Bangor Empty Shops Rant the Death of our High Streets
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 20 ต.ค. 2024
- City and town Councillors lament and 'wring their hands' about the falling shopping footfalls on the high street. Shop owners are alarmed as they see once profitable, long standing, family businesses fail with more closures imminent.
Councils make supportive noises but they refuse to lower rates and rents. They continue to give their blessing to higher parking fines and car parking fees. They appear naively ignorant of the ever increasing competition of, out of town shopping centres and booming internet shopping. Councils continue to 'milk ' shopkeepers of high rates and rental revenue. They are guilty of killing the goose that once laid the golden egg.
The Flagship Centre in Bangor is an empty shell. Five to ten years ago it was a bustling shopping centre. Many of the shops on Bangor main street are struggling to survive and many have already closed. Charity shops are everywhere. Shoppers will not come to an empty dead high street. Most of our town and city banks are now closed. Post offices have already disappeared. These are two more nails in the coffin of our towns and city streets. Have they to become ghost towns before our, greedy, head in the sand, councils give them financial relief?
Heartbreaking to see. I have fond memories of Bangor from the 80s, 90s and 2000s. I used to frequent Bangor a lot as a child and adult until I moved Down Under. I remember being there in 2018 and again in 2023 and it’s just sad to see the demise!
Hi DUWTT. I'm afraid that Bangor streets have been going into decline for decades now. This wasn't helped by greedy high rents and rates and constant walkabouts by traffic wardens. Then the lockdown was imposed and everywhere has declined at a much faster rate! We still go there for the pleasant sea walks and gardens but we avoid the streets. Best wishes from the Belfast Castlereagh hills of Northern Ireland.
Exactly the same here in Bangor, Gwynedd. Sign of the times......internet and out of town shopping.
Hi Gillian. On top of this local councils are killing the High Street even further by charging high rates rental and parking. How stupid can they get.
Best regards and thanks for dropping by.
Yes. From Argos, to Dunnes, to B&M, to JD, to TK Maxx, to GameStop, to Iceland, to Co-Op, to Poundworld, to Peacocks, to KFC, to Burger King, to Subway, to Tonic, to VMCA, to Evergreen, to Napoli Pizza…
Hi BM. As Chris Rea sings,
'It's all gone
Ain't nothing for you here now.'.....
Best wishes from the Belfast Castlereagh hills.
The councils have allowed supermarkets to open up close to the high streets and they cut across every business, because of their massive buying power small businesses cannot buy in as cheaply as supermarkets, they then kept the rentals high so make it even harder to compete.
If the councils want the high street full they MUST reduce the rents to encourage new business, they must find businesses that supermarket do NOT cater for, arts and crafts, hairdressers, specialised business shops, pawn brokers, thrift (second hand) stores in fact anything the supermarkets do not cater for.
Start up schemes to encourage NEW business would help with rent and business rates reduction for a given period (say 2 years), it would be better to have an income rather than leave the shops empty.
You are spot on Tony with your analysis. City and town centre shops are wn centre shops are dying before our eyes. The internet is creaming off a vast amount of trade. Unfortuantely city and town councils continue to complain about falling footfall. The thing is these councils could reduce rents and rates of shops and keep them in business. Will they do it? No! The reason is they are far to greedy! so city and town shops will continue to dieand so will our city and town centres! Best wishes
Hadn’t quite seen this here in London, and many thanks for showing me to see Banger in NI, looking at the Baytree Centre at Brentwood in Essex, lost their B&M store, with other shops closed due to high rents after a new landlord took over. There was an issue of internet sales/unemployment and Buisness Rates, but what’s the employment rate in Bangor please?.
Hi Jack thanks for calling in. Town shopping is dying here and no one appears to be doing anything to stop the alarming decline. There is a head in the sand mentality coming from councils. They somehow belive that they can still impose high town/city rents, rates and parking charges and all will remain as before. Wrong! More and more once great shopping streets are empty of people and shops. I imagine you have a very similar dismal picture in Essex.
Sorry I don't know what the Bangor employment rate is. Best wishes.
