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a similar fate - where once there was a mix of social backgrounds and culture, old and young, this has steadily been replaced by troubled souls (addicts/ street drinkers, etc).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 agree parking is a huge issue. People who have cars want to drive and park for free, so they prioritise locations with free parking. Then the shops prioritise stores in these locations. Where I live there’s a huge department store which has recently closed in the town centre (where you have to pay to park) and they’ve relocated to a retail park with free parking. They’ve even told the council the reason for them relocating is the recent increase in parking charges, but the council is unwilling to reverse it. As the good shops leave the town centre it becomes more pointless to visit. It’s full of public transport users, aka “people who can’t afford cars”, who often can’t afford anything else either.

In the small town where my parents live the council has recently implemented parking charges. 5k people signed a petition to oppose it but the council decided to implement it anyway out of pure greed. So now the car parks are empty and the streets are congested with cars parking for free, which means residents can’t get parked outside their homes. People are parking half a mile away in the free car park and walking to the shops. The once-busy car parks are deserted. Businesses are struggling because they’ve lost the casual customers who pop in for a quick purchase or a coffee. The council is killing the town with greed. Meanwhile the new out-of-town shopping precinct (free parking) is suddenly packed with shoppers, dog walkers grabbing a coffee, parents taking their kids for a walk and an ice cream, etc.

motown center is becoming residential. Towers of expensive flats being built.

Also an American investment/pensions company has bought the shopping centre. It's ghost town.

My council is rubbish and wants to sell all the land for flats and houses.

I want to join a gym. There are 2 in my local town which would be great apart from each time I use them I would have to pay a £3 parking fee. It is a shame becuase if I went there to use the gym I know I would visit a few of the other local shops at the same time. I cannot however justify the parking on top of the gym fee so I go to a gym on a retail park instead. It is further away and I create more pollution driving there but I save £600 a year in parking fees.

I really think it's online shopping that has killed the High Street. Oxford Street in London, probably the most well-known shopping street in the UK and Bond Street nearby, are changed beyond recognition. Huge empty shops everywhere! But no one has ever driven to or parked on these roads. It's not car use that has changed these places forever.

London is a special case. Virtually nobody drives there because of the cost and the traffic and the availability of good public transport. But that’s not typical of other cities and towns. In other places the flow of people is being directed towards free parking.

Our local town is awful. Plenty of people can walk in. It takes me 15 mins to walk in. Ds walks into town on his way to school every school day.

It’s actually convenient. However, the only women’s clothes shop is peacocks. The boots and super drug are so small, there’s barely anything in them. The banks don’t even open Saturday. I go into town, to get my nails done and my eyes tested. And that’s it.

Public transport is shocking. There’s a train station 10 mins walk from my house. But if I am travelling to London the trains are so infrequent , it’s quicker to drive to the bigger station 25 mins away. It would add an hour and a half on to my journey each way to go to the local one. When I am in London, I don’t miss my car at all. I could happily live without one. But it’s next to impossible to not have one here. Even the supermarkets are small and don’t have much choice.

The vast majority of jobs are low paid. There’s 2 places you can work that’s decent paid. My company and the council as they have a large office on the outskirts. However, again, no public transport goes past it. I live a 7 min drive from the office. It would take 2 buses and a 25 minute walk taking over an hour.

About a mile out is an outlet and and entertainment venue. Both get busy. Our getting public transport is awful. From nearby or surrounding places. And it doesn’t draw people to the town.

The market is full of vape stalls and cheap clothes aimed towards the older demographic of people. Even if I wanted to do all my shopping there, I couldn’t. Parking is actually cheap and plentiful.

We have 2 cities nearby. Both are horrendous to get to on public transport. My friend worked in one city and it took her 2 hours each way to get to her job. It’s untenable especially for 22k. She had to leave. Her mum as doing childcare before and after school everyday but got poorly and couldn’t do it anymore.

About 2 miles away, there’s an industrial complex, full or warehouses. The buses don’t even go through there very often. Loads of people cycle in.

