Town centres

[Bleep1673]

Hastings still has Pizza Express, & HMV, although Top Shop/Man did close, it reopened as a discount/charity furniture shop, it has McD's, Kentucky, and a Yates's & Wetherspoons, plus some excellent independent restaurants, Indian/Nepalese, Italian, and Fish (of course), and kebabs. I think we will survive.

No Nando's, No Burger King.

[Oxford]

On 21/06/2021 at 13:03, Bleep1673 said:

Hastings still has Pizza Express, & HMV, although Top Shop/Man did close, it reopened as a discount/charity furniture shop, it has McD's, Kentucky, and a Yates's & Wetherspoons, plus some excellent independent restaurants, Indian/Nepalese, Italian, and Fish (of course), and kebabs. I think we will survive.

No Nando's, No Burger King.

The tendency to look at your own local things and draw conclusions is important and the information provided is useful.

Some places may be more protected than others because they have other elements playing a role.

Whether this highlights or denies a general decline won't be seen for a while yet.

[Derwent]

Calvin Wellington and Joe Brown are the Town centres.

[The Hallucinating Goose]

Hull has done a good job at reinventing itself in recent years I feel and there are some good plans for the future. The main development was definitely around the old fruit market, which just a few years ago was just a collection of old, abandoned warehouses next to the marina but has now been tarted up and the warehouses restored and turned into hipster central with fashionable bars, bakeries and art galleries for people with beards and hats. Around that same area there has been a number of Modern office developments built which house independent tech firms. There is also an open air theatre built in one of the old dry docks. 

This area has recently been connected to the city centre with the much overdue Sid the Sloth Bridge over the A63 which is a horrendously busy road and the main one through the city to the docks, previously cutting the city centre off from the marina district but as I say, now there's a cool footbridge and work on another is due to start very soon. 

The centre itself is seeing masses of redevelopment as the council focus on bringing more residential property into the middle after a study was done that found Hull was one of the cities in the UK with the least amount of residential living in the centre, at least for a city of Hull's sort of population. The old police headquarters in Queen's Gardens has been completely redeveloped into a swanky apartment complex as will a couple of other big buildings that used to be shops and offices. The old BHS building in King Edward Square is one of the biggest, if not the biggest shopping unit in the city and I believe that is going to be redeveloped into an indoor market type situation, part of a project that will see buildings on neighbouring Albion Street demolished and the carpark there developed with more shops, a multistorey carpark and a new ice arena, capacity about 5,000 I think. Also the old House of Frasier building opposite the train station is currently being redeveloped into an indoor hipster food market and the floors above turned into apartments. 

Having previously mentioned Queens Gardens, the roads down either side of the park are due to be pedestrianised, expanding the size of the park. Just across from the park is Queen Victoria Square where the Maritime museum is. This is currently having a massive redevelopment done on it and to accompany this, the Arctic Corsair, Hull's last remaining sidewinder trawler is going to be restored and moved to a drydock at the end of Queens Gardens where a new visitor centre will be built and tours of the boat will be available. 

There's a lot to be positive about in Hull, a city really on the up!

[graveyard johnny]

On 19/06/2021 at 07:14, Tommygilf said:

In Wakefield, the flagship new (well less than 15 year old) town centre shopping precinct has lost Debenhams, TopShop, TopMan and Pizza Express in the past year, along with some smaller retailers. That's after losing BHS from the high street some years ago. These were flagship shops for the retail developments they were in and the city centre as a whole.

None of these shops have been replaced and all stand empty like gaping chasms. (HMV was to be fair so I didn't include that on the list). Sadly I think this will be a story echoed around the country.

 

wakefield had one of the best markets in the north - inside and outside bustling with trade and character - i was a regular at the record exchange upstairs - millions must have been passed round in backhanders to kick the character out of town centres sadly 

[Trojan]

On 14/06/2021 at 16:14, graveyard johnny said:

did Dewsbury suck the life out of Batley or did Batley suck the life out of Dewsbury? 

Dewsbury still has (had last year anyway) a fairly vibrant market.  Don't suppose having an enormous Tesco right in the middle did much for small business on Commercial Street.  Chicanos is good though

[Moose]

1 hour ago, Trojan said:

Dewsbury still has (had last year anyway) a fairly vibrant market.  Don't suppose having an enormous Tesco right in the middle did much for small business on Commercial Street.  Chicanos is good though

Sadly not vibrant on Saturday. I was shocked at the lack of shoppers in the market with numerous empty stalls. Not many years ago the stalls changed hands for hundreds if not thousands of pounds. 
The difference between the much smaller market town of Ossett and it’s much larger neighbour Dewsbury is astonishing, a thriving market on both a Tuesday and Friday.

I could give a guess at to the reason why, but I won’t as it would invite calls of racism from many on here.

[graveyard johnny]

11 minutes ago, Moose said:

Sadly not vibrant on Saturday. I was shocked at the lack of shoppers in the market with numerous empty stalls. Not many years ago the stalls changed hands for hundreds if not thousands of pounds. 
The difference between the much smaller market town of Ossett and it’s much larger neighbour Dewsbury is astonishing, a thriving market on both a Tuesday and Friday.

I could give a guess at to the reason why, but I won’t as it would invite calls of racism from many on here.

you mean dewsbury  market is ok now if you want to buy traditional muslim clothing where as in years gone by the stalls had more diversity - 2nd hand records etc etc 

[Trojan]

4 hours ago, graveyard johnny said:

you mean dewsbury  market is ok now if you want to buy traditional muslim clothing where as in years gone by the stalls had more diversity - 2nd hand records etc etc 

Well that's "the market"  if there are muslims to buy the clothing then there'll be stalls selling them. However, last year if you wanted tripe. black pudding, a pork pie, or carved ham, you could get it in Dewsbury market.  I've been left Dewsbury over a year now so things may have changed.  As the late Jo Cox said "we have more in common than divides us"

[graveyard johnny]

9 hours ago, Trojan said:

Well that's "the market"  if there are muslims to buy the clothing then there'll be stalls selling them. However, last year if you wanted tripe. black pudding, a pork pie, or carved ham, you could get it in Dewsbury market.  I've been left Dewsbury over a year now so things may have changed.  As the late Jo Cox said "we have more in common than divides us"

am sure you can still get tripe and pork pies easily enough on dews market

[Trojan]

3 hours ago, graveyard johnny said:

am sure you can still get tripe and pork pies easily enough on dews market

As a teenager, I delivered bread in Dewsbury, wholesale, around the various shops, one of our customers was Collier's market cafe. I can still remember their bacon breadcakes.