mary portas ?

[anneasquith]

mary portas has been employed by the prime minister to " rejuvenate " our high streets, i wonder how she intends to do that ?

[VHG]

I guess she will have to look into the problem first, then make suggestions. However I do fear there is little she can suggest to halt the decline.

I live on the edge of Birmingham, and when we moved here 20 years ago we had a thriving high st with woolworths, halfords, dixons, a record shop, 3 newsagents, and loads of other assorted independent shops.

Then a large Tesco was built nearby, then a large Sainsburys, then a few medium sized supermarkets were built in the area, then a large retail park with huge shops like Toys R Us, B&Q, Comet, Currys, Homebase, Habitat, Boots, etc etc etc.

Gradually one by one the shops closed in the high st - Dixons and Halfords soon went, then other shops, then Woolworths went, then Adams, and so on.

The high st is now made up of quite a few banks, loads of take aways like fish and chips, pizzas and chineese, loads of charity shops, and quite a few empty shops.

Of course we have online shopping now as well (All the CDs and DVDs I have bought in the last 5 years have all come from Amazon as well as much of my Christmas shopping).

I cant see any way of saving the High St when there are so many other places to shop, particulalry as supermarkets offer a "one shop" experience, with free easy parking.

I will be interested to see her suggestions.

[bazwillrun]

She'll do her usual, tell them to go for the niche market

[anneasquith]

i agree VHG, our shopping habits have changed. as a large percentage of parents work, they dont do a " daily shop " one visit a week to a large supermarket is what most people do imo. i fail to see what she can do. another waste of money from the government..

[sherminator]

These awful out of town places have to stop! There needs to be an incentive to be in the city centre. As well as affordable parking! that would be a start!

[smurfchops]

I like her, she tells it like it is.

[youngmafbog]

Stopping the out of town places is not the answer, afterall how do you cart your 50" plasma down the high street? It would be like when we limited cars to 5mph or smashed up machines becasue of the progress.

What needs to happen is to make the high street more competitive with it. This means enforcing councils to provide cheap or free parking, reducing the astronomical rates and competitive rentals. The last is a larger problem as they are privately owned, but fair rental judgements similar to private landlords could help together with councils taking control if a shop is empty for more than 3 months. More limits need to be put on charity shops, once these appear everyone treats it as a scum place and no longer goes there. In addition we need to stop the flow of 'Tesco Express'. They should be limited to say 1 every 10 sq miles.

I believe there i a place for the high street but it needs to adjust and the supermarket and council bullies need to be controlled.

We should remember that the anti car mob are much to blame for this. Park and ride does NOT work on a large enough scale.

[VHG]

>stop the flow of 'Tesco Express'.

I just went to the Tesco web site and went to store locator and entered my postcode (for all stores).

Within a 12 mile radius of my house there are FIFTY FIVE Tesco stores (of all sizes).

Amazing.

[gingejbee]

VHG: so many people on here seem to dislike Tesco, that I'm surprised there are fifty-five stores nationwide. Don't blame Tesco for it's ubiquity, blame those who shop there.

[roger]

VHG - snap - they seem to list the nearest 55 stores (unless you live next door to me!)

[sherminator]

to Youngmafbog.
I just meant stop the spread of them. I can understand the use for comets etc to be ot of town places but trade should be brought in to city centre when it can.
Park and rides etc could work for shoppers and it would really help attract more money into the centres of town.