The great High Street debate

[Flo]

I live in a small town, small high street, one sort of supermarket, very small selection of shops such as estate agents, electrical appliances, newsagent, Greggs outlet, takeaways which don't cover all you need, prices not bad.

However, half an hour by bus or car is one of the large shopping malls with everything (oh and a lot of empty shops at present), half an hour the other way is main district town with Mr T***o, small M&S about to open, small shops such as butcher, baker, fishmonger, furniture, farmers market fortnightly oh and because it's a tourist attraction, tourist tat and cafes.

Now the local Duke wants to sell off a very large plot that was allotments for housing and a shopping development. This will include knocking down some shops, building smaller units, adding another supermarket .... all in a town with a population of 14k. For heavens sake - how much shopping can the kingdom support. Is a local high street required? Is a non profit making village shop that is only used by pensioners really required?

[MKG]

Well something is. Villages have traditionally had social centres of one form or another. It used to be the church, but that dropped in popularity. Then it was the pub, but they're closing down in droves. That leaves the village shop(s) - but now they're disappearing too. What we're going to be left with if we're not careful are a lot of depersonalised dormitories depending for their very existence on the commuting set. Not exactly the bucolic, straw-munching image of rural life, is it?

[ina]

14.000 inhabitants, and you call that a small town where you live?!

See how different the outlook is, depending on where you are... Our small towns are one or two thousand. The local villages, with a few hundred inhabitants, have a thriving village shop each; one of them also has a butcher, the other one a cafe and a restaurant...

Wait a few years; as soon as petrol gets to the price it will get to, inevitably (although I won't dare to predict exactly when it will become unaffordable!), and you'll be damn glad the local shops are still around. Quite apart from the social factor. Who knew I was on holiday? Who asked had I recovered from the 'flu? Who knows I don't own a 4x4 and can't pick up my milk when I'm snowbound? The local shopkeepers!

[Merry]

What is it about Scotland?
My son and grandchildren live there and, whenever we visit or have a holiday there we`re amazed that each small town seems to have a butcher and general grocery shop. And the shopkeepers are friendly too!
Perhaps we`ve just happened on the exceptions and I shouldn`t generalise.
Are my stereotypes showing?

[ina]

What is it about Scotland?
My son and grandchildren live there and, whenever we visit or have a holiday there we`re amazed that each small town seems to have a butcher and general grocery shop. And the shopkeepers are friendly too!
Perhaps we`ve just happened on the exceptions and I shouldn`t generalise.
Are my stereotypes showing?

Yes, they are - but don't worry, they are nice ones!

I think maybe it's because there is more room between the villages and towns, so there's just more people who actually use the shops in them than you would expect just from the villages themselves... I've seen some awful shops, too, but they tended to be in the almost suburbs around the bigger towns.

[Annpan]

I don't shop enough from our local shops, our village (about 200) doesn't have any shops, pubs, anything next village (about 4000) has off licence, chinese carry out, indian carry out, pharmacy, butcher, bank, 2 grocers, 3 pubs and a charity shop. I go into the charity shop as much as possible, but stuff is pennies, I am hardly supporting the community.
The main small town (about 8000) has a co-op which is overpriced and understocked this is the only chain shop in the area. there is libraries, bookies, pubs, greengrocers, pharmacy, etc... these shops are well used by the local community, if I am ever in the staff are friendly and know most of the older customers by name.

We are about 10 miles from the nearest big town (with supermarkets), to buy anything from our local shops we would need to take the car - no bus, I can only carry so much on my bike, or carrying - it is 3 miles - and to buy from the town we still need to take the bus or car, but at least we can get everything we need in the one place.

I would be really sad to loose our local shops but the closest shops we have are really pretty dismal, but it is a bad area too (the bookies and pub are always busy ). Maybe there needs to be more encouragement/effort to get the shops up to scratch to get them stocking better products, cleaning their windows, lowering prices, really if they were better stocked more people would use them more often. Perhaps we need to rethink how our local shops are run.

