Shopping is a private matter and success in retailing comes from meeting the needs and wants of private buyers. And most of the time these days our high streets simply don’t.
In India I was fascinated to drive through whole towns which specialised in making one type of product. It could be stone carvings, wooden doors, flower pots or whatever, while streets dedicated to the manufacture of one product and many different price levels. I assumed it was an Indian thing but reading your excellent article I discover it’s as much a European thing as Indian. As a Brit I wouldn’t know this of course, being used to abundance and variety at every turn! I jest but it’s interesting to bite that the biggest market in Europe in medieval times was not on continental Europe but on St Giles Hill in Winchester, sadly no longer a market place but no less important because of it.
Two things make a shopping space work (whether a high street, a market or out of town location) 1. access (of which parking is a big part) and 2. places to sell from that are affordable for the traders to sell from.
High streets die because parking and access is getting worse and more expensive, so people drive to out of town malls with huge free car parks, or big box stores or garden canters, all with lots of free parking. They also die because the rent and rates are too damn high. So they stop trading, or trade from home online, at a unit in an industrial estate or at the mobile fairs and markets, or some combination.
Wakefield just about has a functions town centre, but sections of it are at an advanced stage of decay. But trading is happening accross the area, in units in industrial estates, under railway arches. With good parking provision and lower running costs, these business could move to an actual shop and bring some life back to town and gain some footfall. We even have a pub in an industrial unit when there are empty pubs in town. It’s madness.
Fascinating stuff (and of course I agree with the basic principle). Last month in City A.M. I recalled the introduction of Big Bang to the London Stock Exchange in 1986, and was reminded how restrictive the LSE had become over time; in the 17th century, as you know, they booted stock-iobbers out of the Exchange so they set themselves up in the growing number of coffee shops. Proof of your point that enterprise will find a way.
"you can’t make something, let alone a high street, successful by government action". I'd just be happy if my local city's Green/Labour council would stop actively making life harder for traders by flogging off chunks off parking and making the rest of it appallingly expensive.
I think you're right about the variety of options that are popular now. I've noticed that garden centres are excellent around my way for clothes (if you're boring like me) and homewares of various sorts. Same with farmshops really. And I do so love them both.
In India I was fascinated to drive through whole towns which specialised in making one type of product. It could be stone carvings, wooden doors, flower pots or whatever, while streets dedicated to the manufacture of one product and many different price levels. I assumed it was an Indian thing but reading your excellent article I discover it’s as much a European thing as Indian. As a Brit I wouldn’t know this of course, being used to abundance and variety at every turn! I jest but it’s interesting to bite that the biggest market in Europe in medieval times was not on continental Europe but on St Giles Hill in Winchester, sadly no longer a market place but no less important because of it.
Two things make a shopping space work (whether a high street, a market or out of town location) 1. access (of which parking is a big part) and 2. places to sell from that are affordable for the traders to sell from.
High streets die because parking and access is getting worse and more expensive, so people drive to out of town malls with huge free car parks, or big box stores or garden canters, all with lots of free parking. They also die because the rent and rates are too damn high. So they stop trading, or trade from home online, at a unit in an industrial estate or at the mobile fairs and markets, or some combination.
Wakefield just about has a functions town centre, but sections of it are at an advanced stage of decay. But trading is happening accross the area, in units in industrial estates, under railway arches. With good parking provision and lower running costs, these business could move to an actual shop and bring some life back to town and gain some footfall. We even have a pub in an industrial unit when there are empty pubs in town. It’s madness.
Fascinating stuff (and of course I agree with the basic principle). Last month in City A.M. I recalled the introduction of Big Bang to the London Stock Exchange in 1986, and was reminded how restrictive the LSE had become over time; in the 17th century, as you know, they booted stock-iobbers out of the Exchange so they set themselves up in the growing number of coffee shops. Proof of your point that enterprise will find a way.
https://www.cityam.com/on-this-day-big-bang-hits-the-square-mile/
"you can’t make something, let alone a high street, successful by government action". I'd just be happy if my local city's Green/Labour council would stop actively making life harder for traders by flogging off chunks off parking and making the rest of it appallingly expensive.
I think you're right about the variety of options that are popular now. I've noticed that garden centres are excellent around my way for clothes (if you're boring like me) and homewares of various sorts. Same with farmshops really. And I do so love them both.