Town’s path to independents?
Town centre ‘has 16 empty units’
THE coronavirus pandemic has had a huge impact on Carmarthen’s town centre, with at least 16 retail units currently empty and Debenhams, the biggest store in Carmarthen, anchor tenant of St Catherine’s Walk, will follow shortly.
However, it is not all gloom and doom as independent firms have started to expand and fill some of the empty spaces left behind by the likes of River Island. One of those is Lauren Treharne, whose House by Betty store replaced the Fat Face unit.
She said: “The divide between nationals and independents needs to disappear. They need to exist together and this situation is an opportunity for local people.”
IN September 2016 Carmarthenshire Council unveiled plans to transform a square in the middle of Carmarthen.
The area of land, located at the bottom of Jackson’s Lane, was going to be dug up, moved around and thrust into the 21st Century thanks to a new seating area, shops, cafes, and a huge LED screen acting as a backdrop to a “new focal point for the people of the town”.
Think The Hayes in Cardiff but with more of a purpose: a square that would act as a halfway line between two very distinct parts of the town centre.
The renovation was meant to create a ‘gateway between old Carmarthen and new Carmarthen,’ the latter of which had been born in 2010 with the much-heralded opening of St Catherine’s Walk shopping centre.
A consultation event was held in a local day centre where members of the public met with councillors to discuss the plans and gawp at artists’ impressions of the site and, despite protests that the project would compound a perceived lack of greenery in the town centre, planning permission was granted a year later and the scheme progressed from one of ambition to one of reality.
Nearly five years on from that consultation, however, the area remains the same – largely untouched.
The project has not, the council insist, been abandoned, but it seems it may have been kicked into the long grass, an ironic state of affairs for something which faced objections due to a lack of green space.
King Street, in its almost Dickensian glory, is located at the top of the lane leading to the yet-tobe transformed square. It’s a street that will always have its charms even in these darkest of days for retailers but a lot of the modern giants of high street shopping that Jackson’s Square, as it was termed during the consultation, was meant to connect to are no longer there. The chains that would bind together old and new have gone.
River Island, Fat Face, Accessorize, Monsoon, Topshop, Topman, Miss Selfridge – gone. Just like that, in less than 12 months.
Debenhams, the biggest store in Carmarthen, anchor tenant of the shiny 11-year-old shopping centre and the mothership around which hopes hung so tightly as Carmarthen wanted to become the go-to destination west of Swansea, will follow shortly.
The ‘gateway between old and new’ has since become something else entirely – the road to nowhere, perhaps. Or, more pertinently, the road to something completely different.
Where a sign once read River Island there is now one that reads Jackie James and Me & Luce, independent shops formed and honed by local people who have taken the brave decision to expand rather shrink in these uncertain times. The same goes for another local shop called House by Betty, which made sure that the space vacated by Fat Face was not empty for long.
Maybe this is the retailing utopia we always wanted but just didn’t know it: a town centre full of independent shops run by local people who have built everything they have from the ground through ambition and entrepreneurial spirit.
“I don’t think too much about the future anymore, I just take one day at a time,” said Lauren Treharne, sat on a sofa at the back of House by Betty, her wonderfully-adorned lifestyle store at St Catherine’s Walk that sells everything from cushions to candles to kitchenware.
This pandemic has largely been a one-way highway of gloom and a tale of shutting up shop but Lauren has taken a different approach, moving to a bigger and more expensive premises in a better location despite coronavirus restrictions and the turmoil they have brought with them.
“The rent is more than I was paying before and so are the rates,” said Lauren, who is currently keeping the business ticking over during lockdown by offering a click and collect service.
“There’s a service charge too which is more than the rent I was paying for the old store so this is a risk. I never saw myself as a gambler but in for a penny, in for a pound .... ”
Lauren admits that the Welsh Government’s rate relief scheme for retail, leisure and hospitality, which currently runs until the end of March, made the move “more appealing” and has allowed her a bit of breathing space to get her feet under the table at her new home.
“It’s the best move I’ve ever made,” she said. “A lot of people helped me out and made it possible. I crowdfunded and managed to raise about £4,000, which helped to get me started over that first month or so because I had this place and my old store to begin with. ”
Lauren started off in business in her early 20s with a vintage shop in St Clears, and then, due to its popularity, was persuaded to open in the Pembrokeshire town of Narberth.
She was happy there, but her life took a horrible turn when an abusive relationship saw her, at one point, sleeping in her car.
“I had no energy left, my confidence was at zero, and I had to hold it together just to serve customers,” said Lauren.
“But then in August 2019 I thought: ‘You know what? Let’s do this.’ It felt like I’d been asleep for two years and I decided at that point to just go for it again so I opened up a store down the road from here in Blue Street.”
