What will become of our city and town centres?

[rattymol]

So many towns and cities in my region have centres that are no longer working. Empty shops, charity shops and bookies have taken over, and much reduced footfall.
So what happens now?

The world has always evolved though, this is just another change.

I read somewhere that this is why gimmicky cafes are becoming more popular - cat cafes, cereal cafes, other random niche themed cafes. They need to offer something different to stand out among all the existing chain cafes and restaurants, and obviously a cat cafe is an experience you can't get online

In my city clothes shops are closing and being replaced with restaurants and ever more fast food outlets.

We live in a new estate which isn't really attached to our local town - this seems to be a more common thing with new builds. There isn't even a decent footpath to link us to the town centre, so if we want to go shopping we have to take the car - it's a a choice of 3 miles into the local town and pay to park with an app, or 8 miles to the local retail park with free shopping. I like the idea of a nice town centre stroll but the reality is I don't have time to make use of it. I hope that with more people WFH, the appetite for the local High Street revives with some investment in new and interesting shops, but it's not looking likely.

When I'm on holiday, I make sure to use the local bakery, greengrocers etc - but at home I've just not got the patience at the moment.

I’m put off going into town because of parking charges - the other day I went into my local town (Guildford), faffed around with the electric car charging (didn’t work as no phone signal), and then the parking app (had to go up a level to get a signal). Needed to get some trousers for son from M and S and wanted some cricket stuff.
M and S had no school trousers and suggested I buy them on line. Sports shop didn’t have what I needed and suggested I go online. Had a browse in a book shop and decided not to buy anything.

Pondered over getting a tea and cake and realised I only had 15 minutes left and didn’t want to pay for another hour just for a tea.
So came home with NOTHING, wasted about two hours driving there and schlepping round.
Ordered the trousers and cricket stuff online.
Stupid.
Town centres should do free parking if you spend over a certain amount. It’s a nice town but it was drizzling and cold as usual and I just thought, this is crap.

Completely agree. I work in Glasgow city centre retail and its awful. Glasgow used to be brilliant. Its now grubby, smelling of pee and rubbish and loads of boarded up shops.

Our town of around 300, 000 is filling up fast with social housing. Loads of building going on. Whether it's a wise idea to house the neediest people in the already decrepit town centre of an already deprived northern town time will only tell but local paper and facebook pages are not optimistic.
Most of the remaining shops are the usual vape or charity shops, nail bars, fast food. The rest are empty, boarded up. Our big M and S has just shut. No doubt Waterstones opposite will follow. Absolutely no reason to go in now unless to use the supermarkets on the perimeter.
What does seem to be happening is that the large retail park 5 miles from the centre is being used by the more affluent whilst the actual centre is filling up with an underclass of homeless druggies and professional beggars at every set of traffic lights and poorer folk, mainly elderly, who cannot drive.

In a local town/large village, the supermarket is adjacent to town and you can park for three hours for free if you buy something in the shop. The town is bustling even on a week day, coffee shops look prosperous and it’s much better feel in general. I don’t begrudge going into the shop and buying something small for the benefit of staying there for as long as I like (I’d never need 3 hours anyway!). Much better plan.
There seem to be so many interconnected problems causing towns to die; lack of stock in shops, how easy it is to shop online, parking costs, lack of disposable income in general. I think more than anything though its the internet killing the high street. Online shopping is just so convenient and cheap.

New build shops which have never been tenanted have been bought out by a trust which runs a local 'academy'

A lot of pub sites, with car parks and gardens are being turned into small housing developments - I pass three such sites on my way to and from work

We're inundated with Turkish barbers, nail 'spas', phone repairs and accessories and vape shops.

Large properties either suffer repeated suspicious fires if they're listed or get demolished and turned into Identikit flats and houses.

https://www.expressandstar.com/news/local-hubs/walsall/2023/02/15/school-to-take-over-empty-shops/