The plight of town/city-centre shops

[Horsa]

Town/city-centres have changed a lot since I was younger. When I was younger all the shops in town/city-centres were taken by retailers & full of stock & staff. The displays were appealing & there was a wide variety of shops. Markets were full on market day & there were lots of stall-holders. Shopping was a pleasant experience. (Mind you, retail assistants had better customer care & service skills.)

Nowadays, town/city-centres are dead. In some areas almost all the shops are cafes, gastro-pubs, book-makers, charity shops, vaping shops, fish-shops & pound shops. There are hardly any market-stalls on market day. As a result less people go shopping. This creates a vicious circle where less people go into town to shop because there isn't much variety of shops then because shops aren't getting as many people businesses aren't as profitable so more shops close down so even fewer people go into town to shop. Internet shopping has been the death of some shops. You don't get the privilege of smelling your fruit, veg, meat or fish when buying online though to see how fresh it is & not everyone has internet access at home & you can't always get things when you want them however some things are cheaper to buy on the internet even with delivery charges added on & you can buy almost everything on the internet including some things you can't buy in shops. Not everyone is computer-literate either. Going shopping allows some elderly people to get out & meet people they would other-wise not have met.

What do you think the plight of town/city-centre shops is? Do you think there are ways of stopping town/city-centre shops from being a thing of the past? What can be done to keep town/city-centres alive? Do you think at some point in the future all shopping will be done on-line & all homes will be internet accessible & everyone will be able to use a computer?

 

[britbox]

It's a good few years since I lived in the Uk, but the writing was on the wall... Internet shopping... high rates and parking charges imposed by local councils...

 

[Horsa]

It's a good few years since I lived in the Uk, but the writing was on the wall... Internet shopping... high rates and parking charges imposed by local councils...

I agree but the last few years have been worse. Landlords charging higher rents & doing less maintenance is another factor in the plight of town/city-centre shops. Damn! I forgot about car parking. It's easy to tell I rely on public transport. Thinking about it I can add extortionate bus fares to factors causing the down-fall of town/city-centre shops too.

Is it just the U.K. that is experiencing this or are other countries experiencing it too?

 

[britbox]

I agree but the last few years have been worse. Landlords charging higher rents & doing less maintenance is another factor in the plight of town/city-centre shops. Damn! I forgot about car parking. It's easy to tell I rely on public transport. Thinking about it I can add extortionate bus fares to factors causing the down-fall of town/city-centre shops too.

Is it just the U.K. that is experiencing this or are other countries experiencing it too?

I'm not seeing it in Australia. The UK Councils are very short sighted. They are helping to kill traditional town centres... just when they need every bit of help they can get with the growth of online shopping.

 

[Horsa]

I'm not seeing it in Australia. The UK Councils are very short sighted. They are helping to kill traditional town centres... just when they need every bit of help they can get with the growth of online shopping.

Thank you very much for the information. I haven't been abroad in years so didn't know whether the death of town/city centres was just a British thing or a global thing. It started with the demise of Woolworths which had been going for 100 years. Some town councils have realised the problem now & are trying to do something about it. They've been running support your local market campaigns for the last few years though I think that how they did it was a waste of money to tell you the truth. They were giving away key-rings, stickers, fridge magnets, shopping bags & recipe files to get people to use their local market. The amount of money spent in manufacturing these goods could have been spent in other ways. They've also been printing articles in the local newspapers to get people to use local shops. Again this is throwing away money that they could have been using in other ways. The budget lowered business rates for small town shops which is a step in the right direction & apparently the government are thinking about charging internet traders tax to bridge the gap caused by lowering business rates but will that mean internet traders will have to put prices up & if it does will they put prices up enough so town/city-centre shops will be able to compete? Town councils could also lower car parking charges. The amount they spent on trying to get people to go in town/city-centres could have been used so that they could lower car parking charges & still not lose out. Fuel would have to go down a bit so that it didn't cost as much to get into town whether by bus or car. Town councils are now planning on using empty shops as accommodation & having town/city-centres more as leisure & dining areas than retail areas & they're planning to build more offices. Things have definitely changed a lot since Napoleon supposedly called us "a nation of shop-keepers". I think it's a sad sight.