Dreaded high street

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It sounds as though those of you living in the London area are quite lucky, in still having a High Street you actually want to visit. A lot of places (like wot where I live) the High Street has given up the ghost - or rather the Council/Pension Funds refuse to lower the shop rent and rates, so I stand by my opening post, and say I have to venture to shopping malls (or the internet) to do any decent fashion shopping.
 
Well funny you should say that, brissles. My family comes from around Dunstable in Beds and the decline there has been dreadful. Such a shame.
 
Muswell Hill is lovely. Nice shops everywhere. Charming shops, genteel shops, nostalgic ones, cultured ones, unusual ones. No riff-raff. I marvel at how relatively unique it it compared to the identikit clones one sees elsewhere.
 
Julius said:
Muswell Hill is lovely. Nice shops everywhere. Charming shops, genteel shops, nostalgic ones, cultured ones, unusual ones. No riff-raff. I marvel at how relatively unique it it compared to the identikit clones one sees elsewhere.
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Yes, I also live in such a place & it is in the North--a true Gem!
 
brissles said:
It sounds as though those of you living in the London area are quite lucky, in still having a High Street you actually want to visit. A lot of places (like wot where I live) the High Street has given up the ghost - or rather the Council/Pension Funds refuse to lower the shop rent and rates, so I stand by my opening post, and say I have to venture to shopping malls (or the internet) to do any decent fashion shopping.[/Q
Same here lost W H Smith, M&S, Primark moving to the retail park soon. Staff in Boots are thinking they will be shutting soon.
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My nearest high st is Birmingham city centre, and it seems full of contrasts, designer shops and Harvey Nics in the Mailbox, Selfridges in the Bullring but in the other areas there seems to be so many pound shops, cheap clothes shops, loan shops and a lot of boarded up areas, since the demise of Bhs etc, it just looks really tatty in parts, and I never go shopping on a weekend there I have seen enough of it working there in the week, it's a shame though.
Also and I don't mean to sound unkind here there are a lot of beggars around some of which can be a bit aggressive at times and what with that and the eager chuggers on every corner I don't find shopping on the high street as much fun as I used to. I do wonder in years to come what will be left,
 
My brother is on the council of the town near to where I live, and we talked in depth about why the councils allow the rot to set in, with boarded up premises, and the profusion of charity shops etc. And why they didn't lower the rents to let in the individual and artisan vendors to bring life back to the area.

He summed it up in 2 words. Pension Funds. It appears many councils have lost financial control of commercial premises, after they were invested in and taken over by Investment Companies, and particularly those handling pension funds. So its these outside interests that govern the rents (although the rates are still the domain of the councils), and the councils have their hands tied. I suppose that makes sense why some High Streets are blossoming - in more wealthy areas, and others are in rapid decline.
 
I think it's companies like QVC,Amazon,EBay etc who have contributed to the decline of the High St. It started many years ago with the likes of Tesco,Asda, etc. And continues every time another out of town store opens.
 
I live in a village, north, but in fairly easy reach of a small market town. When we first moved here the little town was thriving, lots of really interesting & really useful independent shops plus a tiny Boots, even a very small Woolworths, & little privately owned department store, plus a really buzzing open air market every week.
You wouldn't recognise the place now. It's all charity shops, estate agents, pound type shops that open, last a few months then are boarded up again. Woolworths of course went bust, so did the little department store, Boots & all but two of the independent shops have gone. Even the market now only has half a dozen stalls where it used to fill the whole of the square. There are no shoe shops at all now & the only clothes shop left is a struggling branch of Dotty P.
I never go there now except for the vet or the dentist.
 
I live in Greenwich (not the fancy part, the regular end) and the only shops we have are a Tesco Express, a Co-op and a mucky little Boots. Saying that though, there are some amazing local restaurants so it's not all bad.
 
I live in what was once a thriving Mill and Pit town. Umpteen cotton mills, at least 4 mines, heavy engineering manufacturers, carpet manufacturers and all the associated industries meant unemployment was very rare. Households had several wage packets going in and consequently the local shops boomed.
Fast forward twenty odd years and the mines have gone, the factories have gone, the engineering works have gone and most of the small family owned shops have gone too. It`s a ghost town.
We are 30 minutes from Manchester city centre, around 20 minutes from the Trafford Centre but I rarely visit either of them, I shop mainly online these days. A sad sign of the times.
 
brissles said:
Can QVC please update their spiel ?

