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Another Commons by-election in the offing – politicalbetting.com
Another Commons by-election in the offing – politicalbetting.com
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At least a third of the town centre properties are empty. Streets are deserted in areas. Sense of real deprivation. And this is in bright warm sun
I was here in feb 2022 and it felt bustling - in the cold. What has happened in the intervening year and a half? Covid belatedly impacting? Inflation?
It feels almost random. Ludlow is doing OK. Shrewsbury is thriving and crowded. Hereford is fucked
🤷♂️
General election 2017: Tamworth[20]
Party Candidate Votes % ±%
Conservative Chris Pincher 28,748 61.0 Increase 11.0
Labour Andrew Hammond 16,401 34.8 Increase 8.7
Liberal Democrats Jennifer Pinkett 1,961 4.2 Increase 1.2
It's possible that Labour could win if the Tories stay at home but I suspect Tory voters that sit out the by election may be back at the next election...
This is High Town, the premier retail street. Empty empty empty
The guy at Tanners wine merchant (based in thriving Shrewsbury, but which branches all down the Marches) warned me that Hereford is looking bad. He was right
@BartholomewRoberts will be pleased to hear that James Tanner has a theory for the apparent random declines. He says they’re not random - he reckons towns which heavily pedestrianised (Hereford) are now suffering badly cause covid made people lazy and they can’t be bothered to walk into town centres. If they can drive they come
I don’t believe it: I’m sure there is something else at work. There is plenty of parking in Hereford. But that’s the opinion of a retailer/merchant
Scary times
Salisbury, similar in a lot of ways, suffered a double blow with the Russian Poisonings then Covid but seems to have bounced back well.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/ba-owner-iag-stands-to-make-millions-from-unclaimed-flight-vouchers-mkr7gl0sl (£££)
Posted as a service to rich but forgetful PBers.
Year/by-elections
23 - 7 (so far)
22 - 6
21 - 6
20 - 0
19 - 3
18 - 2
17 - 2
16 - 7
15 - 1
14 - 5
13 - 2
12 - 7
11 - 6
10 - 0
09 - 2
08 - 5
07 - 2
06 - 3
05 - 2
04 - 2
03 - 1
02 - 1
01 - 1
00 - 8
99 - 4
98 - 0
97 - 3
96 - 3
95 - 4
94 - 7
93 - 2
92 - 0
91 - 7
90 - 9
89 - 5
88 - 3
87 - 2
Why that has happened is the key question, but I imagine you can trace a direct line between the fall in income & the state of the county town.
I suspect Hereford high town is simply too big now for the population catchment area. All it takes is either a bit of rural depopulation, or a small shift in spending habits, and whole swathes of shops can become unviable making the high street empty out. Whereas a town with just a tiny bit bigger hinterland population might mean the shops are just about economically viable and so the units remain full.
You see this in rural France and Italy a lot. Lots of smaller or less attractive towns empty out and become ghost settlements with one or two boulangeries and a tabac. But one town in the region, usually the prettiest or best connected one, thrives because it gets all the business from the others.
EDIT: to add, this is not wholly new. I did my GCSE geography project on the decline of Rugby town centre, the hypothesis being it was being cannibalised by out of town shopping as well as the recession. That was back in 1992. I vividly remember the town centre being full of boarded up premises at the time. Things were looking a lot better by the noughties but they've probably declined again since.
Simply saying pedestrianised or not doesn’t tell us much.
For example, tourism can create the “bustle” that makes a place feel busy and alive. Which combined with pedestrianisation etc…
I suppose that might have been a result of the Hereford and Worcester County Council amalgamation. Worcester got the cream.
"Dear Parent/Carer,
As mentioned at the end of last term, we were excited about the new and exciting clubs we would be offering our families for the autumn term.
As some areas across our school are now out of action due to the identification of RAAC in the ceilings, we have had to review our club offering and we now have no choice but to reduce the number of clubs that we are able to offer at this time.
This is currently being reviewed and we are having to make a number of changes to adapt to the limited spaces that we currently have available. Once this has been completed, we will inform parents about our reduced club offering as soon as we can, but for now, please note that bookings for clubs will not go live today as previously informed."
Not that many parents of school aged children were planning on voting Tory anyway...
On the upside I reckon Hereford will bounce back. It is fundamentally a handsome cathedral city surrounded by beautiful countryside. Almost entirely unspoiled in the centre. It needs TLC but it’s not doomed. It has endured 1500 years, after all
https://www.welt.de/politik/deutschland/plus247335860/Migration-77-Prozent-Asylantraege-mehr-als-2022-rasanter-Anstieg-beschleunigt-sich.html
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-66743803
https://www.herefordtimes.com/news/19512815.herefordshires-two-decades-decline-laid-bare/
Obviously Bath will be going down the plug-hole now they have a Clean Air Zone but so far it seems to be as full as ever.
But there may well be some correlation - areas doing worse were generally more Leavy, I think, which makes sense. If you don't like the direction of travel, why not do something to change it.
As for the sudden changes, it happens. A few stores close and suddenly an area looks run-down. Stores with options get out to better looking places and more shoppers go elsewhere and more stores close. My home town has, since a second opened in my childhood, two main shopping precincts. When the new one opened, the old one emptied in what seemed like weeks, but was probably months or years. A few years back the old one was extensively tarted up and now the 'new' one is half empty. Sometimes it's whole towns that get the heave-ho if there are competing options nearby.
