Some thoughts about dying town centres

[OtterTails]

I have been reading an older thread from 2022 about how many towns across the UK are becoming hollow shells of their former selves. How anti social issues have increased in many of these dying towns, with empty shops and even entire disused precincts.
My own old home town suffered a similar fate - where once there was a mix of social backgrounds and culture, old and young, this has steadily been replaced by troubled souls (addicts/ street drinkers, etc). You never see elderly people there now, and the regular shoppers disappeared after the closure of M&S about 5 years ago. One reason that likely makes this worse is that the local council placed a lot of the troubled singles in the areas around the town centre, which I think has put the last nail in the coffin.

But even though most of us are aware of big stores such as Amazon and online shopping having played a huge pat in this decline, I think there's more to it. Probably a mix of many reasons. We shop differently now, and the wold is changing, etc etc...

And then I thought (not heard this mentioned before), since so many people in the thread said that difficult road systems and parking fees have put them off going into town, maybe our increasing car use has played a big role, too.
There are far many more people on the roads now than ever before, and many older town centres don't have the space or infrastructure to manage this. So in this sense I think that the way we use our cars has altered how we choose to shop, which is quite different to say 20 years ago at the latter end of the high street boom, when many people still used public transport to go to town, even if they owned a vehicle. Or there were simply less people driving, so the roads/carparks weren't as chock full.

Just a thought, it might not just be about business rates or online shopping.

In my old town now, most of the people on the dying high street are at the lowest income bracket, which was absolutely not the case even 10 years ago. I am wondering if this is because they are less likely to own a vehicle - and the only shops that remain cater to this market.
So our larger economy is shaping the decline also.

Most of the pretty, thriving towns I know aren't particularly affluent, but they do have a mix of culture and age ranges, and people coming through often. My old home town doesn't, so the casino's and cheap shops are the only one's left.

I think nowadays you need town/city centre living (a lot of residential development) and a thriving university to keep a strong town centre. That also keeps the hospitality going.

Then there's added extras like retail/commercial/tourism which a town needs at least one to be doing well.

A place 20 miles away from me has a university. The high street is in a sorry state. so I don't think that a university is key, I reckon that students are more likely to frequent supermarkets, cheap chain shops and Wetherspoons than support local businesses.

A different place 40 miles away has a thriving high street with many small shops, restaurants, hotels and only one of those betting shops that are often referred to when people lament the state of Britain's high streets. Very few "to let" signs. The secret? When the local industry was lost the railway which once served it was preserved and now attracts hundreds of thousands of visitors to the town every year. Not only are the tourists spending money but the staff employed to maintain the railway keep the economy going when so many other former industrial towns in the area have high unemployment. While overtourism can cause real problems, tourism managed well can be a boon. I'm not sure that the bucket-and-spade sort of tourism has the same spending power as the old folks coach tours though.

@whattimeisteaready that is indeed a nice place- I wasn't thinking 'up north' for some reason from your post

It wasn't always that way. American towns and cities didn't always had six-lane stroads and elevated highways cutting through the centre of them. They didn't always have strip malls, big box stores and sprawling parking lots. Large parts of many American cities (inevitably the poorer neighbourhoods inhabited by minorities) were demolished in the mid-20th Century to build this.

Look at these to pictures of Denver. The first one from the 1920s, plenty of walkable, mid-rise development. The second shows the same view in the 1970s- only the clock tower survives, surrounded by parking lots.

I live in Swindon (for my sins).

Honestly, the only thing you can buy in the town centre nowadays is a junkie.

It is a hole. It is not dying, it is already dead, buried and rotting.

@DdraigGoch

I don't think that a university is key

You have to consider how much worse it would be without the Uni!

We have a Uni in our nearest town, and it's still pretty run down, but if you look to the next town along, without a Uni, it's a LOT worse.

Outskirts of Manchester. Socially deprived though many aspiring middle class and semi professionals in the catchment area.

My town centre is dying, for the same reasons already mentioned. Parking being a real thorny subject after the council recently increased their charges (the majority of car parks near the town centre are council run).
We used to have a thriving outdoor market which is now devoid of traders most days, they say the rents make it uneconomic now. There are more and more empty spaces in the indoor market, for the same reason. The council's answer is to spend millions on a fancy new canopy and landscaping scheme to make the area more attractive. Who for?
This comes after a new bus station, the third redesign I can think of over the last 20 years, and some buses still stop on the main road outside. We also have a railway station about a 5 min walk away ( across a v busy road) and are on the tram network.
There's an M&S and supermarket 5 mins in the other direction, away from the market srea, and again over a very busy main road. V few people walk there.

