Is retail still alive where you live?

[JaceLancs]

My local city is fairly run down with lots of empty retail and business properties
However, I live in a village and retail is thriving - we have everything from local butcher to pet shop, gift shop, post office, bakery and a reasonable choice of cafes, pubs and restaurants - if anywhere comes up for let it gets snapped up straightaway
I also live near to other similar villages and suburbs on the way into the city centre who are equally as thriving
I think the free parking helps, as does a stay local and support local business attitude
I’m happy to pay more locally to avoid the costs of fuel and parking to somewhere that’s no longer a pleasant day out

Not really I live in a city Ne Scotland and just like swathes of the UK good retailers getting less and less.
However if you need a haircut,nails done,or phone unlocked while choosing a vape
You're well catered for.

Certainly not in Ipswich. The town centre is an absolute shit hole now and gets worse every day.

Bury St. Edmunds is still lovely so retail is possible but there's no way back now for Ipswich town centre.

Yes most definitely. Nearest city York.

Not in the smallish town i live in. It is pretty grim now. The more shops that close here are getting replaced with fast food places (we currently have 5 burger/pizza takeaways next door to eachother and a million others dotted around even at the end of housing streets). Plus the only local place to shop for clothes and groceries now is Asda. We are simply another place now overrun with vape shops, Turkish barbers & takeaways that the council keep approving despite people opposing more opening up.

It's quite sad really looking at the state of it, compared to other local towns and the nearest city centre.

My local neighbour in London is doing well for retail - got an independent deli, florist, hardware store, Turkish supermarket and vintage/second hand furniture/homeware store in our local run of shops. A few dodgy vape shops in the wider area but not much.

I do think overall there is simply too much retail space still though. London councils have usually been fairly pragmatic about having it change - there used to be a three more shops on our local street but one became an office for an architect/building firm and the other two are now residential instead which is better than having empty shops or more dodgy shops

I live in a suburb of Manchester and both city centre and local retail seems to be thriving. Hospitality less so, frequent closures of venues that are seemingly popular and have been around for years. That said, very few empty units in the local area, and as soon as one closes, another opens.

Ha, no. Town is full of Greek barbers, vape shops and phone shops, and lots of empty units.
Our local council put out an appeal for volunteers to come forward and tidy up the centre... stuff like picking up litter, weeding, and cleaning graffiti.
Fair play to them, but they spent hours cleaning the graffiti off of one building and it was covered in tags again the next day. Must be so disheartening.

I'm only 8 miles from Ipswich but never go 🛒 ng there. Cambridge and Norwich have much better options.

For clothes and a general mooch around, Woodbridge has almost everything I need. Plus some very good cafes!

I live in a small town in Scotland, we have two Butchers, a Bakers, a Fishmongers, a Greengrocers and plenty of local restaurants and cafes.

My suburb has picked up. It's only a small parade, but now has more useful shops than a few years back.

The city centre looks like it's been hit by a zombie invasion.

The city centre isn't up to much but the village a mile from me has a couple of nice cafés, a bakery and a lovely butchers and greengrocer, as well as a card and gift shop and a post office. Parking charges except for Sunday were brought in last year and the locals are too tight to pay £1 so they park illegally or dangerously all over the village. The greengrocer even pays for your parking if you spend £15.

Same. Town full of empty units, and people staggering about on spice.
It is like something from The Walking Dead.

My town is a shopping magnet - one of the top retail areas in the country (we have a John Lewis and a fancy department store). But so many of what were shops are now fast food joints. Real shops close down and invariably a chicken place opens up.

Our town is booming for retail with new (mostly fairly upmarket) shops opening semi regularly.

Large town in NE Scotland
5 vape/minimart shops - already been raided several times for selling dodgy fags but still open
4 Turkish barbers
Several other empty shops

Nowhere at all to buy clothes

Very much so. I live in the centre of Leeds and it’s always rammed.

A lot of retail stores have been replaced by food outlets.

Turkish barbers and vape shops and all sorts of fast food outlets, many with zero hygiene ratings.

Our village was doing ok, had a spar shop, butchers, post office, newsagents, and chemist. Then a big co op opened up and all the others closed down within a few months as it was the other end of the village so sucked in all the shoppers.

Outskirts of Liverpool here and business is booming! Local retail parks to me ( nearest is Prescot ) is rammed as are all of the other ones within a few miles.

our local area is pretty busy too.
Liverpool city centre is fantastic!

South West Scotland, same as most others. Take aways/cafés, including 3 franchised ones that were never needed, hairdressers/barbers, more than one phone/vape shop in a town barely big enough for one. We still have two butchers, bakers, a part time fishmonger and one clothes shop. There are a few small independent specialist shops but the owners are getting on and they will close down when they retire. Empty units everywhere and derelict buildings. We've even had pubs close down in recent years, still not a shortage.

Yes, we're in London z2 and the high street is rammed at weekends, and still very busy through the week. Not many empty units, some businesses close down but are quickly let out again. No free parking, everyone is happy using the tube or buses. It gets busy just walking to do errands or to kids activities but it's good to be somewhere thriving and not depressingly run down.

Well our local big shopping centre has been like the week of Christmas since pay day. The traffic was terrible , it was posted all over social media how crazy busy it was so there must be shops to attract the customers.

However, the high st is dead as a door nail. They've spent hundreds of thousands of £s on a new seating area in the market place and the pigeons use it more than shoppers. They've invested millions to bring the tram into town and the building works have just killed the town completely.. There's no shoppers and no shops to tempt them back. No clothes shops apart from charity shops , it's absolutely dire for the high st but the shopping centres are dry and I've noticed over the past 5 years more older people are moving away from the high st and now they can use their passes before 9.30am they can travel that little bit further.

The high streets need massive investment from big shops and low rates from the council's to attract the businesses back but I can't see it happening anytime soon.

It definitely is - such a brilliant place to visit (or live). So much to do, so many places to eat, drink, and shop, and really friendly. In a world of increasingly homogeneous towns and cities, when you’re in Liverpool, you know you’re in Liverpool.

My small towns high street is dire. We have a: Lidl, Poundland, Greggs, Superdrug, 2 x Turkish barbers (which are always empty), 3 x Vietnamese nail salons (which are always busy), Polish grocery store, clothes shop (which sells tacky wholesale outfits and fake designer bags), a few charity shops and 2 x bookies.

We had a green grocers, many butchers, a seamstress/tailors, cobblers, good clothes shops, that all closed down now.

Large supermarket superstores, retail parks and shopping centres (which are always busy) and Amazon have destroyed small town high streets.