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Why do I need the opportunity to shop for 15 hours per day in non essential shops?

Joe Hutch said:
I've always avoided shops whenever possible. I have terrible memories of going shopping with my daughters when they were looking for new clothes, but were too young to buy them unaccompanied. One of them would spend ages checking stuff out but never buying anything, the other would grab a load of things and then disappear into the changing rooms, while I stood around feeling, and no doubt looking, like a prat. (Mrs H worked Saturdays at this time, which was a wise move on her part).
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Why would you look like a prat? You're a man spending time with his daughters doing what they want to do. You and all the other dads standing around bored in the children's clothing section aren't there for your own benefit, it's just what you do.
 
Woodface said:
The high street should never be about shops, people want to socialise, most modern shopping centres have a compelling range of eateries.
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To be honest it's swung too far the other way, I'd say most high streets are now entirely made up of coffee shops and eateries, that and bookies/charity shops.

I can't think of anything I'd less likely want to do than traipse around a shopping centre/high street, there's nothing worth the trip or worth having to wade through reams of zombies that can't just be done online.
 
That's certainly how ours has gone, and it will be worse after covid.

How much coffee can they actually sell between them and who are they selling it to?

The "eateries" are pretty much all junk food chains and local rip off's of the same plus the odd kebab shop. Not a decent restaurant you'd actually want to go to in sight.

Is the highstreet going to be the meeting place for the overwieght and highly caffeinated?

There are quite a few pubs too but they don't start up much before lunchtime.

Debenhams went before covid, as did our local independent department store, now half the clothes shops that were left.

There are loads of boutique tourist things which must have really suffered.

Banks & Building societies are an endangered species too.

Coffee and doughnut with your new iphone sir?
 
colasblue said:
There are quite a few pubs too but they don't start up much before lunchtime
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Spoons, if you want a pint with your morning fry up.

I live in a pretty grim place that didn't have much of a high street anyway, so you can imagine the state of it these days- about 5 Turkish Barbers, 5 coffee shops, 6 takeaways, a Greggs, 4 pubs and a Wilko. Can't wait to get back down there...
 
matt j said:
To be honest it's swung too far the other way, I'd say most high streets are now entirely made up of coffee shops and eateries, that and bookies/charity shops.

I can't think of anything I'd less likely want to do than traipse around a shopping centre/high street, there's nothing worth the trip or worth having to wade through reams of zombies that can't just be done online.
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So you don't like shopping for clothes.
Shock news, young women and girls aged 15-25 don't give a toss what they listen to music on, and think that grey bearded middle aged men sucking their teeth over sound quality and power supplies costing as much as a used car are deluded old saddoes.
 
Deejay said:
I’d fully support a move to extend shop opening hours. As someone who largely works 9-5 Monday to Friday, I don’t have much of an opportunity during the week to go out onto the high street. I would if the shops were open later.

I think in places such as Manchester where I live you’d get a lot more out and about still than say a small town, so something else to maybe consider in all of this.
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What stores would you want to go to in Manchester that were not open late pre covid anyway?
 
Uggh that reminds me of compulsory shopping in Singapore!

Orchard MRT only seems to have escape routes through varying degrees of subterranean retail hell.
 
matt j said:
To be honest it's swung too far the other way, I'd say most high streets are now entirely made up of coffee shops and eateries, that and bookies/charity shops.

I can't think of anything I'd less likely want to do than traipse around a shopping centre/high street, there's nothing worth the trip or worth having to wade through reams of zombies that can't just be done online.
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More should be done to support independent traders. City centres need to be zoned so they have a defined retail hub & leisure around it. Takes time & people still moan. Ultimately you cannot moan about the high street if you don’t support it with patronage.
 
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Woodface said:
More should be done to support independent traders. City centres need to be zoned so they have a defined retail hub & leisure around it. Takes time & people still moan. Ultimately you cannot moan about the high street if you don’t support it with patronage.
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I'm not moaning about it, I wouldn't use it if it were the best high st. in the UK as I just hate shopping. Ours got pedestrianised with the road diverted around the town centre because it was on a bus route, the market goes there now instead, again the market is full of tat and low quality food, I'm not sure who buys it or why.
 
It’s time high streets were re-evaluated. If we want thriving communities then high streets can help enable that, but they need to provide what the community wants and needs, so moving away from identikit chains and more to independent local traders. Plus other usage, such as workspaces for people who don’t want to, or can’t, commute to the office every day. Studios for people to get creative, civic spaces, places to interact with your local or regional, government. Social stuff like coffee shops, tea shops, restaurants and bars, and so on.

But to make these work, communities have to be viable for starters, or potentially viable at least. It probably works in That London where there’s a fair bit of cash floating about, but it’s going to be more of a challenge in Stockport, Burnley, or chunks of Bradford, say.
 
Sue Pertwee-Tyr said:
It’s time high streets were re-evaluated. If we want thriving communities then high streets can help enable that, but they need to provide what the community wants and needs, so moving away from identikit chains and more to independent local traders. Plus other usage, such as workspaces for people who don’t want to, or can’t, commute to the office every day. Studios for people to get creative, civic spaces, places to interact with your local or regional, government. Social stuff like coffee shops, tea shops, restaurants and bars, and so on.

But to make these work, communities have to be viable for starters, or potentially viable at least. It probably works in That London where there’s a fair bit of cash floating about, but it’s going to be more of a challenge in Stockport, Burnley, or chunks of Bradford, say.
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I think it can work anywhere. It was the norm up & down the country before we became dominated by cars. Look around any hospital for example & you can see how communities were built, larger houses for better paid Drs more modest ones for Nurses or support workers. Mass car ownership pushed the wealthier out to the suburbs thus changing the make up of the left behind.
 
matt j said:
I'm not moaning about it, I wouldn't use it if it were the best high st. in the UK as I just hate shopping. Ours got pedestrianised with the road diverted around the town centre because it was on a bus route, the market goes there now instead, again the market is full of tat and low quality food, I'm not sure who buys it or why.
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But you kind of are as you are making negative comments about people who go shopping & how grim shopping is etc.
 
Time for some radical thought:
Can we have lower business rates for independent shops compared to chains ?
If you are the only butcher, baker, farm shop or fish shop within 10 (?) miles can you be rates/tax free up to £X turnover ?
Can we charge Amazon a FY tax for the pleasure of evading other taxes while making Bezos obscenely rich and destroying our High Streets ?
 
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