The empty market stalls are shelter for feral teenagers, the homeless, alcoholics and druggies during the day. These people are a major deterrent for older people in particular to go into the area. I would have liked to see any spare cash going to provide a day centre for them, but hey ho I suppose our councillors know better than provide support for people who really need some help rather than constant criticism / end of rant.

The main shopping area and markets are architecturally uninspiring, and there's nothing of interest in the town centre unless you're into charity shops, cafes and coffee shops. No reason to go there, so people just don't. Unless you can reinvent the area as a tourist attraction it has no future. An expensive face-lift isn't the answer.

It's almost £2/hr to park in our city centre...to visit charity shops, McDonald's, Weatherspoons, vape shop, tattoo shop and a few drug users thrown in for good measure. I don't even think the banks are open anymore.

Shit town centres with pedestrianised high streets are the worst. They're just racetracks for toothless mouth breathers on mobility scooters and sunken faced junkies darting between Corals and Poundland.

Come on councils, think outside the box. Rip up the block paving, allow through traffic and free parking even if just for 90mins. Will attract passing trade and in time more businesses will occupy the vacant units.

@whattimeisteaready thanks so much!

I don't think it pedestrianised high streets because nearby town doing so well is pedestrianised but has lots of free parking very close by - and decent bus station right in center by shops.

City center is semi pedestrianised - but car parking charges and not many streets to park on are high bus station is in grotty slightly out of way of center - split in two for two companies it's 3 min walk between all exact change or differing payment systems - it's fine in day but not so sure part of in dark for one of them. Once your in so many high street shops aren't there so often can't find what you go in for and end up looking on-line or elsewhere anyway.

This thread is proof that you can't win- some people moaning about having to cross a busy road and others saying tear the block paving up and put free parking in on high st. The thing is no town will attract decent consistent business unless it has no 'more interesting/attractive' competition within 15 miles and has no shops worthy of a mooch for most people but women in particular - I'm not sure what the solution is but I don't think free parking is the panacea some think it is. We have incredibly cheap parking if I pop over to Keynsham - but would I rush there- no (although it does have a great record shop my H pops to every few weeks)

I honestly think myself I would rather live on the edge of an attractive smaller city, or a bit of London that has its own proper local little town (think Richmond, Kingston, Wimbledon, Ealing, Bromley etc) OR a great attractive village with at least a pub, general store, cafe, community centre within 15 minutes drive or a good bus/train routeof a much bigger place for actual 'shopping'

ALL these kinds of places are at the higher end of the price spectrum because people want to actually live there .

@Crikeyalmighty The problem is planners are not looking at who wants to shop in physical shops these days. It is people with no choice who tend to be poor, and older people. Everyone else nips in to a store in a retail park for one or two things, but it is a 20 minute stop off tops. They are not going to pay a £5 to spend £10 in one store or spend 40 minutes round trip on a bus.
Older people need either good buses and safe places to shop and/or free or easy parking and lots of free places to sit down for five minutes for a rest.
Planners still seem to be stuck in the idea of people going out shopping for the day. I do not know anyone who does that except older people. It is why large garden centres that sell everything from clothes to food are so popular.
Instead planners are still stuck on shops and experiences. We go to the cinema regularly. We drive and park for free at the large cinema, I have no need to go into the city for that. And the best restaurants and bars are not in the city centre and probably never will be. The rent and rates are too high and margins are too tight. The only reason to go into the city centre is the theatre, so we go in about 3 times a year.

And most town and city centres are pretty inaccessible if you use a wheelchair.

I agree with this. Wigan is the same.
They have redesigned countless areas, such as the shopping malls, twice. They have built an entirely new bus station (mostly frequented by smokers and drugs).. Useful services get demoted or closed down (hardware shops, food shops, post office) and the new ones that pop up are casinos, barbers and shops that sell horrendously cheap goods (3 Poundlands, Savers, etc). Not one fresh item for miles.

Millions have been spent in reshaping wigan town centre. It hasn't worked. In fact it has got much much worse. Piss, skunk and the smell of unwashed clothing is commonplace, many people who frequent the centre nowadays have severe mental health issues, probably untreated. There are those who smell so badly that it is difficult to be in the same store. This is not a put down, something is very wrong. People are not getting access to care.

It was a different place only 10 years ago, with most shops thriving. Older and more varied people came to use the M&S, Debenhams, and there were far fewer cheap shops and betting shops.

You see men, largely, now. Gangs of teenage boys wrecking stuff, shouting profanities, speeding through illegally on modded bikes. The local B&M's is supplying cheap alcohol right onto the main street, so the benches are full of severely damaged people with drink and drug issues (their speech is barely legible and they are drastically underweight).
The B&M's is regularly held up by youths with knives.

Now the council are planning to fill the centre with apartments and a new cinema - these ubiquitous new cinemas never, ever work! Who the heck is going to want to live in these homes, surrounded by betting shops, pound shops and street crime?

