watching a town completely die

[BlessedByTheShitFairy]

This is so sad really, the town where I grew up. I know many business folded during covid and many high street staples have been closing for years, but this is different.

It's a large town, over 400K population, had a bustling, varied and thriving centre for most it's history, has now lost, and many before covid:

Debs, Next, M&S, Topshop, H&M, Body Shop, its central post office, game shops, cafes, most youth related places such as skating, bowling, carts, ALL restaurants (no exaggeration), health food stores, 2 shopping centres, most pubs, it's huge market, several banks, nightclubs, a town centre co-op, Spar, book shops, many charity shops and all of it's high end hair salons. Even the Starbucks slid off and the main post office was reduced from around 10 staff to 1 and shoved into a tiny toilet sized cubicle on the periphery of the borough.

These have been survived and replaced by - pop up eyebrow/lashes salons, fast food joints, poundshops, phone-unlocking shops, cash converter type shops, Primark (it's only remaining clothes store), Iceland, and the rest if boarded up. Interestingly a ton of privately owned car parks have taken over the area and hardly anyone uses them. It is unrecognisable from even 7 years ago. It now only attracts crime, heavy drinking, and a much less diverse population.

I know many towns have experienced closures of big brands, and things are simply changing (the net, everything online, etc) but this is really extreme, especially in comparison to a few years ago, it was not particularly suffering a decline. I do know that the council slowly sold off everything over the years, and have sent 2 huge shopping centres to their doom by selling to overseas investors who never came and filled them, so they are like enormous empty spaces that attract crime.

I don't currently live there but my remaining family that do say they never go in to town anymore, and feel forced to buy everything from standalone supermarkets in other areas.
I live in a fairly average town that has seen changes but there are also attempts at rejuvenation. Things are still ok and thriving in the centre. I am also aware that many towns are coping ok, taking the rough with the smooth, even though these issues have increased across the uk over all.

What could have happened to this one? Why so desolate and different? It is like the council just gave up sold it off and turned away. It never used to suffer so much crime, and the sound of police and ambulances is constant around the area now. The town centre was it's pride and joy, had so much put into it (festivals, events), so I can't understand how it got so bad.
Even the people who you see there now are all strangely similar (dress the same, same behaviours) and the diversity has vanished. Curiously rents are still super high and I have no idea who is taking them, if at all.

I feel sad about it because I grew up there, and have so many good memories of my teens when it was thriving, packed and full of interesting places to go and shop. The pubs were visited from far and wide, and it had a great college, access to learning, and much more culture. Now it is lucky to hold on to a handful of football clubs and that's the only interest left. Where and why did everything just die? It was previously so bloody alive.

a lot of the problems can be traced to an extreme Labour Council

I think it’s more to do with That her and her obsession with service industries. She destroyed the heavy manufacturing and mining in the north of England. So call centres and retail were all that’s left. This is the root of it, not ‘extreme left wing councils’

Then the return of low spending in 2010 has added to the problems.

Scottish cities aren't much better. I was in Edinburgh today and the weeds that grow in the city centre are horrendous e.g. on roundabouts, from kerbs, etc.. Theres constantly roadworks going on (not just the tramworks) yet it doesn't seem to include any tidy up. Aberdeen is worse - haven't attempted to go into Union Street for a while after not feeling very safe during covid and having to shout what I wanted from the street in a gale force wind due to not being allowed past the door. It was nearly dark (at 4pm) and the only people to be seen were a few dodge looking men of "can you spare any change variety". So many businesses boarded over but Union Square is the place to go now I suppose, full of the usual chain stores.

I've lived in other European countries and it always strikes me that our local authorities are incredibly poor performers in the UK. They seem to have stopped so many services, such as grass cutting, weekly bin collections, etc, yet council tax costs a fortune compared to equivalent taxes in other countries.

The proposed £2 a day to drive into Edinburgh seems a bizarre thing to introduce when its public transport is poor, expensive and slow and businesses are trying to recover from covid. When I used to work in the centre, I quickly came to the conclusion that if you wanted any sort of free time, you had to actually live in the centre or love lengthy bus journeys. The west end of Edinburgh has always struck me as a remarkably sterile place beyond the main shopping street - I used to live and work there and during weekdays, the streets were remarkably empty. The council seems to now dislike tourists as well as businesses so perhaps its future is as a large residential area serviced by out of town retail parks?