That said, pedestrianisation is not always successful. Sometimes you lose 'busyness'. A good example of a hybrid solution is Fishergate in Preston.
To do well you need to have at least one of the following imho:
Beautiful historical centre or some other big tourist draw
High population density with a lot of young families to guarantee footfall
A lot of wealthy people, ideally retirees with time on their hands
A lot of students
A concentration of independent shops that have created a sustainable ecosystem of demand.
If you haven't got any of these and can't find a way of getting them, just give up. Convert the area to housing, we need housing. We don't need street furniture and charity shops.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Results_of_the_2016_United_Kingdom_European_Union_membership_referendum#West_Midlands
An individual can walk or cycle or get the train or whatever. The key for me as a parent of young kids is not just what can I do but what can they do too. I can strap my kids into their car seat and then drive where we need to be and their legs can then walk around where we need to walk, rather than being knackered just by getting there.
The key is to cater for everyone's needs. Not everyone has the same requirements. One size fits all doesn't work.
Pedestrianisation can work very well with driving too, if done smartly. Have a pedestrianised zone adjacent to easily accessed roads and parking. Do it right, people can drive to the parking then walk a minimal appropriate distance safely in a pedestrianised area.
The two things supplement and complement each other then, they're not alternatives.
Trying to instead foist one solution on everyone. You must drive or you must not, is the problem.
"Prince William given surprise kiss from 'Gazza'
The Prince of Wales was visiting Pret A Manger in Bournemouth to highlight his new
homelessness scheme when Paul Gascoigne turned up"
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/royal-family/2023/09/07/prince-william-paul-gascoigne-homewards-homelessness/
First reaction: Gazza's still alive?! Also, amused that Gazza is put in quotation marks.
Some younger, entrepreneurial, people more in line with modern Britain.
Tamworth 52%
Mid Beds 33%
2001
Tamworth 49%
Mid Beds 30%
For some, it’s that visitors are totally put off by parking problems
For others, it’s that there’s nothing really worth seeing in the centre.
For yet more others, it’s a combination of all of the above, and the ease of visiting an outside shopping complex.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/world-europe-66741245
"Ryanair boss Michael O'Leary hit with cream pies by climate protesters"
Happily, Ilfracombe did look a bit better than this time last year, so all hope is not lost.
Got to say he's not liked by everyone as https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Jonathan_Ruffer&oldid=1173955944 shows.
Cargo bikes are used a lot for shifting kids around in e.g. the Netherlands though (anecdotal, from visiting friends' town and nearby city, I don't have hard data). But they require good cycling infrastructure - I'd be terrified taking one with small kids on a typical UK road.
The solutions are not just to do with visitors / inhabitants etc but that the rents and rates are too high and so it is impossible for any business to make money locating there.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-lincolnshire-66742339
And Newport. And Middlesborough. And Stoke. You might be fair re Bognor
Anyway, his point wasn't wrong. For families - certainly families with young children - driving is generally the easiest and cheapest way of getting about.
Doesn't necessarily make for a good quality of place, but that isn't the point he was making.
I remember the first time driving *wasn't* the easiest mode for my family. It was the Greater Manchester Marathon, and the roads around my way had been shut. My kids were roughly 8, 6 and 3. They were old enough that at least the oldest two were perfectly capable of walking the mile or so to the nearest town centre - and indeed in was much more pleasant, and actually no slower than the usual drive, to do so. There was no need to repeatedly shepherd them over side roads where cars might be. I had to pop back later, and used my bike, and again, it was uncommonly pleasant. I briefly wondered about the practicality of a permanent solution. It wouldn't have been any good for going anywhere further afield, of course (apart from anywhere on the tram line). But my quality of life was increased for that day, under those special circumstances.
The trick is to get that quality of life without killing the ability of people to get around. Which, sadly, is almost impossible to do. Doesn't mean there aren't some wins to be had, however.
Pedestrianisation of CBDs, on the other hand, has lots of evidence behind it as increasing footfall (even if anecdotally many shopkeepers disagree) in shops and markets.
In my perfect utopia (sigh) we'd have fewer people eligible to own cars (blue badge holders, people with specific jobs, and maybe those in the first few years of having a child) and much much more investment in regular public transport (provided dirt cheap or free). Indeed, many places are recognising the significance of public transport and its economic impact and are doing the second bit - with some towns / cities making local buses free (because the economic growth of workers having the ability to travel makes up for the cost of running the services) or much cheaper (compare Barcelona where the tube there is 1 euro for an all day ticket, and the London tube which is much more).
I should report you to the Rail Forums moderators for use of inappropriate language.
Apparently my southern accent makes it 'rarlway'
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-66738806
Incidentally, if there's an uglier theatre than Dartford's Orchard Theatre I would (not) like to see it:
Harry Cole
@MrHarryCole
Sign of the times.....
The Spectator will be holding a party at the Labour Party conference for the first time in a generation, if I recall correctly....
Massive new estates on the North and South, too, with not a shop or a pub to be seen.
How can any such cuts ever recover £1.2bn?
How can one community be expected to endure 30 years of zero leisure services to pay for the crackpot decisions of a group of Tory councillors?
Central Government will have to step in. While they're at it set some firm rules about what councils are and are not allowed to do financially. And place get-rich-quick speculation on the 'Not' list.