Yes mate they have extended the schedule for the summer,can't wait to get down 👍
It's getting bad in Derby. If a shop does open it's lucky if it lasts a year.
Hi Kat, Great to hear from you. This high street closure is happening all over the UK. Very few places are addressing the problem. Councils continue to expect shops to pay high rents and rates and their customers in cars will pay for carparking or be fined if they park in the wrong place. Our high streets are left with charity shops, wine lodges and a few run down cafes which last no time. Best wishes from Belfast.
'You said it all ' Tom as Steve Harley sang we don't matter should all just conform like little Muppets why think for yourself just go with the flow that's why we are in the state we are in
Thanks Thomas.
Steve Harley and Cockney Rebe l-one of my favourite bands. I even bought 2 of their LPs!
Tom McClean I work on the wee tugboat you sometimes feature down in Belfast Harbour You seem tuned in Tom like yourself I don't suffer fools I enjoy your wee clips enjoy life and your surroundings life is so short
Excellent Thomas! What an interesting job. I bet you've seen some interesting comings and goings over the years. It's such a changing environment and you are right in the middle of it every day. I bet you've seen some interesting bird /animal life on the water too. I'm a total clueless landlubber but I do love being down at the marina and pottering around the various Belfast docks. It is a completely different world to anything I know and the people you meet are fascinating.
Hey thanks for the encouragement.
Life is indeed short. My son in law's mum died yesterday morning, aged 57-cancer. A lovely lady gone too soon, like so many others.
Take care
Their isn't really anything left in the town now!we all remember the seafront shops and the beach,now it's a carpark and the seafront shops are gone!was a place were you brought your kids to the beach and had fun,sorry they need to sort Bangor out,but a special place that will always remain with our memories of our youth!❤
Shopping as we know it is dying fast in all our towns and cities. Councils need to relax rates rental and parking fees or people will not venture into town. We never go into Belfast by car anymore because of the buslanes and car park fees. People are buying online now so unless shopping can be shown as attractive and cheaper then people will not come and town/city shops will go bust.
That's the globalist (jewish supremacist) plan - to make independent shops an unviable proposition, whilst replacing ethnic europeans with nonwhites.
I'm very happy to say that the shops that remain in Bangor are doing pretty good and a phew are coming and talks about the flagship coming back a phew days ago the flagship car park has reopened and don't forget Bloomfield's shopping center is Massive like 3x bigger than the Flagship and like most of the shops are now there and there is like 2 vacant shops compared to like 60 full nice shops
Hi Tom.....I'm from the South and you are right....NI tourism should be marketed in a better way...so many great places to visit up there.....
Hey thanks davyglen 1 for calling in.
I think that the Irish Tourist Board are really on the ball. They have a product and they know all the angles and use them when they come to sell it. They have passion and belief. Their adverts are first class and they target their audiences.
The Northern Ireland Tourist board is way behind. I think some of it's top people are just sitting on a ready salary.
Of course this is only my opinion.
Across the UK...go to Hammersmith, Kings Maill in West London...its dead now...
Belfast harbour website has a list of all the cruise ships that's coming this year, starting from march,take a look then you will know when to get down to video mate👍
Hey many thanks andy. I was watching for this list but I didn't know it was up yet. Great stuff!
117 cruise ship visits this incoming yesr andy. that is up fro 93 last year. Liverpool had only 36 visits last year. Belfast is booming. These visitors like to come here!
nothing to say ,you have said it all.
As the cruise ships approach ,are they ready for a matrix world of nothingess?
The cruise passengers will be sent to the Giant's Causeway, any number of Game of Thrones locations and the Titanic Exhibition Centre. These 3 and no more. This why the South's Tourist Department is brilliant compared to ours. The South's people are really innovatory and push so many destinations. You should see what they have done to promote the 'Wold Atlantic Way round Donegal and Amazing Grace Country round Buncrana and Malin Head. There are new signposts everywhere. Our lot are sitting half asleep and resting on their laurels.
there is a lot of promoting "The Coastal path " but not so much
about other walks in-land or forest walks, these need better
signposts
Agreed.