How different is your High St in the downturn?

[Hazell B]

Wandering around York the other day I was struck by how different the shops are from only 18 months ago. There are more Poundland type places and far more coffee shops. The posh knitting wool shop in York now sells rubbish wool more than anything. Debenhams have sliced the designed handbag section by half and added more cheap make-up counters. Everyone is downsizing.

Worryingly, I'm expanding in the face of all that evidence :eek:

Been offered a shop unit at York Auction Centre and am taking it. Okay, I might know the owners well, but several other people wanted the space and probably offered more cash than me. Can the owners of the centre be so unsure other businesses will last long or default on rent? I don't know.

Anyway, I started to expand after being robbed July '08 and it's gone well, so I'm pushing on regardless .... but only using money from the business rather than my own or loans.

Anyone know of a small firm doing the same? Or a big one, come to that?
Please tell me I'm not the only stupid one :p :

[BDunnell]

Good for you, may I say.

Where I live in London hasn't really changed at all. Back home in Norfolk, though, it's an entirely different matter and the town centre — never a place packed with fantastic retail outlets, if there is such a thing, but a perfectly adequate, bustling market town — has become a rather depressing place. It's the typical story of discount shops in the ascendant and anything decent closing down. This reflects the demographic of the area. There was a very good kitchenware shop, but its prices were just too expensive and it has now gone. The nice little family-run bakery in the market place closed (before the recession, in fact) when the family in question sold up and the new owners couldn't then find anyone to run it, if I remember correctly. I'm sure very little of this can be blamed on the huge Sainsbury's, because it has been there (previously as a Somerfield) for some years without any adverse effect. At least the farmers' market seems to be thriving.

Unfortunately, this town's demographic doesn't bode well for its future either, for there seems to be increasingly little spending power there. Those young people who leave for university at 18 will probably never return for any length of time, and there just aren't the jobs available to encourage that many incomers. The main exceptions are probably those who live in the town and work in nearby Norwich, but alas most of the shops in the town are now unlikely to appeal to anyone with a bit of taste, so their money most probably goes elsewhere.

But on travels through small-ish towns in mainland Europe there just isn't the same depressing image. Maybe I'm wrong in my views on supermarkets, for this is the big difference between here and there. Yes, there are supermarkets in or near (by that, I mean within driving distance of) most provincial French towns, but there remain many independent small shops of a kind and a character we just don't see in the UK.

[Brown, Jon Brow]

Today my local market town saw the opening of a brand new £6million Booths supermarket (In which i work in). I don't really see it having much of an adverse affect on the High Street shops though because it is just a food shop.

[Daniel]

Today my local market town saw the opening of a brand new £6million Booths supermarket (In which i work in). I don't really see it having much of an adverse affect on the High Street shops though because it is just a food shop.
Well we're supposed to have a Tesco's opening up in the next couple of years so our high street should be better as it will mean there is parking and also a reason for people to go onto the highstreet.

We visit Chester quite a lot and the downturn is quite visible there. Lots of stored closed down :(

[Sonic]

Local town is ok. Its always been just small local business anyway so little has change other than a big wilko moving in.

[Captain VXR]

In mine a Post Office shut and a Somerfield turned into a Tesco so not much change

[emporer_k]

Where I live the high street had a small supermarket but it has closed down and I just don't visit the high street any more.

[Hazell B]

At least the farmers' market seems to be thriving.



That's something I've noticed, too. In fact, it's a main reason I grabbed my new shop unit as York's Farmers' Market is also at the Auction Centre the third saturday of each month (along with a massive general auction and now a specialist hen, duck and waterfowl auction that started this month). Paying for a stall for one Farmers' Market day would be over half a week of what I'll be paying in rent and I have a better pitch plus all the other days anyhow ;)

Farmers' Markets have Jamie Oliver and Hugh Fearnly-Whatsit to thank, I think :up:

[BDunnell]

That's something I've noticed, too. In fact, it's a main reason I grabbed my new shop unit as York's Farmers' Market is also at the Auction Centre the third saturday of each month (along with a massive general auction and now a specialist hen, duck and waterfowl auction that started this month). Paying for a stall for one Farmers' Market day would be over half a week of what I'll be paying in rent and I have a better pitch plus all the other days anyhow ;)

Farmers' Markets have Jamie Oliver and Hugh Fearnly-Whatsit to thank, I think :up:

Very possibly. Also, in towns such as the one I was writing about, for people who care a bit about their food it's just about the only decent non-supermarket meat outlet to be found in the vicinity. Long may the resurgence continue.

[Drew]

Things in Plymouth and Bangor as just as bad as each other really. Alot of shops boarded up and folded and a few businesses cleverly expanding when it's cheap to do so. At least the woolworths here in Bangor has become a Boots :)

[BDunnell]

It has been said that you can tell a lot about a town by what the Woolworth's has become.

[Daniel]

Ours has turned into a home bargains. Which to be fair is a vast improvement

[Sarah]

Norwich had a big Woolworths on a retail park and it still sits empty. ASDA wanted to open a "Living" store there but no sign of it yet. Norwich is supposedly one of the best shopping cities in the UK we have a lot of shops and it is always busy but I don't see people spending lots. The busy shops are Primark and Poundland. Some small independent shops have closed but we have some new shops just opened including Apple so it's not all doom and gloom.

[anthonyvop]

Anyone know of a small firm doing the same? Or a big one, come to that?
Please tell me I'm not the only stupid one :p :

Actually business is really picking up and I am expanding.

[sal]

I live in a village between Harrogate and York and I work in York so am well placed to notice the effect the economic downturn has had on thier respective shops and businesses. I would say the more noticeable effect has been on Harrogate which has always been an up market town with plenty of disposable income being part of the so called "Golden Triangle" with bankers and footballers from Leeds etc chosing to live there. Several high profile shops have gone including a top end ladies shoe/bag outlet although the ubiquitous Kath Kitson shop has recently appeared!

York has IMO always been a bit more downmarket and although it has a Vivienne Westwood shop and Coggles etc there have always been plenty of Poundlands and the like much more so that it's near neighbour.

Hats off to you if you are fighting back though.