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.

Get the rates down get independent shops back so each town is different and worth a visit. When every town is a carbon copy why bother it's just so boring and samey.

Very true.

Maybe a scheme where the council would give extra benefits of better rates to a particular theme of shop that comes to town?
So not just food or book capitals like Wigtown but you could have towns known for kitchen goods , furniture , golf, theatre. Whatever works.

I'm from Boston in Lincolnshire. Could have written your post word for word. Dead town. Nothing here.

When our town centres are finally killed off . The retail parks will apply huge parking charges.

Birkenhead was a vibrant place to shop when I was a child. Its 20 mins car journey for me but I never visit. I go to Liverpool or Chester (which is also struggling) .The council are killing the town off.

I was with a friend who lived in France last night. She said her nearby town centre was still vibrant and buzzing. But they have lots more independent shops than we do.

Absolutely true. Also amazon prices are up loads now theyve got rid of so many competitors.

Also happened where I live every thing has gone, it's totally crap I enjoyed shopping here now have to go many miles to different towns/city's for the experience.

Ive seen loads of posts about people trying to have a day out in retail parks. How they did a restaurant and some shops, then are outraged they got a parking fine for going over the 2 or 3 hours

Mrs T encouraged a service based financial industry and we did very well from it - or at least the south east did as far as infrastructure etc - but taxes paid in London covered the cost of running the whole country. and some was made in NSea oil, what happened is that the people in finance got greedy and totally fxxxxx it up in 2008. with their corrupt investments . That would be bad enough if it wasn't the taxpayer who bailed them out and they all walked away scot free.
So we are now without good finance industry (and what it does make seems to go offshore) and no industrial industry. And the legacy of providing for London (Elizabeth Line) continues. It now being a bit of an unneeded white elephant.

As long as the money we do earn get's paid by us to China for Chinese goods, the USA for internet services, Europe for cars, foreign countries for gas and oil we seem to be totally stuffed.

Hopefully we will magic up some entrepreneurs to start turning things round.
But I don't see how we get out of this with everyone working in public service, or they virtually all do round here, which means a small amount of money being recirculated. No earnings into the country.

Yep. I knew you were describing Wigan. I agree. It's awful. So sad when you walk through town. They need more footfall but there's no reason for anyone to go because there's nothing there so now, it's a vicious circle. Be interesting to see if the Galleries regeneration becomes another white elephant (I suspect so...)

My issue was the shops closing. I see my formating may make it look that Yankee going was a bigger issue than the other shops, but I didn't intend it to.

However, do we need town centres? Why do we need them? Sure its nice to have them, but are they the way forward?

High Streets are relatively new,

The high street first came about in the 1870's - social historian Juliet Gardiner explains that 'because of urbanisation, people no longer had the facilities to grow food themselves. It was then that market stalls became shops, with fixed prices, customer service and home deliveries.
preview.company.co.uk/high-street-edit/news/history-of-the-high-street

OK but if you succeed in ‘getting the rates down’ the lost revenue will have to be replaced. So that the council can do things like, er, emptying the bins and providing social care. Where do you think that should come from?

Please don’t say “make Amazon pay more tax”, which appears to be the default answer any time someone on Mumsnet thinks that income taxes are too high or complains that the state pension isn’t paid at age 60. Your local council doesn’t have the power to levy taxes on international corporations.

After I posted here I headed out to my “town centre”. I live in Sydney and here each suburb has its own shops etc (similar to London but more spread out).
My local area is affluent, but the local council do so much to keep it so. We’ve had a newly refurbed library and they always have great events on, we have a “town square” with a lovely sculpture, pedestrianised around it and full of cafes and restaurants. The shops are in a centre but it curves around the open air centre, so you’re not just stuck inside. Cafes are full of people (working from home has helped this).
The council runs regular events, there’s a market on a Thursday which is bustling, they have music events etc.
Its a bit dead in the evening but that’s mainly demographics and to be fair at least it isn’t full of drunk people!
We also have a high Chinese population and they tend to socialise as families which makes the area lovely in the early evening (6-8 or so).
The council has a lot to do with bringing people and money to a place.

Yeah but the closure of your local deli and the consequent cheese disappointment was not caused by your local council, was it? It was because not enough people were buying stuff at the deli, choosing to buy their cheese at the supermarket instead because it was convenient for them.

That’s the risk for anyone opening an independent shop, as a PP, whose business was affected by the Trafford Centre and then online shopping described upthread. It’s nice for the local residents to have a lovely diverse high street with greengrocers, bakers, delis etc., but the existence of those shops relies on the residents actually using them.

