Town centre regeneration

Harrogate is still lovely, but York (where I live) and Helmsley are pretty bad now.

Councils being greedy with parking fees and business rates are destroying small town centre shops.

I can’t comment on Helmsley parking fees as I go on the bus from Scarborough. This is my reason for visiting Helmsley sometimes
http://www.huntersofhelmsley.com/ it is a great little deli, we have nothing like this in Scarborough. When we’ve been going via Helmsley to somewhere else we always make time to look in here.

Pickering has a great market on Monday mornings with a nice cheese stall, something else we don’t have in Scarborough. I’ve seen cheeses there that I’ve not seen anywhere else round here.

York has my favourite beer shop in the country – House of the Trembling Madness, but we don’t get there very often because the train fares from Scarborough can be quite steep when you’re just wanting a trip out shopping. Very soon I will have to rely on York for HMV, I will be very disappointed when our’s closes, I used to shop there every Christmas and quite often through the year. We’re getting a Morrison’s convenience store in its place.

In other words,not somewhere you’d want to spend a long time in.

Can town centres be regenerated,or is the future just large out-of-town shopping centres ?

The workers move out to the suburbs & commute to work, that leaves the city centers to the scummers on welfare etc.. & it all goes to crap. Happens all over….

Wilmslow and Handforth suffered from having a big Tesco built a mile away but what they done recently is hold an artisan market every month. Local produce in a traditional type market arrangement. Seems to have worked and helped in a small way to attract people to shop in the towns on Saturdays. The days of shoppers going into lots of individual shops for their weekly shop are I think in the past.

As far as out of town shops are concerned, we have the choice of a 25minute car journey, shops spread out over many streets and £10 in parking if go to Manchester, or a 20 minute trip along the motorway, lots of free parking and shopping under cover at the Trafford centre. Before the Trafford centre was built we used to go to Manchester city centre every couple of months. Since it opened we have been into Manchester only a handful of times.

Whenever we used to go to see my wife’s cousins at Catterick, we’d go into Richmond.
The last time we went there (about four years ago), that was going down hill.
A great shame, as it’s such a lovely town.

It seems to be the same story all over the country 🙁

to go to Helmsley, Malton, Pickering, York, Beverley or Harrogate.

Harrogate is still lovely, but York (where I live) and Helmsley are pretty bad now.

Councils being greedy with parking fees and business rates are destroying small town centre shops.

Scarborough is a horrible, vile place for shops, and we’re about to lose our HMV next week. When we first moved here there was a good variety of shops – nice butchers shops, nice fishmongers, greengrocers etc, but as they have closed down they’ve been replaced by cafes pretending to be butchers shops and bookshops, tat shops (cheap shops), £1 shops, pawnbrokers, cheque cashing. If we want to shop in nice quality places we have to go to Helmsley, Malton, Pickering, York, Beverley or Harrogate.

Thirsk has suffered a little over time. First the Tesco, then the car parking charges. Not the quiet little town I remember from 15-20 years ago.

Scarborough is a horrible, vile place for shops, and we’re about to lose our HMV next week. When we first moved here there was a good variety of shops – nice butchers shops, nice fishmongers, greengrocers etc, but as they have closed down they’ve been replaced by cafes pretending to be butchers shops and bookshops, tat shops (cheap shops), £1 shops, pawnbrokers, cheque cashing. If we want to shop in nice quality places we have to go to Helmsley, Malton, Pickering, York, Beverley or Harrogate.

Yup archaic road system, double yellow lines everywhere and parking charges, why struggle to get in, get stung for the privilege when one finds a space, when one can drive to an out of town centre park for free, have easy access and trolleys provided… No council will ever regenerate squat with a lack of free parking and not enough of it… Never going to happen, what they gain in diminishing parking returns, they lose on revenue from the shops in the town.

Park and ride another waste of space, might as well just get the bus full stop, and even then on both counts you will struggle with your shopping.

As has already been mentioned here, parking charges play a huge part in this.

You can’t do anything in the UK without someone wanting to take a cut 🙁

Yes, that’s true, they do but despite the charges there are a few thriving town centres around here in Kent. And ones with proper shops, not just the usual charity shops, estate agents and sub-pound shops.

As has already been mentioned here, parking charges play a huge part in this.

You can’t do anything in the UK without someone wanting to take a cut 🙁

Dunstable is my nearest town, and these days it really is a ghastly place.
Shops closed, pubs gone and those that are left are just binge drinking joints for Friday and Saturday nights.
When I moved here 23 years ago, the town was a bustling, thriving place but it seems to me, even with the obvious changes in shopping habits that have occured over the years, the council still have a lot to answer for.
In those days, the car parking was free, and one could never find a parking space on a Saturday.
Then some bright spark decided that parking wasn’t going to be free anymore. They also introduced parking wardens who made the Waffen SS look like a friendly and equitable bunch.
Overnight, not only could a parking space be found, but the car-parks were half empty.
The change was so marked that in my opinion the decline started that day.
Since then they’ve made shopping there less and less pleasant until today, it’s a grim and now pointless exercise as there are no worthwhile shops left.
It seems to me that councils have made shopping such a grim experience in many places that no one wants to go to town centres anymore.

A.

Can town centres be regenerated,or is the future just large out-of-town shopping centres ?

If planning permission was not given for huge out of town retail parks and supermarkets people would have to return to towns – up to a point. Anything is possible if the intent is there. But since people LIKE huge out of town retail parks you would end up not giving the majority of people what they want.

Where i used to live it was a lovely market town BUT over the years the small shops disappeared.Then car parking became a problem and a supermarket moved in on the outskirts.
Now the town centre is full of “ye olde worlde antique shoppes” ,charity shops and estate agents.
Unfortunately if the small businesses can’t compete with the internet and supermarkets it will only get worse.
Ironically the horse meat scandal has made people think twice and butchers seem to be enjoying a boom at the moment.
Whilst there are people willing to walk into the towns and shop locally there’s hope but councils and locals need to support them.

Personally I hate the undercover, jelly mold shopping centers.
We (me and the missus) always go to the out of town or old town centers.
Although we tend to like bookshops, model shops, pet shops and Charity shops the most, which I admit isn’t going to save them.
What is really killing small towns for the occasional shopper are parking prices.
Worthing for example, £5 for a few hours. This is expensive considering a lot of the shops have closed and Worthing is a relatively poor area.
Compare that to Dorking (quite posh) where the same stay is £1.
That’s the difference between Council and NCP.