Boarded-Up Britain: One In Eight Shops Shut, worst in t'North

fc123

dopester wrote: »

You're really a whirl of energy, enthusiasm and entrepreneurism, fc.

Makes me dizzy.

And your independent business has been trading for many successful years, taking advantage of markets (worldwide) you've seen opportunities in. Full respect to you.

Cheers :beer:

I'll post up up some pics if we get it....the loo's (it is so huge it has mens and lds plus a whole kitchen) look like someone had a dirty protest in them...but it's 2,700 sq ft.

Back to shops I went down to the area where our first shop was.....and I was sooooo shocked at what has happened to the town. Saw some old fellow retailers that were still there........I haven't been back since we sold up in 2002. The 22k we got back them seems like a massively good deal now.

A combination of a very greedy corp LL who now owns most of the property in the area and madcap council 'controls' have finally shoved it into 'museum' shop territory.
I know our indie LL sold our premises to the corp in 96.

It hasn't even been invaded by as many chains as I thought.

However...it still has 'something'.

I will post some stuff later (when I have time to find the links) as they want to rip down loads of the old shops and build a hotel. They also succeeded in getting rid of a thriving market and the site is now being redeveloped.

BitterAndTwisted

In my local high street the shops are bustling with only one vacant property (that I know of) since Boots closed their branch. In this North London ghetto fresh fish can be bought at a number of places, there's a decent veg stall and several very good Turkish grocers selling fruit and veg much cheaper than the local Te$co one of which bakes bread on the premises and only one chain store that I can think of. The other side of the coin is that on one stretch there are FOUR bookmakers on the same side of the street all within about 200 yards of each other.