Empty High Streets

[woolleysheep]

has anyone done a survey of people visiting town centre high streets during the week, I think they would find the majority of people are of pensionable age who visit the same shops on every visit because shops do not cater for them and with the pension age going up there will be even less of them

[bednobs]

no, i have never done a survey during the week as i am at work usually

[Old_Geezer]

Fewer high street shops as time goes on are most likely due to a number of reasons. But my suggestion is having to pay for parking means cities and towns are getting deserted, and local shops fail because one can get just about all one's regular needs at a one stop hypermarket.

I'm unsure that the majority of folk in the UK are of personable age. Or if they were, why they'd continually visit the same shops that do not cater for them. Maybe you should take a survey ?

[factor-fiction]

Yes, if the pension age goes up it should mean fewer pensioners- but it won't mean fewer old people.
I went into town this morning. The shops were empty but there seemed to be lots of people sitting around drinking cans of beer or coffee in paper cups asking passers-by for cigarettes. Very depressing

[cazzz1975]

wouldnt this be the way normally if people were at work? I wonder how things would look at the weekend in the high street?

[pastafreak]

Our high street seems to have people of all ages shopping at any time of the day. If there is one day of the week frequented more by pensioners,its Mondays. The shops always seem pretty busy.

[shaneystar2]

Our High St is always busy .Luckily we still have a good mix of independent shops and chains .Plus we have a sixth form college nearby and a library ,so it's a mix of youngsters ,elderly and working age people .
Plus being a seaside town we have the grockles :)

[andy-hughes]

Prohibitive parking is certainly an issue.

Where I live, in Stoke, there was a massive municiple car park that charged a ludicroulsy high daily charge, penalising all office and shop workers who avoid the unreliable and unpleasant bus service to get to work.

Then Tesco appeared - built on of their European superstores, and took over the car park, limiting free parking to two hours to suit their shoppers, giving the council no revenue whatever.

There is litle wonder that town centres are dying - shopping habits are altering, but a simple inability to access privately owned shops will simply strangle them - quickly.

[arwyn]

Most immigrants who work sent all their spare cash to their home country.

[Mamyalynne]

Who mentioned immigrants ??

We have a busy town centre and a market 3 times a week.

[Sparkles62]

Our high street is always busy and on a friday ( market day) its mad busy.
We are very lucky to have loads of shops, everything you need, plus 4 banks, post office and a small retail park 5 minutes walk down the road.
There is always a good mix of young and old around town shopping.

[andres]

Monday seems to be the busiest day up here .Lots of young families doing their shopping at the 99p and £1 shops. Tuesday is once again becoming the 'dead' day of the week. Tuesdays used to be half-day closing years ago. There are nowhere near the same number of shoppers that there used to be.The shops that are always busy are the café's and charity shops.