Do you really think it's the death of the high street?

[HannahDee]

I've just heard that a local Barclays is closing and a much loved department store. Do you think death of the high street is really happening or are we making too much of it?

I do the banking for work. It’s getting harder and harder as they close branches. The queues are long now, so I’m not the only one.
I avoid the in town one as it costs money to park.

I know councils make a lot of money on parking, it seems short sighted to allow the shops to go. there’s a shopping centre near me that does free Christmas parking. They are rammed.

@woodhill I think cribbs does play a role they offer free parking and generally it's a less congested drive, plus JL moved there which is a huge draw.
I think people don't to shop in large style department style stores which seemed unable to modernise in order to keep up. Business I'm sure don't want to take on these vacant spaces because there overheads would be to high. I guess like a lot of empty spaces they will become student accommodation.

Yes, but who in their right minds would drive into town (using petrol), pay a few quid to park, drive home again with a potato peeler, all taking a couple of hours, when they could just buy one from ebay or Amazon at less cost and less time?

I suppose, fair enough, if you went to town for other things, but lots of people won't.

@taxguru that's true but my Facebook groups seem to be full of posts about missing parcels and parcels gone to the wrong address - it isn't always more convenient if your parcel never actually gets to you.
I probably wouldn't go to town just for a potato peeler (to be honest I would probably get one from the supermarket while doing the food shop) but if I needed/wanted a few others things I would go and pop into several different shops and have a mooch and probably buy things I hadn't planned for.
Although even if I was to order online I never understand why people automatically go to Amazon. Most High Street retailers you can order from their website for home delivery - so at least you are still giving them your money.
At Christmas I looked on Amazon for various things like books, Lego, crafts etc - quite a lot was more expensive than high street store equivalents or even exactly the same product.

Our high st is busy but changing.

Retailers have to be excellent not just ok. Waterstones for example is now making more money than Amazon for book sales because they work hard on actual book selling and making their shops lovely. Compare that to WH Smith’s which is a horrid experience

if I want to buy someting online i always check at a minimum Amazon, Ebay and a general Google Shopping Search. Much like Costco, it is not always automatically cheaper, but is sometimes is very much cheaper. For example today I wanted to buy a storage unit I'd seen on Wafair for £129. Doing my due dilligence before ordering I found the exact same one on Amazon for £69!

Stationery I generally find cheaper on EBay. But Amzaon is way cheaper than my local WHSmiths. Tesco sometimes holds its own but much more limited choice of course.

I agree about giving free parking for 30 mins.

at Xmas I went into town and couldn’t find what I needed. As I drive home I drive past the local football club. I was going ti nip into the club shop and see if there was anything I could get my dad and uncle. Previously you could park outside for free but the council blocked it all up so I would need to drive to a car park and pay for an hour min parking (£2) when I only wanted to be in for less than ten mins.

in the end I went home and bought them both an Amazon voucher instead. Simple because the council had made it difficult to just pop in and do what I wanted to do

I was going ti nip into the club shop and see if there was anything I could get my dad and uncle. Previously you could park outside for free but the council blocked it all up so I would need to drive to a car park and pay for an hour min parking (£2) when I only wanted to be in for less than ten mins.

Yes, this is it entirely. Parking close to shops and amenities is supposed to make things convenient and efficient for you to get things done quickly, but councils seem to think that the parking itself is the activity that you've deliberately come out to do and make a day of. If the parking takes you more time and costs you more than doing/paying for the activity/purchase that you've come out for, it's not fit for purpose.

Even if you use a car park, the rigid payment structures - where you have to pay for full hours/half hours - are most unhelpful; not to mention the fact that car park machines never give change (by design) and have the outrageous rule that you aren't allowed to give the remainder of the ticket time that you have paid for to somebody else - if it was anybody but the council doing it, they'd make sharp practice like that illegal.

I get they want us out our cars, until public transport is affordable and reliable it isn’t a feasible option for huge chunks of the country.
allowing people to pop to the shops will save the local high street which will keep money locally.

In recent years the following have closed in our little town:

Reiss
Basler
House of Fraser
Lakeland
White Stuff
Hotter
H&M
HBOS
Lloyd's
Halifax, Nat West, Barclays no longer open on Saturdays
H&M

It seems that all the quality is going yet Wilkos, Poundland, TKMax are still there and HoF is being replaced with a Primark.

This is an expensive Surrey Town but it has stopped thriving and it's hard to fathom why. The adjoining village is even worse with pavements and roads gone to rack and ruin.

Returns to Toast and Max Mara are a complete pain in the arse, so I tend to drive to Kingston.

Oh and parking. I think I spend about £10 per week on parking.

if people think that parking should be free, who do they propose should pay for car parks & their up keep?

In Bedford there is a lot of free parking but the town centre is still dire. People prefer to drive to MK (paid parking) or Rushden Lakes.

We get 15 minutes free parking which is enough time to nip in to a shop/ chemist.

Tbf on parking the very busy high st with cafes and independent shops petitioned against introducing charges / or permit zones as it would impact a very busy area.

It seems to have worked as no changes to the street parking have been made.

Each month there seem to be new nicer shops

It’s not main shops with high online presence though

It’s cafes, butchers, arty cinema, cheese and fish mongers that type of thing. The cafes are usually packed

The high street here died a long time ago. If I think back 20 years we had a Woolworths, HMV, Virgin, Game (might have been Electronics Boutique then), two Argoses, C&A, BHS, Debenhams and loads more. Now only HMV remains and mostly we just have expensive indepenent "artisan" and "craft" shops and cafes. Strangely the town centre is still packed with people milling about if you go there during the day, just the shops that are there now always seem to be empty.

Business rates as the shops wouldnt close.
they would still get parking income from those who are there longer.

That’s interesting.
there’s a car park near me that was free for half hour, it’s now not. People either don’t bother and play ticket roulette or go elsewhere.

some councils also have locals schemes, where you get a card that you tap on the machines for free or reduced parking to encourage you to shop locally. the card entitles you to more than just parking, it’s your library card etc. seems a good scheme, not sure on the cost to manage though.

There must be a sweet spot of keeping people going their before too many shops leave.

I've come back to my hometown for a few days to see my parents. We are quite in the sticks and nipped to the nearest town about half an hour away to do some shopping. It was actually quite upsetting, we used to do all our shopping there as kids and now it's like a ghost town.
I've so many memories of all the big names and being allowed from a young age to go off and either pick my friends Christmas presents or go off and spend my own Christmas money in the sales.
It was a good set up with the pedestrianised street and the shopping centre behind it, some of the stores had "secret passages" between the two (really just an entrance at each side but that's not exciting enough for young brains)
My parents did warn me it was ruined but I couldn't believe it till I'd seen it myself.
The final kicker was a large independent cafe right in the centre that was always mobbed and we used to go to for baked potatoes has now closed. It was in such a prominent position and had such a distinctive look it's so sad now seeing it gone.

*there.

Lack of parking and local councils war on the motorists doesn’t help. I’m not sure how 15 minute communities are gonna work with no shops to buy anything. We lost our last shoe shop and chemist recently. Not sure we need any more nail bars, hairdressers or coffee shops. Sad.