Lucky you, not having so many choices for the perfect trim.
Death of the high street
- Thread starter tenofspades
- Start date
Lucky you, not having so many choices for the perfect trim.
Just been to town on the pedalo, 2 miles to sainsburys for some Bisto frozen stuff, Aldi on the way home for essentials, chicken for tea and milk chocolate magnum look a likes.
Monday is always quiet but we do have some cafe culture going on. Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday are our market days which are often packed.
Support local shopping **** amazon.
Monday is always quiet but we do have some cafe culture going on. Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday are our market days which are often packed.
Support local shopping **** amazon.
So for me town is completely different route to bay.
Bay is down on rover way. But town is down the a48. Where it changes from 30 to 20 to 30 back and forward. And like you say if you aren't early or late the traffic is a pain.
I just can't be bothered with it really. Where I live in hindsight is worst of both worlds. Looking forward to moving away!
Love that. I'm going to use that to describe my local town centre.
With regard to book shops specifically, I've never found a book in a shop I couldn't get online cheaper. I've still bought books in a shop though when I wanted it there and then. In this day and age, people are going to buy where it's cheapest because we have less disposable income.
The high street mostly died due to online shopping but sometimes I feel like they don't help themselves. The biggest reason for me to still go to the high street was clothes and shoe shopping. Yet the experience is still often better online with the ease of returns now. Half the time in store - as @Bumhug said - they don't have your size anyway and after paying a fiver to park, fuel cost, getting ripped buying some food as well, you end up feeling like it was better to stay at home and buy online. Cheaper, quicker, easier. Don't have to deal with the scum walking the streets in town centres nowadays.
They make it very very difficult though. Online is easier, significantly cheaper and less stressful. Especially returns.
More they Jack up parking prices the worse it will get for out of town people
Yeh rover way is a piece of crap
I do both routes
In the morning, i do the A48> Newport road in to town > they go round by the prison way and then down to the bay
in the PM (after work) I do the bay > rover way > a48 way
I tend to find that in the mornings, the newport road way seems quicker (less traffic) at the time i go in
in the PM (after work) even though rover way is horrendous during peak times, it seems to be the quickest to get back from the Bay to the A48
Either way, this is why in the summer, i tend to use my bike if possible to get back and forth. As i can blast it on the bike and wave at the cars as i pass them
Last edited:
I dunno, I still prefer the ability to try clothes on in shop, but yeah, I've noticed the issue of not having your size in stock is becoming increasingly common. I recently bought something online from Go Outdoors, didn't fit, returned via postage, but didn't receive my refund until I had to chase them weeks later. Other companies haven't been as bad as that though, but still, it's just a faff I hate tbh.
Last edited:
Rover way is just easier. But the traffic builds up around tesco sometimes. It's such a grotty hole that area. But at least it isn't roundabout laden with speed cams all over the place.
I don't mind driving to the bay. I even prefer the bay to go for food. Especially overlooking the water. But I spend more time in local pubs than town. Usually after a hike or something.
Town... I just go less and less as time goes on.
What I usually try to do with clothes these days.
Or some shops offer click and collect, which you still have to pay beforehand, but at least I am able to collect it from the shop and try it on there if there's a fitting room. If it doesn't fit, can just be returned there and then.
Last edited:
If you're going to town just for clothes.. You could go, see nothing you like, feel you have to buy something to not make it a wasted trip.
Then if you do need to return it you've got to do it all over again. You might get something to eat. And even McDs is ridiculous price for what you get now. Before you know it you've spent 20-30 on parking and food and petrol before you've even got what you went in for.
Yeh i know, i do this,
I am fussy with clothes as it is sometimes. Well, i say fussy, i can be for t shirts, not so much jeans
I can guarantee if i go in to look for t shirts i wont find anything, I find it much better online for those.
I hate paying for parking, but since its free i will either park in the carpark near work or street park somewhere by Lloyd George avenue.
I have to have in mind what im going in for to buy , as otherwise as you said if i dont i wont find anything and it will be a wasted trip.
Depends where you live I guess. I live well out in rural farming area, the entire local high street is a 8 minute walk and filled with charity shops and mostly very small indi businesses who seem to do well enough to keep themself going. Some shops are closed but only maybe a few percent at most.
Car park is free on Monday to Wed until 2pm but that makes no difference to me because I can always get a free parking spot near the high street because the population is so low that there is no fighting for free spots.
I do shop there for some things, i use the local butcher and newsagents, garden centre, Spar and a couple of others.
Certainly not high street death happening but there was not much there to start with.
Car park is free on Monday to Wed until 2pm but that makes no difference to me because I can always get a free parking spot near the high street because the population is so low that there is no fighting for free spots.
I do shop there for some things, i use the local butcher and newsagents, garden centre, Spar and a couple of others.
