High Street SOS
A new series charting the state of Britain’s town centres in 2019
The British high street is in crisis. During the past decade, a string of big chains have disappeared (Woolworths, BHS, Toys R Us, Maplin, to name a few), while others have closed stores, or announced plans to do so, in an effort to survive (Mothercare, House of Fraser and Debenhams, among numerous others). In May, Marks & Spencer said it would be shutting another 110 stores nationwide, while profits at John Lewis plunged last year amid challenging trading conditions.
A report by Retail Economics last week predicted half of UK retail sales will be online within the next decade, up from about a fifth currently. Up and down the country, city centre streets are scarred with empty units as big chains and small businesses alike have shut up shop.
But online shopping only partially explains what has widely been pronounced as the death of the high street. Many struggling towns and cities have their own stories to tell, at the heart of which lie broader social and economic changes. The worst-off have simply failed to recover from the loss of the industry that once sustained their local shops and communities. Some cite rising business rates and rents, inadequate public transport or a lack of parking spaces. In sum, a perfect storm of adverse conditions has lain waste to public spaces we once cherished.
But is the picture solely one of doom and gloom? Or are we seeing, at least in some parts, a picture of rebirth and reinvention? Even – or perhaps especially – in those towns worst affected by the demise of bricks and mortar retail, myriad plans are afoot. Traditional shops may be struggling, but in many centres, cafés and other “experiential” offerings are thriving, while businesses that sell something different – be it plastic-free products or artisan cheese – seem to be staying afloat.
Today, we launch a fourpart series exploring the state of our high streets in 2019 and what hope they have for the future. Each week we will visit either one of the hardest hit or one that, at least on paper, is outperforming others. In doing so, we’ll explore what has really become of the high street – and what might need to happen there next.
Britain’s emptiest high street: Burslem
The town of Burslem is haunted. According to Alan Dutton, until recently an independent local councillor, there are orbs that appear here like clouds. “But they’re ghosts,” he says, matter-of-factly. “It’s haunted, because so much went on.”
Whether or not you believe in the supernatural, it’s hard to disagree that this once-proud Potteries town – one of the six that make up Stoke-ontrent – is a ghost of its former self. A third of the shops in its centre stand empty, the highest proportion in the UK, according to the Local Data Company. And no one you speak to here has any doubt that this now-forlorn corner of Staffordshire has lost both its soul and its purpose.
“I can’t even buy a pair of knickers in the town now,” one elderly resident complained to Dutton, when he was elected eight years ago. Today, the shops that remain open in Market Place, the main thoroughfare, include an optician, a bridal shop, a motor parts shop, a bookmaker and convenience store. There’s a ceramics shop, where plates can be bought for as little as £1.50, but everywhere you look are the spectres of departed businesses: a deserted Indian restaurant; an empty insurance broker; an abandoned wine bar.
On the once-thriving and still stately Queen Street, the sense of decay is unavoidable. Inside an abandoned travel agent, piles of unopened mail litter the floor. At other empty units, shutters are down, shop names have gone, and windows are smashed.
“You could fire a cannon up Queen Street and it wouldn’t hit anybody,” says Dutton. “It’s as bad as that.”
It wasn’t always like this. Raise your eyes above the boarded-up shop fronts and you’ll see the most magnificent buildings: grand monuments of 18th- and 19th-century architecture that bear witness to the town’s erstwhile greatness.
Formerly known as “Mother Town of the Potteries”, Burslem was a successful centre for ceramic manufacture. Wedgwood, Royal Doulton and Royal Stafford started out here, plus a long list of others. Almost 40 Grade Ii-listed structures sit in and around the town centre.
When industry boomed, so did the town’s local shops, catering to the needs of the workforce. “When I was a girl in the Seventies and Eighties, I used to go around Burslem with my mum and it took three hours,” says Jane Mountford, 55, the landlady of Bursley Ale House. “There was a shoe shop, a fish shop, a butcher, indoor and outdoor markets. There used to be a Woolworths… MK One was the last clothes shop here. It closed in 2003. There’s nothing in Burslem now.”
