‘Beautiful town has now died’ CALL FOR ACTION ON EMPTY
LONG-NEGLECTED and empty shops in a Derbyshire town centre are “killing” the high street, say residents and shopkeepers.
Ilkeston’s town centre, Bath Street, is host to scores of shop and business units, but a report from Erewash Borough Council details that more than one in every 10 are laying empty.
Overall, 12 per cent are vacant, and 10 shop units have been empty for between four and 23 years.
The council has now agreed to submit a £20 million bid to the Government’s Levelling Up fund to resurrect 10 town centre shops, renovate the former Ritz cinema and bingo hall in South Street, and carry out numerous “public realm” improvements.
We spoke to traders and shoppers about the impact of the longterm empty stores.
Derek Barks, 82, said: “Ilkeston has died. I have lived here all my life and it is such a shame. There were more shops years ago, but they are now mostly cafes and charity shops.
“It used to be a beautiful town, but it has died since they built that bypass (Chalons Way), that stopped people coming into Ilkeston.”
Jane Owen has worked at the National Hereditary Breast Cancer Helpline charity shop in Bath Street for more than four years. She said: “I would like to see the empty shops opened up. There are empty shops in the precinct, and Dorothy Perkins and Peacocks have closed.
“On the main shopping street I would like a butcher’s and a fruit shop, people are having to go to the supermarket for all that. We get our regulars, just like a local pub, but have seen that people don’t really bother with Bath Street now.”
Tony Brock, who has lived in Ilkeston for 32 years, along with 22 years in Long Eaton, said the empty shops were “just about killing it (Ilkeston town centre), it is such a shame that there are so many empty shops”.
He added: “We have got enough cafes, charity shops and women’s nail shops – they are all staying open.”
Jane Musson, manager at pet shop Taylors Corn Stores, said of the impact of empty shops: “It looks scruffy, it doesn’t look nice at all. They look neglected. Surely it has to be someone’s job to make them look decent.”
Susan and Roger Dilks moved back to Ilkeston two years ago after a number of years in Belper, and said the town centre now looks “dowdy”.
Mr Dilks, a retired history teacher, said: “It is a pity, really, because there are some nice, handsome buildings which have been ruined by tacky shop fronts over time.”
His wife, a retired nurse, added: “It used to be a lot better, livelier with more varieties of shops. The empty
It is such a shame. There were more shops years ago, but they are now mostly cafes and charity shops
shops look quite dowdy, but the town centre looks messy as well, with cigarette butts and empty drink bottles.
“With a street such as this it is difficult to get the right mix. The street is too long, too, people mostly stop at the end of the pedestrianised bit.”
Jo Marsh, who opened her shop Let It Be Gin in Bath Street in September, said: “I think it has a big impact on this end of the High Street. People think there is nothing down here, but there is a lot down here and quite a few have opened in the last week.
“I have lived in Ilkeston all of my life and I have seen it as a thriving town and then run down, but I think now there is a bit of a revival.”
At the council executive meeting,
members agreed to push forward the Levelling Up Fund bid. Jeremy Jaroszek, borough council chief executive, said it was “entirely right to focus this bid on Ilkeston after the success in Long Eaton” – with the council winning £25 million from the Government’s Towns Fund last summer.
Steve Birkinshaw, the council’s head of planning and regeneration, said consultation responses on what people wanted to see in Ilkeston were very clear.
He said: “Overwhelmingly what matters to Ilkeston residents and what they want to see improved is Ilkeston town centre. It is the centre of the town geographically, socially and commercially and we all want to see these buildings brought back into use, and if we didn’t push for that now we would be rightly criticised.”
Cllr Bryn Lewis, lead member for town centres, said: “For too long investment has been focused in the South and not in the North and Midlands.”
He said residents had made jobs, services and opportunities their priorities, and that the planned bid met those aims, while he hoped new laws aimed at tackling landlords of long-term empty buildings would also bring town centre units back into use.
Council leader Carol Hart called for a chamber of trade to be “resurrected” in Ilkeston, which she believes is already under way, so that businesses had a collective voice in the town.
She said: “People may complain, but I wish they would respond to a consultation when they have got something to say. With the dereliction in the town centre, it is such a shame that landlords have neglected properties. Ilkeston people want something done with them.”
Cllr Michael Powell, lead member for planning and regeneration, said: “The Ritz is a very important, iconic building for the town centre. We have had this and done it once before with the Co-op building (in South Street, Ilkeston) with apartments above and shops on the ground floor.
“We did that with the private sector and hopefully we can do it again with public Government money.
“We know there will be other people who would like to support it with their money as well as the Government’s money. We want the town to be nicer and we want to reflect what people want. We did it in Long Eaton and we can do it again for Ilkeston.”
SHOPS IN TOWN CENTRE