April 1st all over again!

[RonA]

Dont know if you catch the BBC breakfast news or not but yesterday morning they had a piece from my home town high street i.e. Stockton on Tees
The piece related that going to our once famous (& widest in the country) high st is now a liesure experience. Couldn’t believe what I was hearing, the high st is full of charity shops & not a decent retail shop to be had, our Marks & Spencers soon to go probably followed by only decent department store.

RonA

 

[Dieselman 63]

Dont know if you catch the BBC breakfast news or not but yesterday morning they had a piece from my home town high street i.e. Stockton on Tees
The piece related that going to our once famous (& widest in the country) high st is now a liesure experience. Couldn’t believe what I was hearing, the high st is full of charity shops & not a decent retail shop to be had, our Marks & Spencers soon to go probably followed by only decent department store.

RonA

Sounds like @The_Yellow_Ardvark country, a street of charity shops and what sounds like impending skips as the M&S shuts up shop

 

[MBB]

I used to go to Stockton & Billingham Tech in 1956 just behind the market place. It was a great market always packed with people and a diverse amount of market stalls.
Some things are really good old days that will never come back.

 

[frank horton]

the educated counciler's did exactley the same in Stockport........everybody went to the out of town shopping center's.........
my rates basically doubled in 3 years ...so quit and went abroad........I employed 5 people, semi permenantly.......shame......
never been back there in 25 years.........

 

[The_Yellow_Ardvark]

Sadly that's the way of all good high streets.

But the decent second hand shops and good local charity shops are forced out by national outlets, or food places.

 

[RonA]

the educated counciler's did exactley the same in Stockport........everybody went to the out of town shopping center's.........
my rates basically doubled in 3 years ...so quit and went abroad........I employed 5 people, semi permenantly.......shame......
never been back there in 25 years.........

Pedestrianisation killed our high street. Being the widest in the country on non market days you could park on the high st for upto 2 hours. Shopping, banking or whatever done you could leave just as easily.
Now belatedly they’ve reopened part of the high st for parking but its a nightmare getting to the parking.
The council is now wringing its hands & saying wonder why this has happened?
RonA

 

[CompoSimmonite]

To revitalise the local towns - Stoke-on-Trent has raised car parking yet again ! Very difficult to get even 10 mins free parking and no loading marks on even deserted roads to stop Blue Badge holders parking for free

 

[The_Yellow_Ardvark]

Blue Badge holders parking for free

Don't start on the "The blue badgers" round here they cause so many hold ups, because they are allowed to park.

 

[slimjim]

In a small town close to me, the council introduced on street parking, they claimed that it wouldn’t affect trade on the streets, within a few months many businesses closed down, due to lack of trade, the council relented and removed the charges, but not before ruining the businesses and to no ones benefit, the problem being the councils need money, but it costs more to go into town than the postage charges from buying online, and you don’t have to spend half a day ordering, and you have more choice, long gone are the days when you could only buy in town, and the councils could screw you over for parking and the shop keepers for rates, they don’t seem to have an answer to enable them to create revenue like in the past.

 

[armalites]

I go to small towns in Wales fairly often with work and many of them still seem to have busy high streets often with those old independent shops which is nice to see.

I'm sure pedestrianisation doesn't help, when people can nip in park on the road for a few minutes then they are far more likely to use the high street. If you have to park and walk in then you may as well go to the supermarket out of town

 

[roofman]

I done a roof job once on a hardware shop in town and this guy always bragged he stocked or could get you anything you wanted connected with door furniture, locks,latches and any kind of hinge including all types of rising hinges... Involved in our job we had to re-furb an old cast iron roof window and fabricate our own hinge to meet certain criteria. Down stairs i go into his shop and start trawling through hundreds of hinges in old musty cardboard boxes and brown grease paper but to no avail..."wheres your blah blah blah type of hinge i said"..."aint got any,just use ebay like i do and get it within 2 days" he said. Nuf said

 

[brightspark]

Stockton high street is dead. they have spent millions on it. I HAD to go to the bank there on Thursday stick some cheques in its like a ghost town 1 person getting served in the bank and a handful of people in the high street . pathetic

 

[the artfull-codger]

Dont know if you catch the BBC breakfast news or not but yesterday morning they had a piece from my home town high street i.e. Stockton on Tees
The piece related that going to our once famous (& widest in the country) high st is now a liesure experience. Couldn’t believe what I was hearing, the high st is full of charity shops & not a decent retail shop to be had, our Marks & Spencers soon to go probably followed by only decent department store.

RonA

They killed off stockton in the late 60s when they ripped [sorry "developed"] the high st up, it had lovely old fashioned buildings & shops & replaced it with the castlegate centre,& it's gone downhill ever since, we loved going there as youngsters.

 

[The_Yellow_Ardvark]

In Bath, doing away with the cars worked. But it does have the foot fall almost all year round.

But in Trowbridge it killed the town centre, the decent small independent store slowly closed up, made worse by the new shopping centre.

Sadly the good idea muted in the 1960's and 1970's took 30 years to get planning permission and funding. But times had moved on.

 

[ronan]

A chap in the gun club was telling me he had a job briefly a couple of years ago in Coventry, he was teaching aeronautics or something aircraft related. Anyway i asked him what Coventry city was like, and he just shook his head. He reckoned the damage the luftwaffe did was nothing in comparison to the havoc the redevelopers did.

Mind you i cannot talk, Dublin city council built itself a set of offices on the quays, and it reminds me of the Flak towers bult in Germany during the war.

 

[Dieselman 63]

A chap in the gun club was telling me he had a job briefly a couple of years ago in Coventry, he was teaching aeronautics or something aircraft related. Anyway i asked him what Coventry city was like, and he just shook his head. He reckoned the damage the luftwaffe did was nothing in comparison to the havoc the redevelopers did.

Mind you i cannot talk, Dublin city council built itself a set of offices on the quays, and it reminds me of the Flak towers bult in Germany during the war.

And Vienna. Some teen boys were smoking in one after the war when it was used to store surplus wwii ammo. The inevitable happened, look it up

 

[ronan]

And Vienna. Some teen boys were smoking in one after the war when it was used to store surplus wwii ammo. The inevitable happened, look it up

They had to go to the doctor with ringing in their ears ?

 

[Dieselman 63]

They had to go to the doctor with ringing in their ears ?

Free demolition though. Mile radius broken windows inclusive.

 

[TechnicAl]

Rotherham town centre has been surrended to the immigrants. You rarely hear English spoken. As a result the locals now gather in my village (suburb) as there are a number of pubs and, as the place gets more and more popular, lots of restaurants. Every cuisine I can think of is catered for within a 5 minute walk from my house. I can see an Italian eatery and a pub from my window. Its good and the busier it gets the better the choice but we are missing shops...its all food.

 

[ronan]

Rotherham town centre has been surrended to the immigrants. You rarely hear English spoken. As a result the locals now gather in my village (suburb) as there are a number of pubs and, as the place gets more and more popular, lots of restaurants. Every cuisine I can think of is catered for within a 5 minute walk from my house. I can see an Italian eatery and a pub from my window. Its good and the busier it gets the better the choice but we are missing shops...its all food.

I don't think people cook for themselves anymore, or make coffee for that matter, with the amount of cafe's around.