City and town hopeful about the future of their shopping streets
As non-essential shops re-open, what’s in store for York and Otley? Will retailers benefit from online fatigue? Will there be more homes in the centres?
IF THERE is one Yorkshire thoroughfare that stands as a bellwether for the changing nature of the high street, it is the one that runs between Lendal and Spurriergate, alongside the River Ouse, in York.
Coney Street was for decades the city’s flagship shopping destination. It was there that the biggest brands set up shop – BHS, Burton’s, Dorothy Perkins and HMV were among those selling their wares from behind vast plate glass windows.
Even before the pandemic, not many of those old retailers remained, and as Andrew Lowson, a commercial planner who is now executive director of York’s Business Improvement District, admits – the street is now out of step. He said: “There are a few parts of the city that have been failing, in inverted commas, for some time and Coney Street is the most obvious example.”
Today, as the city joins those around it in reopening its nonessential shops and salons, he believes it is time to take stock of what the high streets have lost in the last year – and what they now stand to gain from what he calls the “online fatigue” of ordering goods on the internet and then having to send them back as they do not match the descriptions.
The highest profile victim of the lockdown in York has been John Lewis, whose seven-yearold department store in the Vangarde Shopping Park, north-east of the city centre, has been earmarked for permanent closure.
But while that was an unexpected blow to the local economy – and may signal the end of such ambitious out-of-town developments – the balancing factors were equally plain to see, insisted Mr Lowson.
“Where we’re quite lucky compared to other cities is that we have always have a strong independent scene. The businesses we’ve lost have tended to be the big chains with huge overheads and big rent and rates bills.
“And while the independents have obviously also been hit, I think that with the grants and the furlough scheme, they’ve been able to weather the storm a bit better. Hopefully that’s a positive sign for the future.”
But there is little doubt that the effects of 12 months of on-off closures will change high streets again. As the demand for large retail units diminishes, planners across the country are re-imagining their urban landscapes as centres for leisure facilities and residential properties as well as shops.
In York, there are mixed feelings about that.
“Once a building becomes residential it rarely changes back to retail, so we’ve got to be careful not to go too far the other way,” said Mr Lowson, who would like to bring his own planning background to bear on the city centre.
“We’ve been saying for a long time that York needs to have a masterplan – a vision of what we want our city to look like, if we’re going to make sure we achieve the right balance.
“So what we’ll do is look at areas like Coney Street, where there are big units that have closed and not necessarily been filled, and which have as a result a huge amount of empty space above the shops that doesn’t get used any more.”
The landlords of those units will in the future use their space more flexibly, Mr Lowson believes, with smaller retail, leisure or hospitality space on the ground floor and homes above.
“We’re already seeing rents falling and institutional property developers pulling out,” he said. “That’s creating opportunities for local developers to buy properties or get involved in them, and those local people are far better placed to work with councils and communities to help create those city plans.”
Andrew Waller, the executive member for the economy on York Council, said the trend towards city centre living was already plain to see.
He said: “What’s happening now is that landlords who are very distant from the city – for whom a property is just a line on a spreadsheet – are being replaced by local owners, and they are becoming more interested in reconfiguring the layout of their buildings.
“So where previously there had been high value on the ground floor and perhaps an office or two upstairs, people are trying to make full use of all the available space.
“It means there are many more people living within the city centre than used to be the case – and that creates neighbourhood shopping, which is a draw in itself.”