To think parking charges are killing the high street?

[menztoray]

Lots more people are shopping online now including myself. But if you do want to shop in traditional high streets, parking charges are often fairly high. I think this stops people shopping in high streets, especially if they just want to buy a few low value things. I understand that local councils need to make money, but I do think this is contributing to killing the high street.

ery few of the things I wanted to buy were available just loads of sale tat so I gave up and I think that’s the problem, stock levels are awful, nothing in the middle sizes.
Shops need to adapt and have an stock avaiblity online before you waste time going in.
In my town there are not really any clothes shops anymore, no food shops other than m and a which is expensive, Debenhams is like a charity shop and WHSmith should be ashamed, always trying to sell over priced chocolate oranges

My CLP contains elderly trade unionists who believe that the decline in manufacturing is all a dream, and that wsoon they will wake up, like Bobby (or was it Pam?) Ewing and it will all have been a bad dream and there will be ten thousand people employed on the line again.

Now, the fantasy appears to be being replaced with the high street. every day someone stops shopping there, because they can’t be arsed to pay for he parking, because there is no stock, because the music is too loud, because the staff are surly or, sadly, because they die of old age. Every day, there is no matching young shopper, full of vi, and vigour and money, keen to abjure Amazon in order to support Selfridges.

Online food shopping isn’t quite there, and for a lot of people they just about prefer a supermarket to a web browser. Parking is free, it isn’t in a city centre, and as you are buying a lot of items with a complex relationship between them it is easier to do that with a trolley. But for everything else? Sorry, the high street is over. Things my twenties children do not do: “go shopping”.

That's really interesting. So we can half the number of shops and put some things in their place that people do enjoying doing/need to do in person.
I never understand why there aren't more softplays in town centres. Dees planning stop them?

I never understand why there aren't more softplays in town centres. Dees planning stop them?

I thought there were a few chains .... Costa ? Starbucks ?

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There are precedents for this, of course ... the canals almost disappeared as railways took off. And there's a scrabble-winning list of trades and professions that evaporated as the internal combustion engine was introduced. Blacksmiths, farriers, saddlers, grooms, stableboys, plus all the infrastructure for stables, breeding and training horses. All vanished in the wink of an eye, in historical terms.

Anyone who is waiting for the return of the High Street may as well be waiting for the next horse-drawn carriage to take them into town.

100% agree

Out of interest what do they do?
. Things my twenties children do not do: “go shopping”.

“How many shops we need” smacks of dirigiste central planning. The question is how many shops can actually be supported by our economy. In the 19th century there was a big market for blacksmiths and gas mantles. Today, not so much. Brexit shows that there are a substantial number of people who think that we can return to the past by an act of will (I choose the word “will” with full knowledge of its resonance, thanks) and “saving the high street” comes into a similar category.

In reality, it is never going to happen. Every day, there are fewer customers, buying less. Neither councils, nor shop owners, nor landlords, have the slightest idea what to do. So all they can attempt is to squeeze more and more out of the diminishing pool of shops and customers, not realising that each time they increase rates, parking charges and planning restrictions, the pool shrinks still further.

Cranky they spend time with friends in cafes and restaurants and their own flats, they go to theatres and cinemas and galleries and gigs, they play in orchestras, they go to the gym, they watch Netflix (and, presumably, chill, but they don’t tell me about that). They buy stuff online when they need it, and very occasionally go to a shop (although from what I gather, a few times a year would be a good estimate).

The same is true, in general, of my students. I talk a lot to my tutees about what they do. I have never, ever, heard them say “I go shopping”. It’s init likely that they are suddenly, aged 30, going to take up wandering around the city centre trying to find a pair of trousers in their size.

Neither councils, nor shop owners, nor landlords, have the slightest idea what to do.

And even if they did, they couldn't do it anyway.

So all they can attempt is to squeeze more and more out of the diminishing pool of shops and customers, not realising that each time they increase rates, parking charges and planning restrictions, the pool shrinks still further.

You might get local fillips ... the demise of BHS did push up the sales at other stores - briefly (and thus be heralded as a "recovery" by people who make money from telling you there's a "recovery" around the corner ...). But the trend is down.

The ongoing House of Fraser troubles will probably be good news for Debenhams and John Lewis for a bit.

