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.

Where I am in SE London suburbs I've noticed Croydon go down the pan in a similar fashion. Yes it has 2 even 3 shopping centres but they're mostly shit these days.

I do have a friend who goes shopping there and another one who goes to the Rush there to get her hair done but I hate the place with a vengeance and go to Bromley or elsewhere.

Years ago there was another downfall in another high street, Streatham, which had a John Lewis there, Pratts, which was always busy. Then I think something to do with storage or something it closed and I can't remember what replaced it but it seems like the high street has got worse ever since. Streatham was a place back in the 80s/90s where you'd go for clothes, it had decent shops, a small Benetton, and Pratts was great. I swear it had a knock on effect on the housing and people buying/renting there. Croydon at that time was ironically much better.

It's not great - maybe petition/write to your MP but I've worked with architects in the past who try to regenerate town/city centres, it can work but it can take a lot of money and effort.

It’s this local stuff isn’t it

I remember the thriving High St here fought against parking restrictions being out in place

Businesses did petitions, which I signed

People travel a few miles (London so not that far) for the shops and it has new, nicer shops each month - some don’t like that though although I prefer it to what the op describes

I’m sorry to hear how this is in many places, I’d find it sad too

Here it's a Labour council - and the other parties talk alot of managed decline - but there is publicty, events and somehow investment is getting put in - there are a lot of empty shops but it doesn't feel unsafe not until dark anyway - but there was a slump few years back with a lot of homeless and aggressive begging and people did start going elsewhere and they did need to spend money and PR bringing people back in.

That seems bonkers. Not a single restaurant? The town I live in has a population of less than 20,000 and there’s about a dozen restaurants. I can’t imagine a place big enough to warrant a Primark yet with no restaurants or cafes.

Councils have completely dropped the ball in regards to these town centre. They often can't compete with bigger cities with shopping centres. In general they can't be cheaper than online stores. Lower rents, less modern looking developments and more of an old fashioned market town vibe would be my preference.

What?

I am agreeing that 370k is 400k, just rounded up.

I even did a smiley face.

I’m agreeing that for a town that size it’s totally crap what’s happened.

Sorry, cross post with you, op. Wigan isn't as big as you say, but I guess that's not terribly important. I don't really know it despite growing up in Warrington, but I can't believe what you describe. Makes me more worried for my town now. We've been losing shops but have recently had a quite nice development finished featuring a new market, cinema, a couple of places to drink and eat, and I've been wondering if that's going to flop horribly and end up empty. Our council has a questionable record of borrowing and investing money, and has already come a cropper at least once with the collapse of an energy company.

Fuck it. Name change for another thread.

It's happening to a lot of towns in Greater Manchester. I live between both Rochdale and Oldham and my God, they are shells of what they used to be.

With Rochdale, I think the local council is massively to blame - I know someone fairly high up there who says that he's never seen such infighting between councillors, and he's moved around between councils north and south a fair bit. Rochdale has a charter and has had a market for 1000 years, but I don't think it has any longer - just a couple of stalls in the Butts.
With Oldham - hmm, used to have a great market. Travelling to it doesn't help - it's impossible to drive around, and if you aren't on the metrolink line it's not the easiest to get to. I'm three miles away and I get two buses an hour to Oldham. it's not the easiest place to walk or cycle to either, due to the impassible ringroad. I've got on to get to Oldham before and been spat out almost in Tameside.
The tram could also be partially to blame for our local towns. People tout it as bringing people in to the outer boroughs of GM, but it just takes people away. Locals shop, work and socialise in Manchester mainly. Bury seems to have got it right - it's not perfect but it's decent enough if you don't want to go into Manchester. When I think how vibrant Oldham, Rochdale, Bury, Burnley, Ashton etc used to be, I can't understand how this has been allowed to happen.

I can think of a town like this down South. Working class area but decent shopping centre with the favourites; M&S, Boots, Woolworths, Debenhams, Clarks, WH Smith, etc. We'd get the bus into town on a Saturday or in the holidays.