Theres many reasons town centres are failing. Not sure I can pinpoint what the starting point is. But, I do know that poor public transport to and from somewhere massively impacts it. And have a lack of choice in shops also impacts it.

So many people of working age are moving away. I will be moving in the next couple of years. I am staying for ds school. My company is moving offices to somewhere more accessible and increasing work from home after listening to the staff.

My local high street is dying off too

We lost (In no particular order as I don't recall what folded when)

Woolworths
Maplin
Wilko
BHS
Debenhams
Allders (now Primark)
Dixons
H&M

There are others

Part of it is a small Mall that used to house Brighthouse, Argos, Poundland and Iceland (and some independent shops). Now the only shops open there are a general food store and a restaurant (though apparently a new gym is about to open in one of the units)

We still have a decent amount of shops like M&S, TK Maxx, Sports Direct, Waterstones etc etc but the amount of units now closed inside the shopping centre is large.
Re Retail parks . Quite lucky here really as we have a retail park with a large Sainsbury's and various other stores, on a bus route (the bus actually pulls into the retail park) from here . Also, in another direction on a bus route, B&M, Dunelm, Wren kitchens and a few others.

Pedestrianisation has had an impact. People have lots of options now with online shopping and retail parks. Supermarkets sell just about everything under the sun, too. People don't want to have to drive round and round the inevitable one-way system surrounding the town centre looking for one of the very few limited-time free parking spaces. They want even less to pay for the multistorey car park, walk down several flights of stairs and back up again on the way home. They don't want to walk half a mile to the shop they want to use because it's in the pedestrianised part. People are time-poor. They want to park outside the place they want to visit and quickly go in.

The council putting the rough people near the town centre is actually a good strategy. If they're single and likely to stay that way, they're going to have nobody to split the bills with so less disposable income for a car. They're going to go into town anyway if they're drinking or taking drugs because those things are more accessible there. If they're housed nearby they can get into town without a car, which helps them and if they're addicts, they're not walking through other areas causing trouble to the inhabitants on their way through. I lived somewhere with a fight every weekend in the street outside. It wasn't the locals, it was people from the estates up the way, who all came through on their way to the high street and trouble occurred when they met rivals. There was so much violence and vandalism in what could have been a nice patch.

London isn't a special case.

We're just about to move to a place that's totally walkable, so much good stuff there.

We're going to loose space. But! Gain life.

The place we're moving to is very expensive but brilliant. We're going from 6 bedrooms to 4.

Because it's alive, independent businesses all over, it's a good place to live.

Yes. And I'm saying that streets unaffected by car use and car parking are also dying. Ergo it isn't necessarily parking charges that causes lack of footfall in shops! Online shopping and that rats leaving a sinking ship effect are at least equally to blame.

@Meadowfinch - what town is this? Is it in an affluent area? Sounds like the council have got something right!

I think sadly the majority want flattering
there quite simply isn’t the demand to warrant there existence

Thanks for the topic OP, one I am also very interested in. I moved to a town 3 years ago and in that time it has been so sad to see how the town centre has depleted with shops constantly closing and not reopening. The quality of shops that are left are poor. They opened a large retail park close to the town centre so most people go there instead (again with the free parking). Some nice coffee shops have opened up in town which is nice and makes me think that what the town centre needs is more unique offerings like little boutique shops, bookshops and restaurants that offer an 'experience' and aren't trying to compete with the big retail stores, so that it becomes more of a destination to go into town. Also keeping those essential services like banks and post offices in the town centre so people are forced to go there and then think 'oh I'll grab a coffee' or 'have a nosey in that shop' before leaving. I've been told that the retail park really killed off the town centre so that was a bad move by the LA...

My hairdresser announced that he’s moving from his studio in his back garden (easy to swing in his drive, 5 min journey for me) into an empty unit in our town centre.
I couldn’t work out how I felt about that.

Minus - My journey to have my hair cut will now take 20 mins each way, I’ll sit in traffic, and pay for parking. He’s a good hairdresser but not THAT good. He may lose a client.

Plus - there’s one less empty retail space in town.

