People in much of England don’t have the disposable income to sustain bijou eateries, funky boutiques and wacky gift shops let alone butchers, greengrocers and fishmongers
Good article. From what I see, people will always base their decision on a combination of price and convenience when buying products. For most people the High St offers neither of these things. Too expensive as you say, and often requires having to drive in and park if you want to buy something there. If you want to buy a few things, the trade off is worth it, but if you need one item for example, you’ll just go and order it online where they’ll likely have what you want. At the same time, you can go back to whatever you’re doing rather than waste a few hours trying to find a parking space and trawling through shops.
Most of our problems with ‘government’ can be traced to a lack of any historical knowledge. High Streets were on routes linking towns, villages, farms - often with coach inns for stage coach traffic. Dwellings were clustered around the road. People did not have fridges/freezers and had small larders. Food was bought little and often, and people had short distances to walk to the shops. People came in from the countryside for market days, and/or to buy provisions. Life has changed. High Streets are miles away from housing estates, people can bulk shop because they can store food particularly perishable food. It just isn’t convenient or practical to shop having to use public transport or in places where cars are treated like the enemy. The best way to restore High Streets is to convert the commercial premises into dwellings.
Yes. That's what has happened in lots of larger villages. In Cullingworth the fronts of the old shops are listed so you can see where they were when we had lots of shops.
Good article. From what I see, people will always base their decision on a combination of price and convenience when buying products. For most people the High St offers neither of these things. Too expensive as you say, and often requires having to drive in and park if you want to buy something there. If you want to buy a few things, the trade off is worth it, but if you need one item for example, you’ll just go and order it online where they’ll likely have what you want. At the same time, you can go back to whatever you’re doing rather than waste a few hours trying to find a parking space and trawling through shops.
Most of our problems with ‘government’ can be traced to a lack of any historical knowledge. High Streets were on routes linking towns, villages, farms - often with coach inns for stage coach traffic. Dwellings were clustered around the road. People did not have fridges/freezers and had small larders. Food was bought little and often, and people had short distances to walk to the shops. People came in from the countryside for market days, and/or to buy provisions. Life has changed. High Streets are miles away from housing estates, people can bulk shop because they can store food particularly perishable food. It just isn’t convenient or practical to shop having to use public transport or in places where cars are treated like the enemy. The best way to restore High Streets is to convert the commercial premises into dwellings.
Would one partial solution be to re-purpose empty shops as homes?
Yes. That's what has happened in lots of larger villages. In Cullingworth the fronts of the old shops are listed so you can see where they were when we had lots of shops.