils and planners need to start thinking outside the box. Retail isn’t going to save small towns (we too live just outside one like you describe).

What has helped is more community spaces and things to do. We have a great leisure centre that puts on loads of activities. There’s a beautiful park with a playground that is well maintained. We have some community initiatives like a community kitchen and fridge and active community spaces used for classes and groups. I think retail spaces likely need to be re-purposed, perhaps for housing as there is never enough of that. More funding for activities that keep teenagers from being bored, better transport links. We just revitalised a disused railway line and now have a quick rail connection to a nearby big city.

@whatchagonnado and the thing is Guildford (and I know it very well) actually still looks amazingly prosperous compared to so many other places if you travel around. It's the same here in Bath- there are always people moaning and yet compared to so many other places it looks positively booming.I guess it's all relative.

@whatchagonnado

I agree. Online shopping post pandemic has started to kill off the high street and town centre and not just in small towns.

It started happening a long time pre covid in some towns, particularly run down seaside towns and run down ex-mill towns. You could go back 10 years or even 20, to start to see some town centres declining with loss of bigger shops, influx of charity shops & bookies etc. It really started with the advent of the large out of town supermarkets and retail parks around 20 years ago which sucked shoppers and shops out of the town centres. In those places, internet shopping is now hitting the out of town retail parks too!

Covid has just broadened the areas in which this trend is happening. Larger towns and cities which continued to survive the trend for out of town shopping and retail parks seem to have finally been hit by online shopping.

I actually disagree with this slightly. I would definitely go into town for a mooch about - would certainly stop somewhere for a nice coffee and use the independent shops. Unfortunately there are hardly any left. I do think people still like to shop. Not necessarily in the way that they used to but there is a market for it and they can play a part in making a town centre more vibrant.
Totally agree that a diverse breadth of activities would incentivise people to use their local towns. I also think that councils should prioritise small businesses of the types they want - so reduce business on rates for certain types of business.
Unfortunately our town caters for it's ageing demographic. There is a lot of an "I'm alright Jack" attitude.