Mothercare shutting 107 stores

chewmylegoff

shellsuit wrote: »

Upstairs was prams/pushchairs, feeding and bathing equipment, toys etc ~ if they had sense, they would have put the clothes up there!

i don't have any kids (and if i did i would have handed them over to the nanny, with the instructions "bring it back when it's 21"), so i may be missing something obvious here, but....if i did have kids, and i already had a pram/pushchair, it wouldn't bother me that i couldn't push my pram/pushchair up the stairs to look at the other prams/pushchairs which i clearly didn't need due to the pram/pushchair i was pushing.

ILW

Does a 2 year old give a stuff whether they are wearing Primark, Gucci or Mothercare?

lemonjelly

fc123 used to regularly post about how overpriced leases were for commercial properties.

Perhaps the chickens which she was talking about are coming home to roost?

I know the merry hell centre near me has always had difficulty in keeping stores, owing only to the sheer cost of the rents.

chewmylegoff

merry hill used to be good, when it was just the jolly green giant and halfords. ahh those were the days. my dad, who was a civil engineer specialising in motorway junctions (yeah, i know) used to go on for hours and hours about how badly planned the roads were. "this is what happens when you let an architect do an engineer's job..etc".

is it half empty now then? i should think the last time i went would have been to do some last minute christmas shopping about 10 years ago, shortly before my parents moved away from the area. there wasn't a shortage of shops then.

Generali

ILW wrote: »

Does a 2 year old give a stuff whether they are wearing Primark, Gucci or Mothercare?

When the Generalissimo went into 6 month size, we kitted him out with everything he needed in Tesco for £28. That was September 2005 so would have included jumpers and a coat.

Any other clothes we bought for him to wear were for our benefit not his.

1984ReturnsForReal_2

ILW wrote: »

Does a 2 year old give a stuff whether they are wearing Primark, Gucci or Mothercare?

Apparently so.

Or so we are led to believe by the advertising & the gullible.

Generali

1984ReturnsForReal wrote: »

Apparently so.

Or so we are led to believe by the advertising & the gullible.

It's nice to get the littl'uns some good clothes. Something to dress them up in if people come over for Sunday lunch or if you go to a party. Purchases like that are for the sake of the parents, not the child though.

lemonjelly

chewmylegoff wrote: »

merry hill used to be good, when it was just the jolly green giant and halfords. ahh those were the days. my dad, who was a civil engineer specialising in motorway junctions (yeah, i know) used to go on for hours and hours about how badly planned the roads were. "this is what happens when you let an architect do an engineer's job..etc".

is it half empty now then? i should think the last time i went would have been to do some last minute christmas shopping about 10 years ago, shortly before my parents moved away from the area. there wasn't a shortage of shops then.

The reason the roads were bad, is that the site is the old round oak steelworks. Because the ground was so contaminated, no-one would buy the land, as with clear up, planning etc, there would be too many costs.

The solution? Sell it without any planning restrictions. Enter the richardson brothers who did exactly that, bought it & did what they wanted with absolutely no consideration for how it impacted on the local area.

It isn't half empty, but there are always empty units there now. And many shops don't stay there long. Indeed, the costs have pushed out a fair few higher end big names.

Your dad was right. personally, I go only when I have no other choice (usually when it is open late & work limits my options).

Generali wrote: »

When the Generalissimo went into 6 month size, we kitted him out with everything he needed in Tesco for £28. That was September 2005 so would have included jumpers and a coat.

Any other clothes we bought for him to wear were for our benefit not his.

I think that it is idiotic parents who treat their kids as dolls & want to dress them in a particular way, or even to match their outfit who care about the names etc on kids clothes...

DaddyBear

ILW wrote: »

Does a 2 year old give a stuff whether they are wearing Primark, Gucci or Mothercare?

No, but parents don't want other parents to see their kids wearing Primark.

ILW

DaddyBear wrote: »

No, but parents don't want other parents to see their kids wearing Primark.

All sounds rather "Essex".