I stopped going there about twelve years ago as it had started to feel very different. Lots of the big shops had gone and there were big gangs of young men hanging around. The last two times I went I had a very uneasy feeling and kept checking my cross body bag. It's always been an ethnically diverse place but there had been a big influx of new people. No one seemed to be speaking English at all. It felt very odd. I dread to think what it is like now.

It's sad. I guess we need to try to get beyond thinking of going "into town" meaning shopping, now that we can buy so much online, and go into towns for cultural activities, socialising, sports etc. And councils need to be way more flexible over business rates and parking charges, recognising that the whole landscape has changed. It's going to be a tough transition to be sure but maybe town centres will come out of it stronger and more vibrant in the long run??

I'm guessing this is probably a non-Tory voting council. Central government has systematically starved such councils of cash over the last 12 years but many local people don't understand that and just blame the council for the cuts?

For a town of 370K people to not have ANY restaurants left is extraordinary, though, even after austerity, COVID-19, and the current supply issues. I got a shock when I went back to my old home town at the start of December as to how much had changed but there were still restaurants and chain stores open. Is this just in the city centre or the entire town?

It’s not the councils fault, it’s market forces. Councils these days hardly have any landholding in town centres, there’s only so much grant they can give out (and then get accused of ‘giving brown envelopes to businesses) or business rates relief you can give out. Councils are on a stretched budget and there’s not a lot they can do really

People are online shopping these days so retail environment is difficult, banks are closing because they no longer get as many customers. As some previous posters mentioned, the out of town retail popular in the 90s is not helping the situation either.

I knew it was Wigan. I had to move back here after redundancy a few years ago. There is nothing here now. It makes me so angry that there are pretty much zero opportunities for young people (or anyone) and that my 10yo DN will have significantly worse prospects than my friends DD (they live in an affluent village about 50 miles from London).

If I need to go shopping I go to the Trafford Centre, more shops, better choice, more options for food and free parking. There are no decent jobs here, there used to be, I know people who had them. If I had the money I’d move, I feel trapped here now.

You've answered your own problem, it wasn't working when you lived there, you wanted to get out. Most of your generation probably felt the same, so now there is no one there to spend money, jobs have gone and it's the inevitable decline.

Our North Yorkshire town has survived but with some closures - Debenhams, Jaeger, Monsoon, Jamie Oliver's Italian restaurant, the Slug and Lettuce, amongst others.

There is town centre parking and the town is usually quite busy, as its a tourist destination.

The problem of decaying town centres is a mixture of things.

Vast and increasing demand for online services, whether that's for goods or food.

Decreasing bus services.

Unrealistically high town city rents.

Closure of some post offices.

It's all very sad, but times have changed and city centres need to adapt.

Unfortunately, it's classic evolution of "retail" over the past 70 years.

Go back to post war years and retail was dominated by huge numbers of small independent shops, on street corners, on small precincts, in villages, etc. Towns and cities would have multiple shopping areas, and then there'd be the High Street where you'd find the larger shops (still mostly independent) and a few chain stores.

In the 60s and 70s lots of towns and cities redeveloped their town centres to attract the new breed of "identikat" chain stores, which basically turned most High Streets into copies of eachother. This was triggered by "industry" moving out of town centres, i.e. warehouses, factories, print works, breweries, etc., not to mention low quality housing for workers in those "works". Go back to the 60s and 70s and town centres really weren't dominated by retail in the same way they were in the 80s and 90s so High Streets dominated by retail was very short lived!

By the later 70s and early 80s we started to get the big supermarkets taking over not only the grocery side of retail, but also muscling in on clothing and homeware.

As early as the 90s, the large chain stores started to close down their High Street stores and moved into the out of town retail parks.

In the last decade or so, we've seen a movement to online, but lots of High Streets were already dead before the rise of the internet due to huge supermarkets and out of town retail (with free parking) compared to the High Street where councils continued to drive up car parking charges, etc.

What's the next stage? Well actually, I think we'll see a partial return back to "in person" shopping. We're already seeing it as more and more convenience stores open up. I just don't think we'll ever see a return to dominance of High Street retail because it was actually a very short term thing. Probably more likely retail parks surviving along with larger "showroom" type of shops for homeware, furniture, etc - i.e. things that are hard to buy online if you can't physically see them.

