Poll. Did you stick to the high street or switch to out of town?

[IncompleteSenten]

Not a taat but inspired by. Purely because I'm curious and polls make posters honest 😁

High streets are ghost towns now. When the alternatives that led to this happening first sprung up did you

YABU - I stuck to the high street 80%-100% of the time until the shops all closed and I had absolutely no alternative.

YANBU - I switched to the big supermarkets and the retail parks and home delivery etc 80% - 100% of the time

If you are too young to have had the choice please don't vote 😁

Also can I just repeat I said
"When the alternatives that led to this happening first sprung up did you"

im not talking about now where really there's not much choice. I wanted to know when the alternatives were first built and you could still get everything on the high street did you carry on using it, therefore contributing to its survival or did you switch, taking your money to the alternatives and contributing to it being the way it is now.

I'm not judging btw! I did that latter and voted yanbu myself.

I'm just curious.

It's also why I asked those of you too young to remember the traditional high street please not vote. 😁

I only live a 20 minute walk from the city centre. So town for me. However with the fridge of Wilko there is nowhere to buy good quality household stuff in town. No B&M or Home bargins.

Our high st is OK, but if you need an example of what out of town shopping has done to the high st, Bangor (Wales not N.I) is an absolute shocker. Nice place but the high st is derelict. Was really shocked when I visited after many years away.

I do a mixture of both. Parking on the high st is only free for an hr and it's not long enough to have lunch/coffee plus have a good wander. Plus it's a job finding a space. Otherwise it's expensive parking.
We don't have a mall here, but I have to admit the one thing I like about places like the Trafford Centre is not having to wear bulky clothes in winter or the on/off of the coat when you go in and out of shops, even worse when it's raining.

i prefer high streets as they are more interesting places than retail parks

Our nearest high street is pretty busy - few cafes and restaurants, supermarket, b&m, superdrug, a book and gift shop, lots of charity shops too. No post office, only one bank left. No where to buy clothes either. I do pop in for essentials a couple of times a week but I can easily walk there because otherwise you have to pay to park.

Big retail park is about 15 minute drive away and free to park so go there for clothes shopping or to collect orders. DS mostly wears m&s and next as they're both on the retail park!

I very rarely go shopping in our closest city centre now, lots of brands have left so not as much choice, it's expensive to park, expensive if you get public transport there, and it's really busy at the weekends (and full of stag & hen dos).

I also disagree that high streets are dead ghost towns. Most of the chain shops and banks have gone, agreed, largely due to what PP have said, their own greed and inflexibility and unwillingness to change. Everyone else has adapted and evolved, or are starting to. So now High Streets (if they are controlled by clever and more forward thinking people) have become/are becoming experience destinations. You can't buy a relaxing coffee with friends online, or a nice meal, or a drink in a pub, or get a haircut, or a tattoo, or take a class.

So for me, I'm more than happy to buy virtualy everything I need online in terms of physical things - it has long worked better for people who work full-time.I do my banking and savings in apps - way easier to control and move your money (I accept this is not great for the generation or 2 before me but everyone else is ok with it I think). I abandoned high street travel agents decades ago, long before the 'death of the high street' because they were never competitively priced. I then use supermarkets for food shopping in person (and these are in town where I lived though it wouldn't bother me if they were out of town) and out of town place when I want to actually look at things before I buy them, IKEA, B&Q etc.

But then I spend many happy hours a week in one of the 3 or 4 local high streets near where I live. I work from home so I often go to one of the local cafes and coffee shops that have sprung up in place of the shops. We use the pubs, restaurants and hairdressers. I use the small gyms that have taken over some of the premises. There are regular food markets and street events with bands and stalls. The high street pubs are busy and thriving. There's a walk in repair cafe, drop in centre for older people on their own. It's generally become a more sociable experience I think.

I personally think 'death of the high street' is over exaggerated. It's is (or should) just evolve to meet the way people live now, my generation and down anyway (again, I accept that older people might need some assistance with the transition).

This isn't really a logical question though. You're saying that everyone could always get what they wanted all of the time on the highstreet but that is just incorrect. Larger shops or supermarkets found a gap and tailored their supply to demand. If it was easier or more convenient for some people to shop in town centres then they wouldn't shop in retail parks, but clearly due to the rise of them many people found them preferable in some way.

@IncompleteSenten you know this is an open forum right?

Your posts trying to gate keep who responds are a bit weird

Ah yes, if no discussion allowed and we have to accept the OP premises then I am old enough to remember high streets of the 80s, even 70s as a small child and yes, I happily switched to the alternatives as soon as they became available - online travel agents, online banking, Amazon and online ordering of clothes, roughly in that order.

I would say that 90% of my shopping is on line. My local big town is only 7 miles away but traffic is horrendous and public transport non existent. If it's just me I'll cycle in but if I need to bring the kids with me it's a bit of an expedition - parking is also extortionate.

We also don't really have much in the way of out-of-town near us - we'd have to drive 30mins or so and at that point I'd rather buy stuff on line.

My High street is a 10 minute walk away. I tend to do online food shops especially for bigger, heavier items. The high street is good for certain items like clothes, vintage, specialist shops like picture framers and has recently got a fishmongers and one of the cafes also sells baked bread (expensive though). What I don’t like about some high streets now is you tend to get as in our area a plethora of cafes, restaurants and nail bars. In some nearby high streets there are butchers, fishmongers and more variety but not always the case.

