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a similar fate - where once there was a mix of social backgrounds and culture, old and young, this has steadily been replaced by troubled souls (addicts/ street drinkers, etc).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.

People complain about the cost of parking don't seem to realise the charge is to pay for the up keep of that parking. Given the state of most council's finances which service do people suggest they cut in order to fund 'free' parking?

House building plays a part too. I used to live in a naice commuter town in Hertfordshire. 5 minutes or less walk to the town centre, loads of houses around the centre, it was thriving, had a market 2 days a week and most shops were busy. People could and did walk in. Also had lots of eating places, very rarely any drink driving issues as you could go to the pub/for a meal and walk back.

I now live on a new build estate, no shops anywhere near, not even a paper shop. Bus service isn’t great, train to town is only a 4 minute journey but only an hourly service, last train around 8pm and no Sunday service. Have to drive to get anywhere; supermarkets, gym, even Costa are all on out of town retail parks. The town centre is really rough now, full of bloody vape shops, cheap cafes and people drinking, smoking and fighting. It’s awful.

As someone who still walks to town, your image is very accurate @OtterTails. Luckily, ours is doing ok, we have wide pavements and big family events every now and then which helps a lot.

Along with noisy, smelly, dangerous cars crossing through the middle -

So many others are now just vape shops, convenience stores and takeaways etc.

The shopfronts themselves are ugly. Traditional shopfront are taken out and replaced with plastic, shutters drawn at night.

The same bleak shops make every high street (aside from very posh areas) look the same. The same Greggs, EE store, Tesco express. Blegh.

What's the point? People would rather go online than shop somewhere so sad and unattractive.

A shame, really. A good high street is such an asset for communities and recreation.

My town/high street is deliberately cutting car park spaces to make more outside eating or mini garden spaces. It’s a very busy and thriving high street but most will use public transport to get here or walk. However, things like banks and the post office have closed.

Our high street is dying too.

I think our counciks battle about cars is actually causing negative consequences. They want less cars everywhere. We'll that will mean less shop footfall which means less shops and less to come in for.

It means more sitting at home and shopping online and less socialising and connecting with people. Even connecting with people you don't know in shops is good for mental health if you're isolated.

And like everyone else they keep hiking car park fees which means I think even less about going in.

Again I had a choice of gym - why would I join the one where they're now changing for 2 hours parking minimum each timeny the centre. I want to go swim for 30mins and can do that under an hour but it would double my monthly cost to go there.

So that's going to decrease exercise for many too.

Its such a shame and so sort sighted of those that want to ban cars/increase car parking charges/and yes I hadn't thought a pit the pedestrianisation bits but that's a factor in our town too. It takes longer to get there.

Its bizarre. It's like the whole let's charge those who use cars for lots of things lobby... Has taken over but it's destroying so many areas of life.

Our town centre is less than ten minutes walk for me and there is plenty of parking.
I'd rather go there then the out of town places either on foot or in the car if I happen to be passing - out of town places are both 30 mins in each direction and the parking is chaos. I rarely have the energy for that.

People are complaining about parking charges at the gym, why not walk, run or cycle to the gym?

How about the government gives them a chunk of the road tax! Also we could be adults about it, have car parks that aren't maintained well so you enter at your own risk but they are free (SUV a few pot holes ain't a problem at car park speeds) or maintained cars park you pay for (where DH would put his pride and joy). I can remember our council closing a free car park that was nothing more than a gravel space, they then spent a fortune laying tarmac and white lines it's no longer free and also no longer used. Another option is to get rid of parking permits/double yellows and people can just find somewhere to park along side the road.

It could also be a portion of the rent for the shops considering out of town shopping areas manage it.

I think time has a lot to do with it too, as in individuals having a lack of.

As a family with two full time working parents we really don’t have time to traipse around a town centre for school shoes etc when there’s only one shop there and not all sizes in stock. Our weekends are taken up with swimming lessons, reading practise, birthday parties and the kind of house/garden jobs that might have traditionally been completed during the week by a stay at home parent.

It’s quite sad when you think about how the cost of living has robbed us of time as well as money.

That depends where you live and doesn't speak for everyone. Our local bus service is shocking, frequent last minute cancellations or just not turning up at all. My bus comes once an hour. It didn't turn up the other day after I had been for some groceries. I then waited over an hour for the next one with heavy bags of shopping. My back was in agony. Who would choose to do that if they could drive?
Also, no cycle lanes here, nobody uses a bike apart from for sport, not for transport, nowhere to put them once you get there.
It's an absolute nightmare not having a car here.

My local town centre is bucking the trend. It has plentiful parking, and the council have had the foresight to provide free parking for 3 hours at the weekends. They have invested a lot of money and have rebuilt part of the town centre.

Then a couple of weeks ago we had a free concert from a Brit award winner, supported by a very talented local musician. The town centre was packed, and even better, they were spending money in the local shops and eating places.

On market days the pedesstrian areas in the town are full of market stalls and the place is buzzing. They have a lovely large social space (where said singer performed) where we regularly have continental markets and street food markets.

I am describing a Northern town not known for its affluence.

How about the government gives them a chunk of the road tax!
Do you have a Tardis - Road Tax was abolished in 1937

Good post. This makes sense. Put living spaces back in town centres and they will thrive. Put schools there, homes, parks, and allow small businesses that serve those communities to grow up naturally in response to local demand.