It all sounds incredibly bone headed to me. You can't revive this level of depravity with a few new flats. No one comes in nowadays, no one is going to invest. The town is strewn with litter, piss and passed out drunks. The main entertainment area (the once famous nightclubs) are places you would not go after dark.

Parking may be an issue there, but the roads surrounding it are dangerous, jam packed and hostile to pedestrians (very few crossings in extremely traffic dense areas. The town's Lidl is a few mins walk from the centre and they dont even supply a safe entry way/footpath for people on foot. Cars speed in and out of the carpark and those on foot frequently have to run into a spare parking spot avoid being hit.

It is a very angry place.

I feel most sorry for those who are disabled or financially struggling, but who are ordinary, sober people who just want to put little flower pots on their flat balcony. Those who work hard and have to live alongside the deprivation because they can't quite afford to get out of it.
These are forgotten people. They feel the worst of the deprivation because they don't contribute to it or generate it. They just want decent services and clean buses, a nice park to walk in and to be able to leave a rose bush in their garden that won't get ripped up.

People who have to put up with the stench of smoke, spilled booze and skunk in the corridor of their apartment. Older people who are afraid to use the lifts.

For example: a friend of mine who still lives close to these once decent flats told me a darkly comic yet sad story about the residents finding people had been defecating on the communal stairs through the pandemic.

There used to be an age limit on the flats in Wigan, so you had to be over 40/50 to access the high rise, which was always clean and lovely with nice balconies. All that changed after 2010, now the blocks are chock full of gangs of young men, drug dealers and domestic violence.

As you walk through the town centre area, it is common to hear people screaming at each other, in what I would call a wholly new local accent that is difficult to understand, people fighting in front of the cafe Nero as you sip your coffee. It is a harsh and unhappy place. Unrecognisable now in such a short space of time.

I wondered if the accent had dramatically altered due to poor school experience and also from a lack of getting out of the area. Some have never left since being born, not even to visit the next town.

Edit to add - I have no idea where these people even came from. They were NOT present in the town centre 10 years ago, or even 7 yrs ago. I was told the council took them from different wards who would no longer house them. A large segment of them are so troubled that they can't string a sentence together so are highly unlikely to end up in the local job market. There is ALWAYS trouble around the entrance to the job centre. But again, this is all quite new, and it baffles me as to how steadily these people filed in.

I do think having a University helps. We have one and a college and the cafes around about are rammed with students. You see a lot of the college and Uni students in Primark and such like.

Actually my local town centres are thriving. Only one caters for Tourists. There are others which are blighted by shopping centres which can't rent all the units. And one big out of town centre has to continually run events like a "beach" in summer to get anyone to go there, I would be surprised if it is making a profit. I sometimes visit as it is so quiet, much more so than the nearby city, do my Autistic daughter prefers it.
And the UK doesn't have to follow the USA, several European towns have reversed the trend with more greenery, more cycle and pedestrian routes and are thriving.
It needs the will to change.

This seems to being tried in my town centre. A couple of buildings on the high street are to be turned into apartments above a shop on the ground floor. Also just off the high street a large apartment block is being built.

We can not recreate what is in Japan. People have no choice but to live in an apartment rather than a detached house with a garden.
Apartments have already been built in many English cities, lots of them. They do not regenerate the city centre. They either end up full of students, full of air bnbs, or full of people struggling and sometimes with severe drug and alcohol issues.

Because people with choices and families do not want to live in apartments in city centres in England. They will always try and have a garden instead.
The standard of apartments in England is also very poor. And you can usually get better housing by buying a terraced house with a small garden.

I think bakers particularly are used differently than they used to be. People used to get all their bread from the Baker's and a few treat items. Most people get most of their bread from the supermarket now. Fresh bread is a treat. People also use Baker's for sweet treats and probably the main reason is for sandwiches and pastries for lunch. Baker's have evolved to match this. Our local one sells drinks and crisps to make meal deals. Also coffee and soup and bacon or sausages rolls for breakfast.

You need good parking but once you're in the town centre it;s better when it's light traffic. The car is invasive to pedestrians, particularly dual carriageways or busy roads.

It's the motorway effect of the 60s and 70s and town planning designed around the motorcar (with the subsequent building of out-of-town retail parks) that ruined town centres.

About 10 years ago I no longer went into town shopping for the day. But I still parked in the outskirts for free and popped in for a few bits. Once the free parking was removed I stopped going in. The last time I went in was December for the theatre. I looked beforehand to see if there was anywhere nice for a pre theatre meal. but it was all chains so we did not even do this.

This is very true. My town has also removed the vast majority of disabled spaces too and replaced them with electric charging spaces. There weren't many disabled spots to begin with. Some of the car parks now have none at all.

Which is why large gardening centres have filled that gap.