Certainly not high street death happening but there was not much there to start with.
Last edited:
I like crazy colours and I don't follow fashion. It can be quite hard to find stuff I like at all online. And I like the brands I like.
So clothes shopping in retail would be difficult.
I did go to our garden centre (might know it, Cardiff garden centre, in St mellons) and spend 90 pounds this weekend though.
They do locally made butchers pies, plants, outdoor clothing (like craghoppers etc) have a restaurant, sell things like bbq, kitchen stuff, toys etc. I love going there to spend money and spend too much!
Why?
Its local, parking is free and it has stuff you can't get online, good quality etc. But it's so convenient. It's incredibly busy and absolutely huge. Unfortunately it is a chain. (blue diamond)
I've got a similar high street where I live, though fewer shops than yours I think. Always able to get a free parking spot, but I guess the major disadvantage is that it doesn't have many shops, apart from the small indie businesses and the Co-op.
Man of Honour
- Joined
- 12 Jul 2005
- Posts
- 21,604
- Location
- Aberlour, NE Scotland
Elgin high street is just not worth going to now, even Poundstretcher pulled out. Moray council is partly to blame though as we had a shopping centre (St. Giles centre) and the owners owed Moray council a substantial sum in business rates so the council called it in, forced them into administration and it shut giving all the shops using it just two weeks notice. As a result we lost several shops including WH Smith, Argos, a very good local cafe and bakery and a few others although the mobile phone shops are not missed. All that's left up the high street now are overpriced coffee shops, several barbers, loads of beauty salons (how many do women need for crying out loud?), more mobile phone shops, bookies, charity shops, a couple of banks (used to be six), TK Maxx, Poundland and many, many boarded up shops. It's so dire that they pulled down a few large shops between two streets and are replacing them with awful looking flats. Elgin is basically split in two now as far as shops go, North and South of the high street with the South side having a great many more stores in out of town retail parks and it all started when the council gave Tesco permission to build a superstore outside the town centre. They said they will be keeping the town centre one which of course they shut within six months of the new one opening and since then the council allowed more retails parks which lost even more town centre shops.
Amazon just had a smart, first mover advantage.
And parking companies originally set out to manage demand and congestion but just continued to take advantage of the situation.
The high street died because progress/companies offered consumers convenience eg big retailers with everything under one roof, out of town shopping you could simply drive up to without walking or taking a bus. Fewer takers of premises along with austerity also meant the smaller guys who had a lower volume of customers anyway simply couldn’t afford the rent/rate/mortgages.
Covid was just the nail in the coffin.
So yeah, it’s sad, especially for the older generation who don’t drive or use technology and lived in an age where everyone was social but society has just moved on.
Yeh i was in the garden centre a couple of weeks ago
The butchers section in there is good, the pies and stuff and meats are huge, they look a lot more appealing to the standard meat sections in the supermarket.
I remember when that place caught on fire a few years back, i didnt think it would get rebuilt. but they did it
Last edited:
Apparently that store is doing best out of all Stores. It's so busy. So so busy.
There are exotic plants in there you simply can't find online. And I'm a sucker for a nice plant I haven't got!
It offers more than a shop. It's almost like a day out (well an hour out). There's boutique style stuff that doesn't look mass produced in China. It's still mainly mass produced but I can't find the stuff in there online.
Really, it offers something online cannot. Which is why people go. Most in town stuff does not in terms of retail. Places that have survived offer things like board game cafes, escape rooms, or special interest options.
As others have said. Things heavy changed. They're are simply better ways for pesto buy things if you're just going to buy.
Soldato
- Joined
- 17 Nov 2005
- Posts
- 3,120
- Location
- Swindon, UK
A Swindonian here. I've helped kill the High Street. I just love Amazon shopping too much.
I remember the disappointment of going from shop to shop, retail park to retail park to find a <insert weird object here>. And there it is on Amazon, next day delivery. Weird shaped watch batteries, obscure USB cables, thingy for car, it's all there.
I tend to food shop in store with the self-service, zappy bar code gun having rejected social interactions with the till staff. I know where everything is in West Swindon Asda. Bin bags, screen wash, falafel, lube.
I do get my hair trimmed at a Turkish barber in Royal Wootton Bassett High Street (cash only).
I remember the disappointment of going from shop to shop, retail park to retail park to find a <insert weird object here>. And there it is on Amazon, next day delivery. Weird shaped watch batteries, obscure USB cables, thingy for car, it's all there.
I tend to food shop in store with the self-service, zappy bar code gun having rejected social interactions with the till staff. I know where everything is in West Swindon Asda. Bin bags, screen wash, falafel, lube.
I do get my hair trimmed at a Turkish barber in Royal Wootton Bassett High Street (cash only).