I disagree with most of this. Diminishing car use is making my high street thrive. It’s much more pleasant to be in. Shops are full, restaurants and cafes are full. The gyms - there are several - are well used. Everyone walks if you’re local or uses public transport if further away.

@Ifailed can you not think of reasons why?

I've just googled and it would take an hour to walk into my local town. I wouldn't have time for that and more importantly the ability/energy!

I think the local anti car lot think people are all going to take up cycling but it just isn't true or what people want to do. For those who do want it yes it's fab (my husband cycles places a lot and that's great!) for those of us who don't or can't then absolutely ill now be driving further to get to a pool I can access and swim without paying an extortionate monthly fee to park.

Same with shopping I like to go and look at things in the flesh as it's hard to visualise. But I'm not going to town now as it would cost on top of buying the thing. Too right we are going ot the put of town much further away much more pollution and traffic more American place as its convenient and still has the big stores (m and s and next are there for example. Our local town is losing big names.) it's one of those issues of perhaps unintented consequences.

They think.... Make car driving difficult and they will cycle!

What actually happens is we drive the cars elsewhere or use online shopping. Less footfall in shops. Less shops. Destroyed town centre.

Similarly building lots of flats without car space locally on the centre. To fit with green planning.

Well that will limit socialisation and jobs and just keeps those who have lower incomes down the rungs of the social ladder won't it. Most jobs I apply to I have to be mobile and and able to drive.

And of course the council people don't live here. They live in nice houses with car parking spaces etc and aren't affected by their changes...

@Dewdilly There must be a difference eon area musntt there as so often in this thread the reverse is shown to be true.

I wondered if it would work better in affluent areas where there's history/other lovely things to look at or established.

I think maybe some areas look at London and perhaps areas like yours and think "ah that will work here" and yet our town centre is truly dying now. And putting up charges is killing it off. Big names have moved out. There's no longer reasons to go in. I don't go in unless I have to for work now.

Ours seems to be a race downhill now sadly. It makes me really sad as I grew up round here and it was lovely.

Okay a chunk of the £560 VED which is road tax by another name even if the government steal it to spend on rubbish.

Our is so aimed at tourism, it just doesn’t meet the needs of the local population anymore: It is crowded during the day, carpark is scarce and unreasonably expensive, most shops’ target clients are tourists, it is not that you can go there and find all the stuff you will find in a mall or supermarket, we are plagued with hundreds of restaurants that do not last because most of the tourism is day tourism, they come to walk around, have a cheap lunch and get back home before dinner. Many of those who don’t are unfortunately hen parties.

@Timeturnerplease yes I think lack of time is part of it too (very apt name)

And if one parent works less then yes they'd have time to meander during the week or there's time to have a day out shopping at the weekend. (although parking prices means I'm not sure I'd do that in my area)

The thing is that town centres dominated by retail was a very short lived recent thing. Until the 80s, most town centres had been living in them, there weren't just shops, there'd be factories, warehouses, breweries, local newspaper print works, cinemas, theatres, etc etc. Flats above the high street shops were lived in!

"Indetikit" chain store retail took over, all the "industry" was knocked down and replaced with shopping centres.

Now retail has gone, we really need some long term plans to get people living in town centres again, ie convert/rebuild retail into housing.

We had pedestrianisation in the 1980s. However, we also had public transport that would take anybody not walking from their office in their lunchbreak for food and shopping to within a few yards of the area and multiple places to exit and travel back easily.

Then they extended the pedestrianised area, which made it a longer walk and only 2 places to leave. Then they rerouted the buses so that they only stopped across a massive bypass in an area that had no security or any level access. They took away bus shelters and seating. They rerouted the buses again. And again. Then they introduced solid deliveroo lanes with barriers, so the buses didn't stop at all. And they rerouted the buses again.

On one route, there is a single stop in the vague direction of the pedestrianised area and none at all for people who would travel in from the opposite direction. Currently, the actual walking distance to any transport for at least one direction is a mile. To then stand in an isolated area in the hope that the buses haven't been rerouted again. To then sit in a double width road that has been deliberately narrowed to make it less than single lane (anything larger than a small car can't reliably get along the main road in some stretches if there's something coming the other way. And they widened the deliveroo lanes, which are obviously empty until about 7pm and then have the occasional bloke on a bike). And then they rerouted the bus again in one direction, so whilst this month, you can leave the area once you're there, if you have a disability, you aren't getting there in the first place to spend any money.

Although with the stupid house and rent prices, council tax and other bills, it's not as if anybody's got much money to spend in the first place.

Staines town centre is tiny! It’s pretty much small street with a retail park attached!

I imagine it’s busy as there isn’t much else to do in Staines. I go there to visit friends but referring back to my original post, it also has nothing to do for little kids, so I don’t go there very often.

This Is quite draconian but I firmly believe that if the tiny car parks in the city centre were made for people living in the city AND for disabled people, while visitors were forced to park in the many park&rides we have, the city centre would get a breath of life and more balance when it comes to what business offer.

Our city centre (Leeds) is still OK. Yes lots of shops have closed but there are still lots of shops and several big shopping centres that are always very busy. I see people of all ages there - old people, middle aged and loads of teenagers. My teenage DD and her friends love hanging out in the city.
There are also lots of restaurants and cafes which appear to be doing well.
Yes there are increasing numbers of homeless people which is very sad but the city centre is still thriving in my opinion.

My city did that, cleared huge areas of so called “slums” to bring quality living back into the city centre.

…. all that housing stock is now massively over priced “luxury” flats OR AirBnBs!