High street is good for some things but as PP says sometimes they don’t have what you need so you end up ordering online or going to a retail park.

Every time I try the high street they don’t stock what I want (despite it being available online) or the size I need and then tell me to order online anyway. I live rurally so have to drive around anyway and it’s not fuel efficient when I can get stuff delivered, often for free.

Last week I went to buy some coordinating items, you don’t need both items but many people would get both (think matching top and trousers or pillow cases and sheets). They only stocked one half of the coordinating items (not sold out, just didn’t stock in that particular store) and I either had to drive 30 miles to the nearest store that stocked the other half or pay for delivery. I’d already driven 8 miles to go to this shop.

My high street is absolutely packed. I actively avoid it on a Friday as its just so busy 😂 The only high streets I know that have gone downhill are the pedestrianised ones. I used to go twice a week shopping to another nearby town, but I just don't have the time or energy any more. You've got to park 1/2 a mile away to get to it, the whole experience is really draining especially with kids in tow, and most shops aren't accessible.

I'm not. Anyone can reply. And are doing. I'm not in charge of that. I don't think I am. It simply appeared that people were answering a question I hadn't asked so I wanted to make sure my actual question was clear. Is that gatekeeping?

I put a poll out of curiosity. I wanted people wIth a specific experience to answer that poll. That's not unreasonable is it?

If I put a poll asking if you've been swimming in the sea did you like it
Yanbu I liked it, yabu I didn't and people posted yabu I've never swum in the sea and I said actually I was asking for the experiences of people who have swum in the sea would that be gatekeeping? Would responses saying I've never swum in the sea be answering my question?

On line for most clothes. Occasionally go to out of town John Lewis but use supermarkets in towns. Parking is free for 1 hour or 1.5 hours. I have a very decent choice of 4 towns with supermarkets. So after shopping at the supermarket, I visit the High Street. They are all decent where I go so it’s a good combo. I don’t go to any retail parks, except Bicester Village!

Demise of the high street is very much self inflicted/caused by council greed tbh.

Council issues
Rubbish local bus networks meaning getting into town by bus takes a long time and is expensive
Expensive poor quality parking.
Business rates pushing stores away.

Retailer issues
Limited range in store with "see our wider range online" plastered all over it
Poor quality, if the fabrics are all shite no point feeling them
Poor trying on options.

I'd happily pay more to get what I want on the high street, I won't pay more to get something a bit like what I want but not really...

Switched. We have so many shops that are similar but different brands. (charity shops, coffee shops, etc)

I voted YABU. The council make it so difficult to access the high street, people were forced onto retail parks.

• One way streets surrounding the high street corralling everyone onto the same route causing ridiculous traffic.
• Red routes.
• No parking spaces.
• Ridiculous fees to park.
• Then the invention of fucking apps that never work, to pay for parking.
• Huge pedestrianised areas making it difficult for people with mobility issues.

Blame the councils for killing the high street, not shoppers.

I used to regularly visit the high street, when we first lived here nine years ago. Within a short time, one or two shops closed, but after March 2020, it’s been a rapid decline. There’s no point in trying to shop for clothes, because the only clothes shops left are Oliver Bonas, Mint Velvet and Phase 8.

There are plenty of coffee shops, restaurants and hairdressers and the beautiful building that housed House of Fraser has been empty since 2019.

The only thing to do is to shop online and get things delivered to a hub.

I havent used the town centre here for many many years. i only use OOT places where parking is free

Trying to think now what shops we had in the high street when I was a kid.

our high street had 2 banks, 2 greengrocers, a bakery, a cafe, a pharmacy, a sweet shop, a newsagent, a couple of clothes shops, a shoe shop, a hardware shop, a pet shop, umpteen pubs, a travel agent, electronics shop where you could buy new, rent a TV or get appliances repaired, council office where you'd go to pay your rent and report repairs, general food shops, hair dresser, barber, doctor, dentist, petrol pumps - run by the hardware/DIY supplies shop I seem to recall.

Trying to think what else. Newsagent & tobacconist, florist, chip shop, garage oh we had a little branch of English furnishing stores. Jewellery shop. Baby clothes and stuff shop. A shop that sold all manner of random stuff. Im sure I've forgotten some. Optician.

You could get everything you needed. You might not have had a lot of choice but you wouldn't be missing anything vital.

I mostly shop online and have for years, it's a lot easier for me to:

• Keep track of how much I've spent
• Not get distracted in shops and forget what I'm there for
• actually find what I need without spending hours going in and out of different shops

I enjoyed the high street as a teen, and still go in occasionally (usually to get the kids feet measured & try on shoes), but online is so much more convenient

Big food shop I do as home delivery because I have no car.
Anything else I go where the shop I want is. I shop at retailers that have branches in both "High Streets", shopping centres and "out of town" retail parks. I am not especially loyal to one shopping area. Often my decision is made by which bus turns up first.

@IncompleteSenten to be honest in my 1980s childhood hometown (medium size Midlands market town) there was a busy "High Street" and large market twice a week but when it came to a big clothes shop or a special purchase we went to Birmingham or Milton Keynes because that's where the department stores (BHS, C+A in them days) were.
Now that town has large out of town shopping areas - and actually has the shops we could only dream of in the 80s (obviously 21st century versions).
It doesn't matter to me if those shops are in the "Town Centre" or on the edge of town. I still have to take a bus to get there. Doesn't make a difference to me if I am getting a bus from A-B or A-C.