Has anything near you permanently changed or not survived the lockdowns?

[Christmasconcerts]

A toddler class I went to has stopped. It went on for ten years but struggled after the lockdowns and now has stopped for good. I know it’s silly to feel a bit sad - the baby and toddler market is saturated with classes.

I wondered if anyone else has had something permanently close its doors after lockdowns.

Two childcare settings, one soft play, couple of shops. My area had local restrictions in 2020, so got the worst of it.

Mil health. The lack of necessary exercise at that age was really bad for older people.

London suburb high street.

Quite a few of the noticeable changes I think were happening anyway due to internet shopping and changes in consumer behaviour, but were sped up by the pandemic.

Loads of new chain food places and banks of Deliveroo/Uber Eats drivers outside.

Closed - a bank, a post office, a couple of chain clothes shops, a couple of old fashioned family owned businesses (hardware store, grocery store).

Any empty shop space instantly becomes a depressing ‘vapes/phone cases/crap from China’ cheap shop.

Pubs, cafes and supermarkets/convenience stores anll appear to be doing a brisk trade.

A couple of sandwich shops near work. One reopened after lock down but closed within weeks because the WFH trend had a massive impact on them.

Our GP is back to normal with f2f

Sadly a toddler group which was great for the community has gone

DDs music group. It had been going for decades but the person running it felt unable to rebuild it after covid as so many children would have left/gotten too old. Very sad.

I know of a few Scout groups... the older leaders took the opportunity to retire, no one younger took up the mantle.

The attractions that insist that you have to book!! That really makes me mad!
Was never like that before COVID!

Childcare, a number of childminders retired or found other work in lockdown, one of two after school clubs closed meaning we have the choice of one after school club and 3 childminders - no one has space, they’re booked up as soon as space becomes available.

DH worked in Debs. To be honest we were just surprised they'd lasted that long, we thought they were going to go under in 2008 when Woolworths and a bunch of others went. Sad though, once lockdown was announced it was inevitable.

My daughter. We came out of lock down and she suddenly struggled to go to school, having previously never had an issue. It's slowly escalated since then and she no longer attends at all.

getting a face to face Gp Appointment

A lot of small shops/businesses closed as they where struggling prior to pandemic and never really got the business back when they reopened.

This comment will be a bit controversial. WFH has also not helped high streets, in your lunch breaks you might have popped out to pick something up from a local shop? now you WFH you don't!! hence indie shops shut as it is all ordered online!!

This happened with my hairdresser, and her home was quite far out of town. I changed hairdresser.

My gym shut down and I always felt weirdly sad about it. Need to get over it as I don't even live near it anymore so wouldn't be going there even if it was open!

I now work fully remotely, which is working out great for work/life balance, no commuting costs, flexibility, etc. But I actually really miss the office and would go back in a heartbeat if it was a possibility (it isn't).

In an effort to get myself out of the house and socialising once more, I've recently started going to a Wednesday morning community cafe at the local Methodist church. I was amazed at how well-attended it is; but as I got to know the other people there - mainly quite religious older women in their 70s and 80s - I realised very few of them are actually members of its congregation.

Instead, I hear over and over again, "I go to services at St Mary's/Holy Trinity/St John the Baptist - they used to have wonderful, busy coffee mornings there too, but when they tried to re-open after the lockdowns, only five people came back in the first week and only two people in the second week so they gave up."

I think what's made the Methodist church cafe a success is that the deacon applied for a Warm Space grant last winter and used that to set up the cafe and various other weekday initiatives. However, she had the good sense not to call them Warm Space activities - which she thought people might feel too ashamed or embarrassed to attend - and instead presented them as Film Club, Lunch Club, Community Cafe, Gardening Club and Gentle Yoga Group meetings.

The pub has closed. We've lost a garden centre, a pet shop, a cafe, a crafty knitting type shop, the chemists went bust and got taken over by another chain, and several large units at the retail park are now empty. Argos has closed its big shop and moved into a titchy corner of Sainsburys. Boots has closed its pharmacy counter and it wouldn't surprise me if Matalan isn't in trouble now as well, judging by how sparse it looked and how little stock they had when I went in there yesterday.

I'm in a book club, and we used to have our meeting at a lovely café. It was perfect for us because it was cosy and had an informal style (so it was OK to have books on the table), it had both cake/cookies and dinner food so you could choose what you wanted, and they also had both coffe/tea and wine. And no loud music. A great place!

It closed during the pandemic.

Ironically, right before the pandemic, we were talking about maybe switching to a new place to meet, since we had been meeting in the same café for many years, we wanted to perhaps try something new, etc. What wouldn't we give to have our café back now!
We meet in another café now, but it's not nearly as good.

No healthcare, no GP appointments, not seen a doc since before Covid and have developed a chronic health problem that may have been sortable if a GP would have seen me, now I just have to live in pain

voluntary work - I have been trying for 5 YEARS to find a small part time role, but since lockdown most places starting insisting on needing at least 2 references for a post, I do not have any so cannot get on anywhere at all. It was not so strict before Covid. I think during furlough, places got inundated with volunteers so started being more choosy.

My local Asda, not sure if staff shortages or not but the shelves are never stocked and they sell loads of out of date food, DH never checks the dates and brings home out of date stuff. I was eating horrid chocs that he bought me and when I checked they were 6 months out of date🙄

Within a mile or two of my house - a Peacocks, a M&Co, a local restaurant which was good enough for Michelin rosettes, a pub and the school PTA.

@FairyTaleOfDudley
I'm sorry to hear about your daughter's struggles with school. That must be very difficult.

70% of the roads in my borough.

Yeah, my workplace. Local business been going since the 80s. Limped on until July this year and then went into administration.

Spontaneity permanently gone
As a PP said, literally everything needs to be prebooked - can't turn upto soft play/swimming pool/farm or any other activity without booking in advance. Most restaurants also require booking in advance.

We used to love deciding what we wanted to do on the day - now we hardly visit most of the places I mentioned and have practically stopped eating out

A lovely local restaurant closed and is being replaced by the inevitable flats. Also the local swimming pool kept the policy of having to book, which I find very annoying.

so many things closing down where me and my husband are (a popular city). I dread to think how smaller towns are coping.

My DD had an hour long class which reduced to 45 mins to avoid people arriving and leaving together. It remains 45 mins for the same cost. Trivial in the overall scheme of things but annoys me nonetheless.