Constant references to the High Street is a bit outdated now. Does anyone on here still HAVE a High Street ? I know where I live our once thriving main shopping thoroughfare is now awash with betting shops, discount stores, charity shops, building societies, coffee shops and boarded up premises.

For fashion of any description its the Malls - whether in an arcade or out of town, oh and with freeeeee parking Q !!! so this talk of the dreaded High Street may have been fine when Q first aired back in the early 90's, but like their fashions ranges their spiel needs to be updated too.
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The problem I think they have got is if they say (which they do do on occasion but that is only when they know that the particular item is a Q exclusive (or a hard to find product), is if they say go and do your research (i.e on the 'interweb' then people may find better products cheaper (I mean really....!!!), thus they have to I suppose be a little bit wary of that, I suppose that is why they have so many American brands so that this can't happen (certainly with the fashion ranges)!
 
20 odd years ago I battled local council planners on behalf of local dentists who were required to offer disabled access for new surgeries, but they were refused change of use to open ground floor dentist premises in town-centre shops that had been empty for over a year. The council insisted they would reopen as shops to keep the high street alive. Fast-forward a few years and they did open as shops: charity shops or those gift-wrap and calendar pop-up shops that appear in the run up to Christmas, then disappear just as fast. These were dentists who would have opened lists for NHS patients in return for grants to kit out new premises, services the town desperately needed. People having check-ups would have provided footfall for the surviving retailers, cafes etc! So short-sighted!
Meanwhile, on the outskirts of town, the big supermarket chains got permission for numerous little shops, pushing out the few remaining independent green grocers and butchers, even my local Spar bit the dust!

I quite like to mooch around the shops, but I buy mostly online. Little branches of chains like Next, Clarks can actually have negative sales targets, recognising that they act mainly as collection points for online orders, and that they sell fewer ££ in sales than the refund for online returns they accept.
 
Vienna said:
I live in what was once a thriving Mill and Pit town. Umpteen cotton mills, at least 4 mines, heavy engineering manufacturers, carpet manufacturers and all the associated industries meant unemployment was very rare. Households had several wage packets going in and consequently the local shops boomed.
Fast forward twenty odd years and the mines have gone, the factories have gone, the engineering works have gone and most of the small family owned shops have gone too. It`s a ghost town.
We are 30 minutes from Manchester city centre, around 20 minutes from the Trafford Centre but I rarely visit either of them, I shop mainly online these days. A sad sign of the times.
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Same here mines , coke and chemical works and steelworks all gone.
 
I've just got in from a shopping trip to our lovely High Street which has the usual shops, but also lots of individual boutiques,
cafes and restaurants and not a shopping mall within miles around.
 
My delightful High Street is selling large Yankee Candles at £10 a jar! Gorgeous scents too and I am deciding which ones to buy! A bargain on the DHS! :mysmilie_59:
 
Mazza said:
I always check out Argos and Wilko. The same day delivery from Argos is amazing.

Putney High Street is OK for the everyday. We have a small shopping centre, very well maintained but not exactly busy. If you go to Kingston you get the better stores or for posh I can go up West, as they say in EastEnders! I don't understand why they are so rude about the DHS. If you go into a shop they don't start dissing the opposition do they? Something's they say we don't stock X but you might get it in wherever. I usually swear at the screen when Huntley (the worst offender?) starts slagging them off.
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Glen Campbell once told Huntley..on air..not to keep knocking the high street because a lot of people work hard in shops for not much pay. She looked like she had been hit with a wet fish and blushed. It stopped her for a while, but she still does it..and many of her colleagues! I hate them doing it. Thing is, I have never heard any assistant on the high street slag QVC off...must have more dignity!
 
i live near a couple of very nice posh high end high streets. both beginning with the letter "H" and i don't frequent them coz i can't afford them if i am honest!
 
Linwood said:
Glen Campbell once told Huntley..on air..not to keep knocking the high street because a lot of people work hard in shops for not much pay. She looked like she had been hit with a wet fish and blushed. It stopped her for a while, but she still does it..and many of her colleagues! I hate them doing it. Thing is, I have never heard any assistant on the high street slag QVC off...must have more dignity!
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Well done, Glen!!!!!
 
I remember once watching an episode of The Simpsons. The family went out and every shop in Springfield high street was Starbucks. To be honest the truth is not far off.
 

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