French local authorities seem capable of providing such services for their local villages and towns as well as a huge number of people living in the countryside, yet the tax equivalent to council tax is much lower than in the UK. Older people on restricted incomes can pay as little as 200 euros per year. For a rural cottage, it can be less than 500 euros per year. These problems in providing basic affordable services seems to be a particularly British problem at the moment.

We have a retail park is rammed and a high street that is dead. Know what the major differences are, parking and the people who hang about in town.
Buses to town are a fortune now and rubbish also so you need to drive anyway.
Town is full of awful and intimidating people, chuggers, beggars, random high people, large groups of men hanging around coffee shops chain smoking. It’s not attractive to be in, especially for a teenager girl. DD finds it intimidating. It’s sad as this is what has happened and a major part of teenage life of going to town has gone.

I’d like to know what the funding model for local councils in France looks like. I bet that they receive more from central government and I doubt that they are expected to fund social care for adults either (which is where a significant chunk of council money goes in this country).

Please don’t say “make Amazon pay more tax”, which appears to be the default answer any time someone on Mumsnet thinks that income taxes are too high or complains that the state pension isn’t paid at age 60. Your local council doesn’t have the power to levy taxes on international corporations

The government is thinking about an online sales tax though. But we'd pay that, not Amazon.

I never quite understand all the love for independents. They usually have capricious opening times and dodgy returns policies. I prefer the chains like Fatface etc but we don't even have them in our town, despite it being quite affluent and having good state schools so people aren't paying out for private school fees and can afford to spend elsewhere.

Probably not but a French person would be able to give more detail. At any rate, it always strikes me that for all our taxes in the UK (and they are not cheap once added all together) we seem to get a very poor return. My local authority only cuts the grass verges once per year, which means that the footpath along a busy road which leads to the railway station has become overgrown and is pretty much destroyed, so people have to walk on the road. It also looks incredibly scuffy. Its not just the reduced bin collections, its the whole way that local authorities work in the UK. I'm not saying France is perfect, local authorities there can be very strict, but the continually reduced services in the UK isn't really copied anywhere else in the developed world, and its something that is just overlooked rather than being part of a proper discussion.

It’s weird as here locally we keep seeing improvements

eg planting of street blossom trees, flower strips in verges for bees I presume, parks kept up well

Rubbish collection is good

Not sure why there’s so much difference

I have to say compared to many descriptions my city centre is thriving. However, we have lost in recent years Woolworths, BHS, Debenhams, Topshop/man, Dorothy Perkins/Burton's and Monsoon/Accesorize. We still have Next, New Look and a massive H&M and Primark. Also Boots, WHSmith (which has now incorporated the Post Office), Wilko's and Peacocks. There are 2 Poundlands, the Range, the Works, Card factory etc. But we lack any of the high end shops some city centres have such as John Lewis, Hotel Chocolat, White Company etc. There are plenty of restaurants and cafes, many chains. We have a market a few days a week too. But there are lots of boarded up shops.

Popular large southern town here and the town centre is now pretty dire. Long gone from the town centre: large M&S store, three large department stores, H&M, New Look, Next, Gap, Oasis, Topshop, Miss Selfridge, Smiggle, Animal, Benetton, Karen Millen, French Connection, Ted baker and more. Loads of empty units. Does still have Waterstones, WHSmith, boots, Superdrug, build a bear, Pret A Manger, Clarks, Ernest Jones, fat face and white stuff plus some independent opticians etc. lots of coffee shops and a large cinema with multiple food chain restaurants. The only other clothes shops left on the main high street are Primark and Zara. There’s an out of town shopping centre that has a bit more but not much.

I'm not saying France is perfect, local authorities there can be very strict, but the continually reduced services in the UK isn't really copied anywhere else in the developed world, and its something that is just overlooked rather than being part of a proper discussion.

The reason it is overlooked is because nobody wants to address the elephant in the room, which is the cost of caring for elderly people.

Read any thread on this subject and you’ll see that 80% of posters passionately believe that someone else (the council) should meet 100% of the care costs for their parents or grandparents and are OUTRAGED that their relatives’ houses should be sold to fund that care. It’s usually dressed up as, “but they worked hard all their lives!” when the real reason is, “but what about my inheritance?”.

Local councils spent more than £21 billion on social care in 2020/21 according to the NHS. £21 Billion! That’s a lot of strumming of grass verges, isn’t it?

STRIMMING, not strumming!!