So many shops closing down

[Mups]

Apparently,  over 13,000 high street stores closed down in 2024,  and even worse, it is thought even more will close this year.

The high street near me is barely recognizable now,  it's so sad.
We have lost -


Wilko's
Peacocks
TSB bank
Barclays bank
Will's
Peter Crisps
Argo
W.H. Smith
Coleman's Stationary shops
2 Pet shops


It is only a small town,  so all these places going is very noticeable. I  really miss them,  especially Wilko's,  which was handy for all sorts of odds and ends from stationary, plants, paint, and many household items.

Have you noticed many changes in your area?   Do you miss them?

[klondike]

Retail hangs on by it's fingertips. The increased cost of employing people is bound to have an impact. I'd guess on more shops closing this year than last with some more national chains going bust too.

Away from the high street expect garages to be closing too. The EV mandate is bound to be the death knell for some. Maybe some manufacturers will pull out from the UK too. The huge discounts and pre registration of EVs to avoid those £15k per vehicle fines are bad this year and get progressively worse each year.

We live in interesting times.

[Michael Rolls]

more like desperate times

[GrannyMac]

Wilko went last year, and Clinton Cards. But I'm about 3-4 miles from the city centre, and there are still quite a lot of independents, butchers, newsagents, bakers, fruiterer, Post Office here as well as Home Bargains, Boots, B&M.   Hairdressers and barbers, beauty salons, charity shops, tattoo artists, three banks and lots of cafes.  It's not a wealthy area, but it's busy.

Also within a mile or two there are several supermarkets.  I only go into town now to go to M&S!

[klondike]

I only go into town now to go to M&S!

Ours shut down years back. Still stands empty next door to the empty BHS. 

I just checked Google Maps. It seems there was some short lived shop in the old BHS and I'd forgotten the now defunct Clinton's between them which was briefly some other shop which is now gone. Those barriers are part of some interminable project of the councils digging up one of the main shopping streets in an attempt to make it impassable and kill off any survivors. I think the plan is to eventually convert all the empty shops into migrant or maybe foreign student accommodation both of which are boom areas. The old Debenhams in another street was being converted into student flats from what I recall of a sign I saw a while back on one of my very infrequent forays into the town.

[dextrous63]

It saddens me to think of all those "Saturday jobs" that have been and will continue to be lost for youngsters to earn a bit of cash and get a taste for the mundanities of working life.  Also, all those hopes and dreams of small traders just trying to get by, going up in smoke and leaving them in debt and no other skill base to fall back on.

Plus, these were places for people to mull about in.

In my local shopping area, apart from estate agents Asian food shops and pound shops, we are pretty much left with a plethora of takeaways, mini bars and eateries.

[Ruthio]

In my local high street two of the best longstanding shops are to close; a fantastic hardware shop and a wonderful fruit&veg farm shop. Heartbreaking.

[klondike]

Even the phone shops and vape shops seem to be in decline now.

Oddly the street of local shops near me seems to be awash with hairdressers. I'm wondering if somebody owns the shops and is renting spaces to individual hopefuls. Never having been in one I can only guess. There are two dentists, an optician, a podiatrist, a betting shop, a fancy dress shop, a dry cleaners, a junk shop, umpteen takeaways, several food shops aimed at immigrants, a nail bar, a couple of florists and doubtless others I've forgotten. There is a regular turnover. Parking restrictions don't help.

[dextrous63]

Hairdressers nowadays are notoriously used for money laundering and drug dealing.  Don't ask me how this works, but it happens.  The giveaway is the high end finish with really expensive furniture and marble walls, immaculately clean and with rarely a customer in sight actually having a haircut.

[klondike]

I thought that was Turkish barbers - we have one of those too and come to think of it  that is next door to a second betting shop which was once a fair sized Co-op.

The three charity shops went during the pandemic. One of which I wasn't all that sad to see the back of as when I checked up on it because it was no known name and I wondered if it might be a junk shop getting free stock by posing as a charity shop turned out to possibly be some oddball religious thing sending missionaries out with a pile of bibles to poor unsuspecting Africans who would doubtless have preferred food.

https://worldcompassion.tv/

[Mups]

Ours shut down years back. Still stands empty next door to the empty BHS.

I just checked Google Maps. It seems there was some short lived shop in the old BHS and I'd forgotten the now defunct Clinton's between them which was briefly some other shop which is now gone. Those barriers are part of some interminable project of the councils digging up one of the main shopping streets in an attempt to make it impassable and kill off any survivors. I think the plan is to eventually convert all the empty shops into migrant or maybe foreign student accommodation both of which are boom areas. The old Debenhams in another street was being converted into student flats from what I recall of a sign I saw a while back on one of WWW

What a bloomin' mess it looks nowadays.

[klondike]

They did say the Market square was opened so I took a walk up a few weeks back. There were still barriers about. They seem to have put one of those randomly squirting fountain things in. Do you remember the pathetic round fountain that was reputed to have cost a quarter million that regularly got vandalised with detergent and eventually got boarded over as a Legionnaires disease risk? 

[Mups]

They did say the Market square was opened so I took a walk up a few weeks back. There were still barriers about. They seem to have put one of those randomly squirting fountain things in. Do you remember the pathetic round fountain that was reputed to have cost a quarter million that regularly got vandalised with detergent and eventually got boarded over as a Legionnaires disease risk?

No, I don't remember a fountain in the market square,  but I haven't been into the town centre for several years now.    I used to use the multi-storey car park,  but I'd be a bit nervous of going in there on my own nowadays,  especially using the lifts.  
That probably sounds silly,  but I feel the same about Bedford town centre too.   So many groups of foreigners hanging about in doorways and on street corners,  it gives me the willy's.   I honestly wouldn't feel safe any more.

[dextrous63]

I think giving you the willies is precisely what some of those weirdoes have in mind!!!

[Lion Queen]

Our Town has none of the old shops left except got the post office and chemist.  Its full of Indian takeaways and chicken shops,
Turkish barbers, Charity shops, Asian ice cream parlour, Asian Clothes shops. Basically it's like living in India and Pakistan here.
A plaza shopping precinct opened a couple of year ago and every shop is Asian , there is barely any shops to attract western shoppers in the whole of the town
We have a B & M and Tesco.  I dont go into town except for b and m, tesco or the post office. My favourite place to shop is Beverley, its a very old market town like our town used to be. We go there when we go to East Yorkshire. It saddens me that all our shops have gone from the town I live in, its unrecognisable, a reason we have decided to move