Like everyone else, Lauren had no idea then that coronavirus would come along and make everything a hundred times harder but her attitude towards the turbulence is totally different, and somewhat refreshing.
“I feel quite guilty at times because my business has had an opportunity of a lifetime because of this pandemic,” she said candidly. “If the shopping centre had not had problems, brought about by stores closing, then I would not have had the chance to move up here to a bigger premises. I know that.
“The divide between nationals and independents needs to disappear. They need to exist together and this situation is an opportunity for local people.”
Paul Raven is from Swansea and for 23 years he worked in further education in North Wales, including working with young people with learning disabilities. In 2017 he and his partner Nick decided a change of pace was needed and set about looking all over South Wales for a retail space to open as a tea shop with a difference.
They searched from Monmouth to Haverfordwest and many places in between but settled on a unit slap bang in the middle of Carmarthen’s biggest square, a few yards away from the historic Guildhall building.
“I wanted to do something for myself, something more personal, and it was a chance to move back to South Wales to be nearer to my parents,” said Paul, surrounded by countless bags of tea in Tea Traders, the store he and his partner have built from nothing over the past three and a bit years.
Tea Traders was soon full with customers, whether they were having a cuppa and a slice of cake inside the shop or buying their own bags of specialist tea leaves to enjoy in their own homes. Thankfully for Paul and Nick they had the foresight to sell tea, coffee, and other goods online pretty much from the start of their business venture, which began in November 2017.
It’s just as well that they did seeing as the past 12 months has been blighted by having to shut the shop’s doors for months at a time.
“That side of things has increased hugely since lockdown first came in last March,” said Paul, who has immersed himself into the community by being a part of the local business improvement district (Carmarthen Bid) and the town’s chamber of trade.
“It’s helped by the fact that we were able to build up a customer base made up of people who have been here for a sit down and a drink and then gone away and been able to buy what they want online because we weren’t open and we sell to people all over the UK as well as our local customers.
“There was a lot of uncertainty initially. People were really panicking about how they were going to survive and we are only here today because of the financial support on offer. It’s allowed us, while we’ve been closed, to take the opportunity to focus on the online side of things.”
The streets will once again be home to shoppers – but how many?
With the sheer amount of shops that have closed in Carmarthen in the past year or so will there still be enough customers on our streets to go around? Will people still head into town for a cup of tea if their favourite shop no longer draws them in?
“It’s inevitable that town will be quieter if more and more shops close,” admitted Paul. “We want to be in a position to reopen with customers here inside the shop but before all this we only had a capacity of 18, and then it was down to 12, and it might for a time need to be at six so the whole concept of having a tea room changes.
“Back in 2017 we spent 12 months looking for the right shop in the right town. We decided that Carmarthen was that town and there are no regrets whatsoever. If we were starting now, in this Covid environment, we would
do things a bit differently – I would be looking to set up a business with a 50/50 split between in-shop sales and online – but we started Tea Traders as a community tea shop and that means seeing and meeting customers face to face.
“That community aspect is really important, that’s what the shop is, so it will be a real shame if we cannot find a way of keeping that connection with the customers - we certainly don’t want to be an online-only business.”
But for all Paul knows now about what has happened to Carmarthen since the pandemic broke out almost a year ago, and for all the doubts that persist about how the high street will recover, he is adamant that his new hometown is the place to be for those who want to start a business. In spite of everything hindsight has shown about the difficulties the town is facing he does not, even for a second, have any thoughts that opening a business here was a mistake.
“There is a lot of culture and heritage here, a lot of character,” he said.
“Carmarthen has, and will continue to have, a lot to offer people as a shopping destination.”
On Saturday, November 23, 2019, figures obtained from Carmarthen Town Council reveal that there were more than 45,000 people in town.
Carmarthenshire Council is working hard behind the scenes to bring Carmarthen back into the light – it is working on a ‘Covid-19 economic recovery strategic masterplan’ and have confirmed that additional grant funding support will be made available from April 2021 to help businesses in the town to grow and recover with the details currently being finalised.
New signage and decor for the town centre is also being worked on to make Carmarthen a safe and welcoming place to come back to once restrictions ease and three new retail kiosks in Chapel Street are set to be built in the coming months.
Nevertheless, the pandemic has hammered big retail chains and it may make some businesses, of all sizes, more risk-averse when deciding to set up shop in 2021.
A brisk walk around just a portion of the town centre reveals 16 empty units. Not shut. Empty.
Evans and Wilkins first opened in Hall Street more than 85 years ago. It’s a family business which sells fashionwear, school uniforms, sports kit, evening wear, and wedding attire and it’s a shop that has kitted out generations of people in Carmarthen.
It’s run by Rhodri Wilkins, whose grandfather first started selling clothes in the town in the 1920s.
