Saturday, June 11, 2005
Town Centre
Cloning our town centre
There is a lot of comment this week about the gradual "cloning" of town centres up and down the land, with many hosting the same old shops, from the same old national chains, with many of them sporting the same old corporate facades. This makes visiting some towns rather tiresome, as everything looks the same. There are a few (very few) places in the North-East where town centres have retained a little local character and individuality. Three that come to mind are Hexham,Morpeth, and Whitley Bay, they each retain a smattering of local independent businesses that offer something "different". It's not easy to find small independent retailers in our town centre, and many that we were used to visiting have closed down (G.K. Lee, Frank Lake, Lambs, just to name three - if we went back a few years we could add Ripons toy and sports shop, Savilles record and music store, Wiggs for pianos and organs, Olivers the tobaconist, Clarke's toy shops, Masons chemist in King Street, Grant's the jewellers, and a host of others.) All of their sites and others have been replaced with cloned identities of the national retail chains.
This is sad, because part of the character of our town centre has been eroded, and this is happening all over the U.K.
No doubt it is becoming increasingly challenging for the small independent shopowners to compete against the nationals, or be able to afford to rent space in town centres, we now tend to find these people trading on the fringes of town centres, or in shopping areas away from the main active centre.
Peter Winfield, who owns Caxton Shoes in King Street has echoed these concerns of an identity crisis.
Despite the promise of new shopping at the Waterloo Square development (which will contain four more national retailers) I worry that our town centre too will become a nondescript entity among this "nation of shopkeepers." Perhaps, as we consider what should be done with the old multi-story car park in Mile End Road, we should make some ground floor space available specifically for small independent "local" retailers, at low rental rates. (I'm sure that nobody would object to the upper floors being used for office accomodation.)
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There is a lot of comment this week about the gradual "cloning" of town centres up and down the land, with many hosting the same old shops, from the same old national chains, with many of them sporting the same old corporate facades. This makes visiting some towns rather tiresome, as everything looks the same. There are a few (very few) places in the North-East where town centres have retained a little local character and individuality. Three that come to mind are Hexham,Morpeth, and Whitley Bay, they each retain a smattering of local independent businesses that offer something "different". It's not easy to find small independent retailers in our town centre, and many that we were used to visiting have closed down (G.K. Lee, Frank Lake, Lambs, just to name three - if we went back a few years we could add Ripons toy and sports shop, Savilles record and music store, Wiggs for pianos and organs, Olivers the tobaconist, Clarke's toy shops, Masons chemist in King Street, Grant's the jewellers, and a host of others.) All of their sites and others have been replaced with cloned identities of the national retail chains.
This is sad, because part of the character of our town centre has been eroded, and this is happening all over the U.K.
No doubt it is becoming increasingly challenging for the small independent shopowners to compete against the nationals, or be able to afford to rent space in town centres, we now tend to find these people trading on the fringes of town centres, or in shopping areas away from the main active centre.
Peter Winfield, who owns Caxton Shoes in King Street has echoed these concerns of an identity crisis.
Despite the promise of new shopping at the Waterloo Square development (which will contain four more national retailers) I worry that our town centre too will become a nondescript entity among this "nation of shopkeepers." Perhaps, as we consider what should be done with the old multi-story car park in Mile End Road, we should make some ground floor space available specifically for small independent "local" retailers, at low rental rates. (I'm sure that nobody would object to the upper floors being used for office accomodation.)
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