To be annoyed that everywhere except London gets forgotten about?

[BarbaraofSeville]

Prompted by another thread about the riveting subject of changing coins.

AIBU to be annoyed that many big businesses appear to forget that anywhere outside the south east even exists?

I live in a large city in northern England, and while we have plenty of facilities (shops, restaurants, parks, theatres, museums etc etc) there are a few businesses that have totally ignored us while opening dozens of Branches in or near London.

Eg Metro Bank, over a dozen branches within the M25, but nothing further away from London than Cambridge!

Uniqlo - Only one of their 10 UK branches is outside London (in Kent).

There are probably others, but that's all that I can think of right now.

AIBU to think that before they open multiple branches that are virtually on the same street in London, they should be opening up in Leeds, Manchester, Newcastle, Cardiff, Birmingham, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Aberdeen, Bristol, Belfast, Nottingham etc instead?

If they did this most people would be within a reasonable distance of a branch, instead of them all being crammed in one tiny area of the country.

We have money, we would use these businesses. In fact, many of us probably have a lot more disposable income than people in the south east because we don't have to spend stupid money on housing!

Yanbu - not just retailers, lots of ignorant multinationals think UK=London when it really doesn't. London is like a separate Country.

All the government seem to care about is shaving a few minutes off the journey between Mamchester and London rather than updating outdated and patchy Northern rail services.

No one in London understands this either.

Uniqlo used to exist outside london (there were branches in Manchester when I lived there), which they later closed, so clearly they didn't find it worth their while being there.

Lots of ignorant multinationals think UK=London when it really doesn't. Do you really think you can find all the same shops in small U.S. or French cities as in New York or Paris?

Do you really think you can find all the same shops in small U.S. or French cities as in New York or Paris?

No I don't think that which is why I didn't say that.

Schnitzel

Simply, there is no spare capacity on the rail network, particularly on the southern end of the east and west coast mainlines where commuter trains share the rails with long distance expresses. The last time they tried to boost capacity and line speed on the West coast mainline, it cost a fortune,disrupted travel for nearly a decade and didn't deliver the upgrades promised.

HS2 is as much about freezing up capacity on these lines as it is about having a dedicated high speed line. The Manchester to Leeds stage is already planned and the Act passed by parliament.

London bashing is a popular sport on mumsnet isn't it?
Or maybe there's a legitimate point about how ridiculously London-centric the UK is?

As it is, all the government seem to care about is shaving a few minutes off the journey between Manchester and London rather than updating outdated and patchy Norther rail services

This is something Londoner's agree with Northerners on. A lot of people in London and the SE will suffer significant disruption if HS2 goes ahead - for what? As one London MP said about the redevelopment proposals for Euston "its not 'not in my back yard'; its not through my front room" If they spent half the amount improving infrastructure North of the Watford Gap it would be so much better.

Londoners have put up with considerable disruption for Crossrail because we can see the value of it. I can't see what value HS2 brings to the North or the South.

Speaking as a Londoner, it would be great if the UK were less London/southeast centric . Imagine actually being able to afford a 3 bed semi in your home town!

However retailers are just going where they think they can make a bigger profit.

Of the nine busiest stations in Britain, only Birmingham New St is located outside London and something like 80% of all long distance train travel either begins or ends in London. I don't live in London, but if we are to address capacity issues London seems the place to start.

The point of HS2 isn't to shave a few seconds of a journey but to create more capacity across the entire network by funneling express traffic onto dedicated lines.

Rail travel is growing at a rapid rate and there is no way that this demand can be satisfied without building more lines and if you are going to build new lines, which is a necessary but expensive undertaking it doesn't cost that much more to build them to 21st rather than 19th century standards.

The population of London is 8.6m, the population of the UK is 64.1m. So those living in London account for close to 13.5% of the UK population. London has 270 train stations. There are 18 National Rail train termini hubs in Central London serving the populous suburbs, home counties and further afield. There were 17.4 million overseas tourists in 2014.

Shops don't primarily exist to altruistically serve local communities. They are there to make money, so naturally they are going to go where the customers are.

Yes, London does have better infrastructure, better facilities, better resources, better job opportunities. But it also costs a damn sight more to live here than anywhere else in the UK - so if you want to take advantage of it, come and pay the best part of a million pounds for an ordinary house here!

if you are going to build new lines, which is a necessary but expensive undertaking it doesn't cost that much more to build them to 21st rather than 19th century standards.