It's definitely to do with the prevalence of the out-of-town retail parks. If Boots, Next, M&S etc are no longer on the High Street, your shopping habits are going to change.
The knock-on effect is that you're not going to pop into the smaller independents or coffee shops that remain on the High Street. They too get boarded up or turned into vape, charity or sweet shops.
Town Planners have to give us a reason to visit the High Street again.

I’m in Staines upon Thames and the town centre is extremely busy/thriving. I visited lots of local areas and it’s the main reason I chose Staines as I want to walk everywhere as I get old.
I think the planners have done quite a good job resurrecting a town that had a poor reputation up to a decade ago.
There are regular markets, good range of shops, good transport options. A cinema and retail park type area with Supermarkets next to a pedestrianised high street. Absolutely loads of restaurants.
On the down side traffic can be bad, the offerings are nearly all chains, there’s poor connection to the riverside, construction of new high rise flats is crazy and the train station is 10-15 minute walk from town.
I do think someone in the council understands how to create a place people want to come. They are planning even more changes with additional recreation space right in the town centre focussed around the various rivers.

People still want to go somewhere. Get out of the house, eat or have a coffee. Teens need somewhere to gather (and they do!).
Moved here recently and am still amazed how busy it is in town.

Our town centre is dying because the council has introduced parking discs - you can no longer park for free and wander around town all day, nor can you pay for parking because there are no pay and display.

The only option is to use parking discs but they only give you an hour before you have to go and move your car again - it's absolutely ridiculous. Anyone who doesn't move their car is fined £35 so of course nobody bothers anymore, they all drive to the retail park that has free parking for several hours at a time, or that's close to the train station so you can hop on the train and walk over.

I just much prefer online shopping. It's more convenient for me in every way and I can't see me ever going back.

I think @JobMatch3000 is right. Our high street still has Boots, M&S, Next, WHS, Waterstones, Fat Face, White Stuff etc. Plus all the opticians, pharmacies, estate agents, a good butcher, hardware store, coffee shops, two boutiques, banks, pubs. A library. A critical mass that makes it worth visiting, where you can get everything done in one trip, have coffee, meet some friends.

We have a retail park further out which has pound shops, an Aldi, Sports Direct etc. Generally a bit less affluent

Phillip Green ransacking some well known brands and running them into the ground didn't help matters either.

The introduction of a Clean Air Zone in our city is killing off our city centre. To travel into Bristol in an older diesel car costs £9 and then you have the one way system (I used to be able to cross Bristol Bridge as the most direct way to the shopping centre but now I have to take a big detour)....and finally pay for parking..

I haven't been to our nearest town centre for more than 18 months. I have no reason to. Driving in is impossible plus astronomical parking fees. I have been to a couple of out of town retail parks when I fancied a stroll round the shops. Otherwise it's Amazon and eBay and food shopping in the local Sainsbury's and Lidl. Things change - all the villages that used to be self-sufficient, with greengrocer, butcher, baker, hardware shop and post office, are now mostly dormitories. Town centres need to adapt and find a new rôle, not trying to pull in customers that are no longer interested. What that might look like is anyone's guess.

I think @Imuptoolate has a good point that High Streets don't have anything that teenagers want to buy. My 13yo DS is suddenly interested in clothes, but the things he wants mostly come from the US or Australia. There is nothing he would see fit to wear sold in our town. I suppose that is due to social media 'globalising' teenagers outlook.

I think it's a shame so many views are articulated around shops. We don't really need to get more stuff. How about focusing more on accessible experiences ( bars, restaurants, shows, festivals)? When my city organised events, the city is jam packed and there's such a good vibe. The events are free but by virtue of the fact people are there, they'll buy a drink, have a bit to eat etc so do bring money into the economy and life in the place.

Our local major town is thriving but it's changed. People now go for things like a meal and crazy golf vs shopping. If we are going shopping it either the nearest major city or out of town shopping centre (we drive it's on a rail route aswell).

I find I don't want to go into X town which has shops YZH and then go to town J to visit REW. I would rather travel the hour or so once to go to the city that has them all. Hopefully businesses continue to downsize their estate and keep profitable but only time will tell.