Like many, she does her grocery shopping half a mile up the road at an Asda superstore. For clothes, she visits nearby Hanley or Tunstall.
“It was a thriving town,” says Dutton. “There were so many people around.”
The tale of decline is a familiar one. In the Eighties and Nineties, local industry started to shut down or shift its production abroad. Pottery factories went, as did the local coal mines. Royal Doulton was the last to go, closing its Nile Street plant in 2005. Since then, the town has struggled to bounce back, its high street on a downward trajectory.
“Our decline preceded the [national] change in retail patterns,” says Joan Walley, a former local Labour MP. Now chairman of the Burslem Regeneration Trust, she acknowledges that the changing nature of retail has further hit the town’s fortunes. “It was very much what happens when factories close down and outsource the labour. It’s the loss of footfall in the town centre. The closure of Royal Doulton was the final nail in the coffin. We’ve been on a mission since then to try to rebuild the town.” But the loss of local industry has taken potential shoppers away from the centre.
“People tend to travel to Manchester or Birmingham to work now,” says local historian Fred Hughes.
“That’s how a small town starts to fall apart, once people leave the factories. Those people who have lost their jobs in the indigenous industries suddenly have to go elsewhere to look for employment. There’s no really big industry that’s decided to this day it will invest.”
The shops gradually disappeared after the factory closures, says the retired police officer, who has lived here since 1960. “I don’t think there’s a community now because they don’t share the same working facilities as they used to,” he adds.
“When you live and work in a particular place, you share the community feeling. You go to the chapels and cinemas. All that social aspect of the town has gone. Our shopping is done online now, or otherwise you go to Manchester or Birmingham. Stoke hasn’t been able to compete. When you walk around, you will hardly see any shops that are helpful to communities. You won’t see any groceries or greengrocers.”
Earlier this year, Burslem became the first large town in Britain to lose all its free cashpoints, something local Labour MP Ruth Smeeth pinpoints as a problem: “I still have a very high cash usage in my constituency, so there’s a knock-on effect in terms of SMES [small and medium-sized enterprises], business growth and people opting to spend their money in those places. Everything becomes so much harder.”
Other problems cited include absentee landlords, who leave commercial properties lying empty, and a lack of parking and public transport infrastructure. But, dotted around the centre, the pubs do a brisk trade, forming a nighttime economy that local residents report is doing fine.
“Local people are a bit intimidated by the reputation Burslem’s got,” says Ciarnan Roberts, 21, who works in the appliance shop his father opened in 1997. “People who can drink during the day come here.”
So what future is there for Burslem and its woebegone shopping streets? Conversations with those who care about the town show there’s no lack of ideas. It has lately been awarded £10million from the Government’s Housing Infrastructure Fund to build 1,100 homes on derelict former industrial sites, including that once occupied by Royal Doulton.
Jobs-wise, there’s still nothing on the scale of those provided by the old industries, but Synectics Solutions, a data company, offers some local employment, as does Bet365, whose headquarters are in Stoke. “We’re trying to bring in all sorts [of employers],” says Dutton. “We’re looking for hi-tech firms.” He says Vodafone is among those that will provide new jobs here.
One of the old factories, Middleport Pottery, has been turned into a visitor centre for tourists. As for the retail offering, Smeeth says: “The council needs to listen to local residents about what’s required. You can’t just say there are going to be new shops; you need to come up with a plan. It’s about the right investment and consulting with people about what they need, rather than giving them what we think they need.”
Dutton has a suggestion: “What we need is café culture. Queen Street would be ideal to pedestrianise and just have cafés down there.” Hughes has another idea: “It’s going to take something that’s based on heritage and history for Burslem to become recognised again, as a cultural centre rather than an industrial centre.”
All are agreed there’s a long way to go. But if the retail scene looks gloomy, not everyone is convinced that what once made it prosper is lost forever. “There is still a sense of community,” says Elizabeth Ball, a retired pottery worker in her 60s who’s lived here for 42 years. “The people are still here. We all know one another. Most of my friends have remained.”