The British High Street - not quite completely off topic!

[Robin Summerhill]

As many of you local to the South West will know, BBC Points West has been running some items just lately about the number of empty shops in High Streets around the area, and the various ideas being dreamt up by local councils about how to regenerate them.

As I see it, the basic problem is twofold. Firstly, Councils have made it more and more difficult to get in an out of towns by car, and more difficult and expensive to park one when you get there. Secondly, a motorist can, for example, battle in to the centre of Bristol and put up with all this inconvenience, or can simply drive to out of town shopping complexes like Cribbs Causeway, where they can park for free and get everything that they could get in the centre of town.

Case set out, but now I'll go back on topic (almost!). Is the town centre shopping experience going the same way as railway local services in the 1960s? Is it the same "rose coloured spectacles" situation, where everybody says they want to shop in the High Street (or have a local station in the 1960s) but not enough people actually want to use these facilities any more because there are more convenient services on offer?

What does anybody else think?

(Edited 4 hours after original post for typos and missing words! )

[jolly47roger]

Brought up in Somerset but now living in Cardiff.

I've been retired several years : I used to go into Cardiff quite regularly but since they put the parking charge up to 80p for 20 minutes I've stopped. I do my food shopping (and much other) at out-of-town Asda, Tesco and Waitrose (all within 5 minutes and free parking) and buy most other things on-line.

The High Street (once within walking distance for many who probably worked nearby and shopped daily) is a dying concept and is past revival.

[Mitch]

I don't think the demise of town centre shopping is entirely due to out-of-town retail parks, although they haven't helped the situation.
There are plenty of towns where High Street shops lie empty and there is no out-of-town retail park. High business tax on town centre shops make them unaffordable for many independent retailers, and don't forget that on-line shopping is the preferred method for many people, even for grocery shopping.
The closure of so many of our railways in the 1960's led to a vast increase in car ownership, simply because there was no other way to travel. The car became a victim of its own success by clogging up town centres and making them unattractive to shoppers, hence the success of out-of-town retail parks where they exist.
Incidentally, I visited my home town of Bath recently and saw the new shopping centre where once was a bus station. I was not impressed: there are plenty of shops, but all seemed to be high-end clothing stores with fancy names. No sign of the butcher, the baker or candlestick maker there these days.

[Robin Summerhill]

IThe closure of so many of our railways in the 1960's led to a vast increase in car ownership, simply because there was no other way to travel.

I'm not sure about this. There was certainly a dramatic increase in car ownership in the 50s and 60s, but was it caused by the loss of the rail service, or was the rail service lost because of it (oversimplified I know but just illustrating the point)

Its one of those "chicken and egg" situations. As John Cleese said back in the early 70s "people think public telephone call boxes don't work because they've been vandalised. The true situation is they've been vandalised because the don't work"

[simon]

I always find it ironic when people write things like "no one ever goes there anymore because it is so crowded" (OK I paraphrase but the sentiment is there).

Shops close because people don't wan't/can't afford the stuff they sell.

Paterns in retailing change they always have always will.