A Fifth of Britains Shops Stand Empty

purch

Im using the headline from the BBC website

Thankyou, my point has been proven.

Inability to actually understand a news story, and get the facts right.

What a shame you couldn't manage that in your haste to post.

lemonjelly

globalds wrote: »

Unfortunately it is pretty obvious why Wolverhampton has so many closed shops.

It is a mess of a town. If I still lived there I would be disgusted by the actions of the council.
This has been going on for years .It is not a lack of investment. It is a lack of cohesive and strategic planning.
They have built a market that is in the wrong place ..Moved public transport infrastructure onto the edge of the centre...The shopping centres both should have been pulled down and rebuilt.They are narrow ,low ceilinged and have no proper climate control.
At best it is a town centre fit for the 70's
It is a nightmare to park on a weekend and when you do park , you are nowhere near 3/4 of what you want.
I travel into the town about once a term for one reason because the kids school clothes are only available from one shop ..And each time I come away feeling sorry for the hard working shopkeepers and customers who are being well and truly rogerd by a bunch of incompetent bureaucrats.

WhiteThierry wrote: »

i lived near wolverhampton for 2 years and it is without doubt a smouldering cesspit, (i come from wakefield, so im well qualified to judge smouldering cesspits). But it really shouldn't be, as globalds says the town is a mess. Its not a particularly rough area,especially for the well to do the outlying areas in shropshire and staffordshire its the nearest big city, (and i dont include the soulless telford in that, id rather a cesspit than a soulless vacuum of imagination like telford). It also has fantastic transport links, albeit in outlying areas as has been mentioned, but i think the folks of wolverhampton should be outraged by the state of their city, or maybe they're too busy watching x factor and other more important things!:mad:

It is my home, & home town. & I am proud of where I live & where I come from.

At the same time, I can't argue with the above. & I am angry. & sad too.

Too much talk & not enough action. Plans for the pipers row area never got completed. Plans for chapel ash, which has been labelled chapel trash & has been in decline for many years now. There was a further development planned for part of the city centre just before the credit crunch impacted. That too has fallen through & appears to have been left now.

There are some great full of character buildings. There is some real history to the centre too!

However neglect, p155 poor planning, & council infighting & probably personal pocket lining by those in charge has resulted in what we have.

I'm off for a little cry. Not because of what my home has become, but because I can see the potential which is being wasted.:(

doire_2

purch wrote: »

Thankyou, my point has been proven.



What a shame you couldn't manage that in your haste to post.

*yawn*..................

Pennywise

bo_drinker wrote: »

Space above many shops has been wasted for years, or maybe too much hassle to get planning for flats above ??

The landlords are usually the likes of pension funds or big corporate landlords, and as long as they have top brand tenants paying unrealistically high rents, they're happy.

The shops themselves are probably renting the whole property and so there'd be need to renegotiate the leases if the landlord wanted to renovate the floors above, and of course, lose some rent and incur professional fees as a result.

Until flats above shops become the new "trendy" way of living, they'll never command high enough rents to justify the costs of renovation. I'm fairly sure that they wouldn't be up to standard for social housing, most having no garden, being upstairs, access problems, room size issues, etc., but even if they were suitable for social housing, the rents wouldn't be enough to justify the renovation costs and disruption to business below (who'd want compensation when they lost business due to utilities being shut off or scaffolding, or other general building nuisance etc).

At the end of the day, until the conversion of the flats become economically attractive for the landlord it won't happen.

Funnily enough, a while ago, the Govt brought in tax relief for renovations of flats above shops in the hope of bringing them back into use, but from memory, the relief was only available to small business owners/landlords, so very few could benefit from it as the bigger landlords who actually own most of the target property were excluded from getting the relief.

doire_2

blueboy43 wrote: »

Oh thats alright then.

As long as people aren't managing to think for themselves.

Do you want me to post a link but use totally different headline from the one used?

robin_banks

lemonjelly

Here's the local newspapers take on this story:
http://www.expressandstar.com/2010/02/12/summer-row%e2%80%99s-limbo-traders-fear-the-worst/

Interesting perspectives - some of which have already been raised in this thread...

bouche

Our town is like a ghost town, empty premisses etc (ie woolworths) and it's the biggest outside London - to the west of (down the M40) but they still got the same Australian company that built Wembly Stadium to build a massive shopping "mall" here.

I'd say 25% of those units are empty too.

Still nowhere for the kids to play though

bouche

It originally was quoted at 360million£!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

bouche

bouche wrote: »

It originally was quoted at 360million£!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

And was due for completion 2 years before it actually was - and then, right- it was opened officially by Prince Edward:T:T:T