My OH daughter has moved here (south) and I didn't think it was bad up North and thought the whole 'grim up North' thing was just an insult us southerners used to come out with, but she was very insistent that it was true and that was her motivations for moving here. This is really sad, my town is a bit of a shit hole compared to neighbouring towns, but they are gradually trying to modernize it and it is nice seeing some investment. I think the key was renting the empty shop space out for a reasonable rate, rather than let the whole town die a slow death. Parking is also an issue too and should be so expensive.

I think part of it is the Tories only seem to 'level up' Tory voting northern towns. Not suggesting anyone votes for them, just highlighting how corrupt they are.

It is going to get much harder as we head into a recession. I think we will see more shops go to the wall as the cost of living crisis bites. I do have disposable income but rarely spend this in cafés, always got to get a sandwich in a supermarket asut is cheaper. I expect people will do the same if they have less themselves.

Apart from the size of the place it sounds like Barrow - I think there are a lot of towns in a similar way now. Loss of indoor markets makes a huge difference to the feel of a place.

Our shop was jn a town North if both Wigan and Bolton, opened in the late 80s. Apart from a 12 month blip with the early 90s recession, we had good strong growth every year. In the late 90s the IRA blew up central Manchester, which resulted in the city centre being modernised and developed. The new Arndale, Harvey Nicks etc opened at about the same time as the Trafford Centre, so from the late 90s Wigan, Bolton and other Northern towns had 2 large shopping centres, less than 30 minutes drive, with free parking at the Trafford Centre. From that moment we struggled to get any growth. The higher spending customers would spend their money in the TC, leaving us with the crumbs. It was a slow decline till the internet became more popular and the decline went into overdrive. When the TC was being built there were representatives on TV saying the new centre will not affect local shopping centre, as it was a different type of shopping. Total bollocks of course, you can only spend money once.

I can tell you now, it was no better under the last Labour gov. In fact our rateable value doubled during the labour years, and although they increased since 2010, by no where near the same %.

Haven’t read the entire thread but completely echo your sadn about our town centre too ..brought to its knees by high rates ,extortionate Car park charges and out of town retail ,Bodged attempt to pedestrianise & massive traffic problems That in conjunction with online shopping has nailed the coffin shut with the news that our M&S is leaving our high street 🥹so sad as major major building going on as London commuter town which is not keeping with basic infrastructure ie hospital schools

Where do you live? It sounds lovely! (Asking because I’m relocating next year) Feel free to PM if you don’t want to say publicly.

Certainly not Bury. Bury is thriving with new businesses opening up all around. Bury has mini retail parks encircling the town centre which mean people can park in them then walk into the centre. And with the famous Bury market, visited by coach loads, the town is buzzing. I moved to Bury last year from another North West town which could easily be the one described by the OP. The town I left has more or less shut down. That wasn't why I left, but on my occasional visits back there I feel sad that almost everything has closed down.

The reason there are so many charity shops. If you are a landlord, and you tenant moves out, you have a short period, (it is either 3 or 6 months) grace then the landlord is responsible to pay the full business rates, so they let a charity in for low or no rent, in most areas charities are exempt from paying business rates, so the landlord has a tenant, probably on a lease that enables the landlord to turf them out if they get a long term tenant, they no longer have to pay rates, so although they are not getting full rent, they are also not having to pay business rates so a win for them. A shopping centre in the town had an empty department store, ex TJ Hughes. They put a charity bookshop that used a tiny part of the whole store, but saved the landlord tens of thousands in business rates. The centre we were in put a sports charity running free table tennis in one of the larger empty shops, but moved them every few months to juggle the rate free grace periods, again saving tens of thousands.

This has got to be Croydon? Completely ruined now and not much hope for the future.

I’m in a market town south of Manchester that is really bucking the trend and has had huge success in regenerating the town center. It is a very affluent area but they started by regenerating the old market hall with independent, small food stalls and mixing in with small independent retailers in the market.

This was hugely successful and attracted more shops and restaurants around the market area and a small cinema. It is a struggle but it can be done. I know we are very fortunate and do make a point of using it as we don’t want to loose it.

We have still lost shops, the main department store and a few other names but have managed to hold onto the M&S, Next, H&M etc plus we have a lot of lovely little independents.

I don’t think it’s easy and of course it’s much easier in affluent areas but there are a couple of towns nearby that have copied the concept and it seems to be being to create some regeneration.

Same here except we dont even have a primark. The council keep spending huge amounts of cash changing things but it just makes the matter worse. We need shop rates to be dramatically cheaper but the council just say it's not down to them, dont we pay so they can lobby the government for what we need!

@ResentfulLemon This sounds exactly like the town where I currently live! Is it in the South East by any chance?
Hardly anything interesting left on the high street, Primark and a small H&M, pound shops, vape shops, barbershops and lots of empty spaces.
And yet 20 minutes away there is a much smaller town with lots of lovely independent boutiques, seemingly thriving!