“I’ve worked in the business since 1993 and you can’t compare this last year with anything that we’ve seen before,” he said. “We’ve had our tough times of course, there’s been various recessions, but not like this. This is just something that you could not have planned for.
“Our turnover for 2020 was 50% of what it was in 2019. Even if we reopen in the coming weeks it’s not going to go back to normal.
“Take before Christmas for example. We were open but our turnover was half what it should have been at that time of year because there were no Christmas parties, there were no Christmas jumper days in offices, and nobody was getting married, so people weren’t buying what they normally would.
“There’s a knock-on effect that hits everything. It’s one big loop and you need every cog in that wheel to get going properly before turnover, and the economy as a whole, gets anywhere near normal.”
Evans and Wilkins sells some items of clothing that they also sell in Debenhams. So, a straight question: was it a big blow to the local store, built from nothing between two world wars, to have this behemoth coming into town in 2010 to steal its trade?
“The problem Carmarthen has had is that the go-to places are little niche towns: Narberth, Brecon, Abergavenny, or the big shopping centres you see in cities or near Bridgend.
“Carmarthen is between those two. It’s not big enough to compete with big cities but it’s not small enough to a be a ‘trendy town.’ It’s out of fashion a bit with the consumer. Maybe it needs to reinvent itself a bit.
“What happens first when a big shop closes down is that the market gets flooded because they sell all their stuff at 50% off so we see a dip in sales because we can’t compete with that sale.
“Then your turnover might go up a bit when that shop closes but after the initial honeymoon period you see it drop off again because people might stay away from town without that huge pull of a big-name shop.
“Forget Covid-19 for a second and the restrictions and just think of the number of empty shops in town. They need to be filled but there’s a lot of companies out there who are struggling and we’re not the only town in this position.
“We are fortunate in this store that we have diversified the business so we have a number of different strands and that’s something that has really helped. But I do worry for the future of Carmarthen.”
When looking to the future one needs to consider the past and Carmarthen had its problems
“If someone had said to me they were going to open up a new shop in the middle of a pandemic I would have thought they were bonkers House by Betty owner Lauren Treharne
before March 2020 when coronavirus shut everything in sight. Some units were already empty, the bitter aftertaste of a convenient tonic of online shopping and out-of town retail parks.
Cambrian Way is a shopping arcade located in the centre of town between St Catherine’s Walk and the as-yet-untouched Jackson’s Square.
A third of the units in Cambrian Way are empty. Without counting the small, start-up style units along one side, it’s even more bleak; more than half (four of out seven) of the main larger units are currently empty.
Things are set to get better, however, with a new dessert and coffee shop taking over one of those units on a five-year lease while one of the existing businesses still trading in the arcade is planning to stay at the site long-term and take on additional space.
One of the arcade’s units, which was formerly home to Mothercare, has been empty for a considerable time. It is currently available to let at a cost of £45,000 a year. That is before taking into account business rates and a service charge of £14,699 per year.
Without delving into the exact financials, that is considerably more per year than units have been let for at St Catherine’s Walk, in newer spots in what some would argue is a better location.
Cambrian Way being “proactive” is good news for Carmarthen and its much bigger cousin along the road, St Catherine’s Walk, is to be commended for its commitment to filling empty units by offering them at affordable prices to those lacking in corporate muscle.
The problem with this of course is whether or not these shops will be able draw people in who are not just passing by.
What will take up the space used by Debenhams for more than a decade? It’s by far the biggest retail unit in Carmarthen and it will need to be filled if St Catherine’s Walk wants to thrive in the years to come.
If you speak to shoppers in the town one name keeps cropping up, one with the pulling power to ride into view and attract the masses once it’s safe and legal to do so.
Primark, Primark, Primark. The clothing giant currently has an out-oftown store in Carmarthenshire, at Llanelli’s Trostre Retail Park, but it does not have a town centre footprint anywhere in West Wales.
Primark bosses have always remained tightlipped on the matter, only commenting officially to say that “we do not comment on speculation around new store openings”.
It has been a tumultuous year for the shopping centre, for every business owner, and for everyone who cares about Carmarthen and its ability to survive in the coming years without slowly becoming another ghost town filled more with memories than shoppers.
Will people flock to the independents?
That is a question that can’t be answered right now because Wales remains under alert level 4 restrictions and the streets of Carmarthen are, quite rightly, empty.
The answer, as always, lies in compromise and a combination of both highstreet brands and local stores and it’s important to stress that a number of retail giants remain in Carmarthen as we hopefully begin to emerge from the latest state of lockdown.
House by Betty’s motto for 2021 is the way it is and the way it has to be: one day at a time.
Only time will tell if the high street can survive in a post-pandemic world but, as those at the heart of Carmarthen’s commitment to endure have shown, the town is never going to give up without a fight.