[Flo]

Maybe there needs to be more encouragement/effort to get the shops up to scratch to get them stocking better products, cleaning their windows, lowering prices, really if they were better stocked more people would use them more often. Perhaps we need to rethink how our local shops are run.

There has been a fund for updating the frontage of the shops down our local "high street" and there had to be an awful lot of prodding before anyone actually got their finger out and used it. One or two of them did a proper job, one or two got out the cans of paint and tidied up and one got the cheapest new sign available that doesn't even fit the space properly (still has done nothing about the terrible window display). We've had the power cables put underground, the pavings improved, the present "square" redone and some planters added. You'd think that all the shops would join in and do a lot of something with themselves wouldn't you? Seems not. There are still three which are general disaster areas but there you go - until trade dies completely with them there is nothing they will do it seems. I suppose that it will happen when the old dears who presently keep them in coppers die.

[ina]

But it's not what they look like, it's what they do for the customers that counts! To be honest, the local village shop that I use most looks not terribly exciting - could do with more than a lick of paint. But they sell what the locals need, and that includes a lot of vegan and organic stuff.

[Flo]

Yes but when there is easy travel, the shops have to look inviting to make you bother to consider them. Our high street is in competition with others easily reachable by either car or very good bus service. We are not constrained. Therefore we need to be tempted.

[pumpy]

As a village resident, i would say that the maxim of "use it or lose it" applies. Yes, the "old dears pennies" may not amount to very much, on the grand scheme of business profit, but to them it is a very important (& sometimes only), means of socialising. We are fortunate that we can collect a parcel from the P.O. ,& not have to provide I.D. (for example). We can walk to the shop & say "good morning" to complete strangers(tourists). Better than living back in the city, & being a faceless number.

[weatherwax]

In the town where I live the small high street shops don't stand a chance, the brilliant market that we have suffers as well, right in the town centre, across the road from each other we have a T***o superstore and an ASDA superstore next door to the T***o is a reasonably sized Aldi and an Iceland, 3ish miles away from that in one direction there is another huge T***o superstore, in the other direction is Lidl and guess what a T***o express, and there are plans for a M&S food there also.
Our high street is full of pubs, charity shops (8 of em), card shops, Estate Agents, phone shops and chemists (not even proper pharmacies), we do have a few shops which struggle through, but they are quickly disappearing.

[Green Aura]

We've got a Spar - only. Oh and about 5 restaurants. The Spar's great, but expensive, and their range is broad but thin (if that makes sense). We shop in the dreaded T***o, unfortunately. As it's 110 miles away we only go once a month.

[Thurston Garden]

Green Aura - I bet that's the mahoosive T£sco in T£sco Town. I used to manage the retail park there (but not the T***o's although I could tell a few horror stories about them on that site!).

The cash machines on that site are the second highest vending cash machines in Scotland (second to ones in the centre of Glasgow) for exactly the reason you state - everyone goes once a month and maxes out their cards with cash withdrawls to see them by until the next month.... T£sco's is pretty much the same

[Green Aura]

Ginormous - the one in Inverness. Although, unless we need to go elsewhere in Inverness, we usually go to Wick. It's their "green" flagship branch.

We're doing pretty well for veg at the mo (the polytunnel is fantastic), supplemented by the food link stall which comes once a fortnight. I make all my own soap powder and toiletries. But despite living here for a year, amongst cows, sheep, deer, grouse, pheasants and who knows what else, I can't find anywhere to buy meat!

Even the fishing rights on our loch (we don't own it - it's just 100 yards from our house) are owned and I heard a chap in the doctors the other day offering to sell someone a couple of bags of mussels. So it would appear the shellfish is owned as well.

So it's back to T***o we go, at least until they build S**nsb*rys in Nairn.

Sorry if that's slightly off topic, but cherish your high st, while I wouldn't swap where I live for any reason a decent butcher would be fantastic.