I'm in a West Yorkshire town and it is horrendous.

The only high street shops are Boots, which has the pharmacy contract for the town centre so unlikely to close due to that, a Superdrug and a recency opened Costa.

In the past 18 months WHSmiths, New Look, 2 major banks along with many many smaller shoos have closed. Even credit based shops, Bright House, Pay day loan companies have closed.

Now we have shops that open up in previously empty units without even refitting them, it's just a load of shit (dog beds, flimsy chairs, picture frames etc) just chucked in the shop.

All there are now are Greggs, nail bars, charity shops, Wilkos, didy Corner shops, a coupke of pubs, fast food outlets, vape places. Many are fronts for drugs / money laundering... Our town has high value cars tearing round most nights spinning donuts on main roads.. We must have the highest number of lamborghinis and sport range rovers etc outside of London, this got called out a few years ago and was conveniently ignored by politicians. Our town is notorious for drugs and money laundering fronts but you can't say this because you're being negative.

Many shops are closed, have been bought as cheap buildings and converted into flats. As a deprived area the council pkace a lot of immigrants in the town, who need cheap housing. There are hundreds, that is not an exaggeration, of cigarette butt's every morning littering the side streets of the streets with the cheap buildings converted to flats, dozens of men hanging round the mini market corner shop style shops in the Town centre drinking from the morning onwards and smoking weed, and hanging out in the pedestrianised areas of the town too.

It's a shit hole, no one is going to come and shop there because there is nothing to come and shop for. Instead people call to the mini retail parks on the outskirt of the town centre because they're cleaner, safer, convenient, accessible, free to park.

Thete is a beautiful old arcade in the town that has allegedly had hundreds of thousands assigned to it but, 3 years later it remains boarded up with no use... If the council can't fill all the empty i units in town why invest in extra units to them try to fill?

There is so much corruption and mis management in the local council it is shocking and even when called to account nothing is done. In fact the more vocal independant newspaper had allegedly all funding stalled by a local a Councillor / mayor.

Depressing any way you look at it. I can only really afford cheap shops but even so..

@HeleenaHandcart I found your account really moving and I think we might be from the same country 🙂

I parked for between 4 and 6 hours in Brighton the other week £15!!!!

That's what killing town and city centres!! Fucking ridiculous

No Debenhams, no Lakeland. I think Yankee candle went, total utter joke

The OP confirmed on page 2 that the town she was talking about was Wigan. It’s been referenced multiple times since. Does nobody read the thread before chiming in with their unique opinions?

Is Brighton town centre dying, though? I think not. So people must be prepared to spend £15 on parking there, to no detriment to the town.

You seem to take issue personally with Yankee Candles moving out of Brighton. Feels like a strange thing to be upset about. And you can’t blame Debenhams closing on parking charges in Brighton. It’s because their former private equity owners did a massive sale and leaseback programme, saddling the business with huge rent payments each month, after pocketing the cash from the sale of course.

this is so fucking on point, i sympathise.

Interesting that someone mentioned Brighton. Places do wax and wane. My parents grew up in Brighton in the 1950s and 60s and it was very rough and run down in the 50s then gradually improved. When I was a child the recession hit Brighton really hard, all of Churchill square was boarded up, full of punks causing trouble, it was really bad.
Then it hugely improved in the mid 90s and was a really fantastic thriving town where it was a total pleasure to wander round the individual shops in the Laines etc. Then I moved away and I believe it went very upmarket so it’s sad to hear that it’s not doing as good, but I’m sure it will be back.

Bristol is another city that was fantastic in the 90s (I was there for university), full of interesting shops through the Triangle and Clifton. Broadmead was always a bit of a towny place, Cribbs had just opened so we tended to go there for clothes shopping and Clifton area for eating and everywhere for drinking!
I’ve lived out of the U.K. for 15 years and haven’t been back in 3 and am coming back soon so it will be interesting to see how places I know (Guildford, Horsham, Brighton) have fared.

And someone mentioned Crawley way back up thread - Crawley as far as I know has been fairly rough at least for the last 35 years! County Mall was ok but if you went out of there it was full of crap shops and groups of menacing men hanging about.

We used to have the widest high street in the uk but our council changed it, we used to have a fabulous market but the council changed it, we had a wonderful festival but the council got greedy and killed it. The list is endless and now our town is dead. I'm lucky as I have a little village high street nearer than the main town which is lovely, full of independent shops and cafes and very few chains unfortunately our deli closed and I miss the cheese so much 🥺