Saturday, November 05, 2005
Waterloo Square
Waterloo Square - a new shopping experience
Two units in the new Waterloo Square shopping development in South Shields opened their doors to customers this week and were trading at a brisk level, despite the poor weather. BHS and Desire by Debenhams opened on Wednesday, both stores have a great new fresh ambience about them, and they both offer a small restaurant to relax in whilst shopping, there are plenty of parking spaces available right outside, and the site of the former Sutherland's garage has been transformed into a car park as well (pay and display unfortunately).
The quality of the merchandise is a little higher than we are used to in South Shields, and having read one letter in the Shields Gazette from a reader bemoaning this fact, I have to say that these slightly more upmarket shops ought to be welcomed. There are still plenty of other shops in the town centre to cater for the bargain hunters, however, we have desperately lacked this type type of outlet since the closure of Binns in King Street some years ago. There is a place for this type of shopping in our town and I believe that they will prosper and do well.
My one criticism relates only to the attitude of the mangeress in Debenhams who was a rather glum and sour faced individual who was unhappy at my request to take photographs inside her store, well, if she doesn't want a little bit of free publicity then it's her loss. I would have thought that Debenhams would have preferred someone with a little more enterprise and outgoing personality, I did not encounter any such problems at BHS.
BHS and Debenhams have aimed at the female share of the market with little in the way of ranges to attract male shoppers, the other two units, River Island and Next will open their doors in the next couple of weeks. Further development in this area will take place during the next twelve months when Asda builds a new larger supermarket on the site of the Coronation Street car park to give the town centre a huge boost and help to stem the flow of shoppers going to out of town retail parks.
Pictures of Waterloo Square - click on the thumbnails to enlarge.
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Curly Born in 1956
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