I agree with you Compos but it can be particularly galling to see public money funded into another pet project when functionality is being lost (never mind hoping to improve) in the Northern rail networks because there has never been public money set aside for even basic upgrades of the track. If we're going to pull national rail travel into the 21st century, then we should ensure "local" rail travel between big cities is in the 20th century at least!

I think Londoners have a nerve when they bleat about 'London bashing.'
If you look at things like the amount of investment in theatre per capita London comes way out in front. The intercity rail service in the North is an absolutely joke and needs huge investment.

As for the shops, I think High streets are pretty homogenous these days but one thing we have that the South doesn't is a Booths. That makes us superior in my eyes

Simple laws of supply and demand. Businesses exist to make a profit so go where the money is. Big retailers are not public services. No personal slight on anyone (or any area of the country). It's just how the world works.

But it also costs a damn sight more to live here than anywhere else in the UK - so if you want to take advantage of it, come and pay the best part of a million pounds for an ordinary house here!

In fairness Mackerel, the money people spend on houses in London doesn't go to the government coffers (excepting stamp duty of course) - in fact London residents pay comparable council tax rates to the rest of the UK so it's not as though you're paying for the improved public services in that way.

Besides, most people wouldn't argue with a proportionate amount of money being spent on London (say 20% of expenditure to cover the capital would be more than adequate) the problem is that when it comes to basic public services like public transport, London gets considerably more funding than 20% so no wonder they have so many bloody train stations!

Most 'Londoners' were born elsewhere, many come from the north. They are not an amorphous mass of cockneys desperate to bleed the rest of the country dry. They are just people trying to find work and housing, like anywhere else.

Many people complain about Westminster being Londoncentric, but no Londoner can vote for an MP in Manchester or a councillor in Liverpool.

If you want change put it on the political agenda.

Well, I can think of at least 4 Prets on Tyneside. None on Wearside, or Teeside, unfortunately, but we're getting one in Durham. The only problem with Durham is that I might use it for take out, but there's lots of Indie places where I'd rather sit in.

Durham's also, hopefully, getting an Everyman cinema.

But yes, there's lots of companies like Uniqlo with nothing at all in striking distance.

OneFlewOverTheDodosNest Absolutely. I wasn't really thinking of council tax - more the facilities, jobs and infrastructure supplied by businesses, as per the OP. Certainly someone in London doesn't pay particularly more in council tax than anywhere else in the UK (in fact I think some boroughs - Wandsworth is one, I think Lambeth is another, have among the lowest council taxes in the country). But because council tax is paid per household, and there are a lot of households in every borough, I would imagine it still yields a fair amount of income.

My Zone 1-3 annual travelcard is about £1.5k which goes towards investment in the transport network, as well as my £10 daily congestion charge payment when I drive in Central London. But mostly I think this represents pretty good value for money for what I'm getting, which is why I choose to pay over the odds to live here.

Over 10% of the UK's population live in London, and 22% of the UK's GDP is attributable to London.

That's why Londoners deserve all the Prets!

The "Northern Powerhouse" is little more than hot air, Mollie so I wouldn't worry about missing out on that.

The HS2 line will only permit people to commute to London jobs more easily. It will not bring businesses out of London. The people will commute to the work not the other way round. The economy will be skewed even more to the London by HS2.

I live near and work in Manchester. The shopping here is excellent. We've even got a Tiffany outlet . I didn't realise it was so bad in other northern cities.

Seriously though, do you really want Prets that much? More than local independent sandwich shops? Someone up thread referred to the North having Booths. Since a Booths opened in my auntie's home town last year, the town's lovely independent deli has shut down as a result. Why would you want the big chains driving out those traders? Back in my northern hometown, the one-off coffeeshops and cafes are much nicer than Costa. I walked down Tottenham Court Rd the other day and was shocked that there's only one or two tech-type shops left and the big furnishing stores. The rest is a repeating pattern of Nero, Starbucks, Leon, Pret, Costa, Nero, Starbucks...

And I've got four Prets within 1.5 miles of me....

"The rents o the High Street are far too high to support these businesses"

and the rates etc - they all need to come down to encourage people to open shops etc