The OP is correct about the population of the metropolitan borough, which as well as Wigan includes Hindley, Leigh etc.

I just looked online and there is a Wigan regeneration plan. Distilled down, it includes more housing development (especially affordable housing) near the centre to draw in younger people and families, plus splitting the town centre into linked ‘quarters’ (eg developing a heritage quarter near the pier, making it easy to get from there to other areas, relocating the market to a more central area).

I really hope it works. I grew up in greater Manchester and we’d often go to Wigan for shopping for a bit of a change (late 1980s) because it had a good range of chains and independents.

The other opportunity, I suppose, is as a commuter town for Manchester with enough local services to make it an appealing place to live for working people. The regeneration plan specifically refers to an ageing population. People in their 70s are probably not going to keep a town centre thriving. If they are anything like my value-seeking older relatives, anyway!

You should see Northampton town centre...it's now an absolute shit hole

Yes - this is very true but also shopping is less an event it's around cinerma trips or tourist stuff for us and our wider family.

In our city center a lot of the look around places - things like tiger - have gone as has the cinerma - it was hard to find somewhere to eat that wanted to serve our group last few visits.

So next shopping trip we tried nearby town - more choice in shop cinemra is there and could easily grab food. It does cost us in transport but it was more of a day out.

Council staff numbers have reduced by over a 1/3 since 2010 and many are barely hanging on thanks to the swinging cuts over the last 2 years. They’ve had to cut back on things like community safely, town centre management, refuse collection, adult and childrens services, etc. There is not a single department in the uk that isn’t stretched to its absolute limit. I’m

It’s not Sunderland.

That’s also not how the Levelling Up Fund money works - they had to bid for it for specific projects. Those are the projects they were awarded funding for. They weren’t just “given” £20m and allowed to choose what to do with it.

It's a shame OP - I live in a market town in South East and it's going the same way. Still lots of restaurants and a couple of live music venues, but the town used to have a thriving night-time economy that has all but died out (the change in licensing laws and the smoking ban saw to that, though).

I try and go into town to support local businesses but the last two trips to my local town centre have been a nightmare - no benches in the shopping centre (removed because of covid), £5 for 2.5 hours parking and so many empty units I spent 45 mins walking between the shops I needed to go to. Most of the clothes shops I visited barely had any stock (I was told they could order it in or I could order online at home) and 3 major stores have moved over to 100% self service tills so I was struggling to remove security tags while stopping my 3 year-old from running off...

It just wasn't a pleasant experience. Compare that to our local large retail park where you can park for free, visit multiple flagship stores with everything in stock (or you can check stock before you visit), grab a coffee and do a food shop all in one place.

We're also finding that we're able to get much of what we need from our local supermarkets; Morrisons, Tesco and Sainsburys near us are stocking more and more clothes/homeware/books/toys/plants, meaning that you don't always have to go into town if you need a birthday present or something for the house. Two Sainsburys stores near us also do click and collect Argos (often available same day or next day), so we use that a lot as well.

Our council are notoriously bad though, and have been for decades. There have been half hearted attempts at farmers markets throughout the years and they're laughable...

It is not just an English phenomenon. Over the decades we lived in France, we saw exactly the same thing happen. Our local town( which was also a tourist magnet) was the centre of the commune, so it had all the local and provincial offices. even that couldn’t save it. When we first went there you could buy literally anything except large machinery in the town. Shoe shops, clothes shops, wool shop, sewing machine shop and repair, wedding list shops, pharmacy, opticians, obviously bakers, butchers, bookshop…..Over time all the useful shops closed and were replaced with estate agents, the banks and insurance agents hung on but often with reduced nous and staff. The many small bars and restaurants have been replaced with much more expensive restaurants which cater for tourists and are closed October to Easter.

The same thing happened in the bigger town twenty miles away, they had more chain stores, even a small department store….all gone. Many of the People drive to the big supermarket to shop.

so it isn’t Brexit!