The ongoing House of Fraser troubles will probably be good news for Debenhams and John Lewis for a bit.

In the way that Titus Oates extended Robert Falcon Scott’s life for a few days.

My twenty something sons rarely go into town. Clothes are ordered from the likes of ASOS or Boohoo, they stream their music, dvds and games and bits and pieces from Amazon. Their spare time is limited so they don’t want to waste it looking around from what they want in the high street, wasting a tenner on bus fares with no guarantee they will be able to find what they want when a couple of clicks will see it safely delivered to our door.

I agree. High street only has parking for one hour. What’s the point in going? Only half of the spaces are ever taken. Mostly by delivery vans.

Lack of a decent bus service is the problem

I have an hourly bus service into town - it will cost me £7.50 though and take nearly an hour (8 miles)

Internet is much easier

@ReflectentMonatomism

I like that ...

DS22 (and it boggles me to realise it's not far DS23 !) really only "goes shopping" for clothes from niche boutiques. Being generation rent, he's got no hope of ever owning a house, so likes smart clothes (I swear he'd have been a Mod ...). He does a food shop at Morrisons, and his single-pursuit hobby is skateboarding, so specialist shops (which seem to be a bit of a "hangout" too ...).

Personally I think discouraging car use in town centres is good. They should also be incentivising buses/cycling/walking though (e.g. with a park and ride or cycle lanes).

In the long term, people regularly driving into a congested and polluted town centre to 'pick up a few bits' just isn't a sustainable way of doing things. I don't pretend to know what the ideal solution is, but we need to change it somehow.

I know it isn't an option for everyone, but I always cycle to my city centre. It's totally free, and convenient.

Personally I think discouraging car use in town centres is good.

It's a shame that then becomes all cars, including the less able. (No, it shouldn't. But it does.)

I think anyone who believes the "High Street" is going to make a comeback is backing a loser. After all, it's hardly like online retailing is going to suddenly ease off.

And I agree with this.

I, like most people I know, only shop in person for items where it is better/easier to do so. Much shopping is more easily done online now.

womanwithaltitude I agree. But a policy like that requires a mercy killing of high street shops and some thought about what happens to the staff and buildings. To choose an emotive parallel, the decline of deep mined coal from about 1930, and certainly 1945 onwards was inevitable, and by the time Thatcher delivered the coup de grace in 1982 there was no possible way the industry could continue But the way it was done was evil, and left a legacy of deprivation and harm we are still living with.

The high street is over, just as deep mined coal, canals and Nail making are over. But it would be nice if in 2019 we could do a better jobs of easing the death.

It's lack of parking round me but also I'm finding it very tricky to park within the super sized cars everywhere now. I can't see past them when parked to pull out, they occupy spaces more, it's a huge hassle. I'm down south and roads are chocked around here

Woman, accessing shops and going shopping is sometimes the only time disabled people interact with society and have some choice over their lives and feel independent.

We only go to our city centre maybe 3 times a year now, and high parking charges are one reason. One of the outlying conurbations has 30p for 3 hours parking, and it's always thriving.

As for using public transport, do I walk for 5 minutes, wait for a bus, sit on it with other people I don’t know for 15 minutes while it stops loads of times on the way into town and then walk another 5 minutes to the shops THEN walk back to the bus station with my bags, wait for a bus, hope for a seat ( again next to a stranger), spend 15-20 minutes doing a 5 minute journey and then walk 5 minutes to my house?
Car is cheaper and easier into Town and by the time I get there by bus I could probably drive to the out of town shopping centre anyway.

Our local high street ( in a London Borough) has moderate charges for on street and the car parks, though the latter are free on weekends. If they didn’t charge on a weekday, all the places would be taken by commuters for the rail station. There is a local card, available to those who live in the borough, which gives 30 mins free parking or discounts on a longer time. The free 30 mins certainly encourages me to stop and do my minor errands there, rather than taking the longer way around and going to the supermarket.

I’m puzzled by the PPs who suggest taking the bus. Where do you store all your heavy shopping as you go from store to store, if you don’t have your car handy in the car park? Do you limit yourself to a few small and lightweight items, in which case it’s hardly worth the extortionate fare and waste of time on the park and ride?
The last time I went to town I bought a fridge. Try lugging that to a bus stop, even assuming the driver would let you on the bus!