So, this Christmas was not the lifesaver of the High Street we were hoping for? And neither were the sales apparently. We know, of course, that business rates have put shops under huge pre
ssure, especially smaller ones (what’s left of them). But those of us who love shopping, or are an ex shopaholic like me, know it’s much more than that. And a snippet of a call to a chat show on the radio the other morning reminded me sharply of what I’ve felt for a long time – shopping in the UK has become so… well… boring! “In France,” said the caller, “you have an infinite variety of small shops, but here the shops are the same in every shopping centre in every town and it’s getting worse and worse!”
He is right of course. I’m not sure the shops are any better abroad, but they are definitely boring in the UK now. Globalisation is to blame. The high streets are filled with huge global brands that dominate, sometimes they have more than one shop in a street! And all the coffee shops and sandwich shops are now brands rather than independents too. Sometimes you see one that looks a bit different, but on investigation they often turn out to be a chain as well… I remember when chain shops had many advantages – you could swap or return at any branch, you could order stuff and so on. But now the chain shops have mostly become global and taken over everywhere, it’s just a bore, and even a bit depressing. You can’t even blame the brands themselves for all of it, if the small shops can’t afford the rent, then the big boys will of course move in, otherwise we lose the high street completely.
There is some individuality – we now have artisan bakers, farmers markets, high end independent jewellers and so on, but these are aimed at the wealthy, not your average shopper. So what it boils down to is if 
you are rich you have plenty of choice from individual retailers, but if you are on an average wage it’s the global brands or nothing. And they wonder why we don’t hit the high streets like we used to – even with 70% reductions in price being offered – and many sales on BEFORE Christmas.
I have long found shopping or ‘browsing’ for fun rather tedious and pointless now – because it no longer IS fun. Shopping used to cheer me up – it can brighten the mind, lift a mood, give you ideas on gifts or events, break inertia, etc. There have been times when I have had to cut back so I deliberately didn’t go near any shops – but to be honest even when I have been able to afford it these days, I struggle to find anything particularly enticing. Am I spoilt? Or have I become boring myself? Maybe… but even when I want to buy something I find the lack of individuality and choice, the repetitiveness of high streets with the same shops everywhere puts me off completely. It really is such a shame. It doesn’t matter what you want to buy, whether its food, clothes, jewellery, children toys, shoes, furniture or anything, we are forced to choose from a pool of large global retailers. And if you read up on them even slightly you often find they are all linked to each other.
And as for the throwaway aspect – we are encouraged to constantly churn over clothes, shoes, food, phones, TVs, cars, everything, and replace with something NEW – but that something is never individual – it’s always uniform to what is being pushed. Not so long ago the high street was very different. Each shop had different things for sale and was often run as a small business. It was worth browsing to be different. I have things I bought years ago that I treasure. But that uniqueness is now gone.
It wasn’t so long ago that I remember British ingenuity was being celebrated and pushed by the government. Designers, rock stars and all kinds of successful British celebrities were invited to Downing Street to celebrate ‘Cool Britannia’ – a great idea! What happened to that spirit? We need it now.
We are soon to be leaving the EU, so long as those still throwing hissey fits over it aren’t given into, and we need to find renewed pride in all things British and for us all to pull together and believe in ourselves and our country. No point in being free but living in the same old way. Now is our chance to celebrate all things British again, our feet rooted firmly in our own soil but looking bravely out into the future and exporting to the world. We don’t just need to buy British, we need to invent, create, make, design and innovate all things British again. We are a hugely creative nation – providing the world with everything from Shakespeare to the Rolling Stones, the Rolls Royce to Concorde, the light bulb to the steam train, the jet engine, the telephone and the TV, not to mention all our amazing designers. How have we allowed our high streets to be filled with such boring offerings, and for there to be such doom and negativity about relying on ourselves? We are the inventors of the world! Or we used to be…
Now is the time for start afresh. Once we leave the EU, let’s make our high streets exciting, individual and booming again. Let’s fill them with all kinds of fantastic designs and inventions. Let’s have faith in our young people to be the brightest and the best. Let’s be the eccentric, innovative, individual, outlandish, iconic, imaginative and adventurous people we always have been until we became squashed, oppressed, and well… boring. We can and must rescue ourselves and utilise our adventurous spirit.
Rule Britannia, Cool Britannia, Buy Britannia… Look out world – here we come!
I hated the High Street over 30 years ago. Nowhere to park, crowds. Not my scene. I just love online shopping where I can relax at home and order what I need seeing competing prices on my computer screen. No very PC I know but that is me.
There are no surprises anyway. I would imagine most High Street retailers normally just get by and reply on Christmas sales to make their profits but these are now destroyed by Black Friday. Black Monday… Black whatever. Black Friday was a day that black slaves were sold so do we really want to keep that name on ?
Our mayor Andy Street has been making lots of noises recently about plans to ‘revive’ our High Streets in the West Midlands.
Oddly, these plans don’t include any lowering of business rates, or review of rents, or even any tax-breaks for new start-ups, which might to help to break the monopoly that multi-national brands and charity shops seem to have.
The plans seem to involve using empty high street shops to provide ‘services’ or converting shop units into housing.
Meanwhile, over in Sandwell, the council has been trying to force through a BID (Business Improvement District) onto Wednesbury, while selling off green-space playing fields at Lion Farm to a developer to build yet another new shopping centre, which is absolutely not needed at all in that area.
I’m afraid Janice that its going to need more than “bulldog spirit” to save our High Streets; we’ll need a seismic shift in attitudes and mentaility both from shoppers themselves, as well as our government and authority leaders.
Reasons I don’t go into ‘town’ these days.
– Traffic lights phased to stop you at every light
– cycle lane, bus lane and keep left signs alongside bus stops: congestion rules OK
– nowhere to park except expensive car parking towers
– four shopping centres, each new one having ‘give away business taxes’ moving them on from the old – but still only one ‘complete’ shopping centre
– all the shops are the same
When I was a boy . .
– traffic lights at crossroads went on two at a time. Now they operate one at a time in sequence after interminable pedestrian crossing time
– you could park on the street outside the shop you wanted to visit without paying two pounds per hour on parking meters
And with something like 90 days to go, the question I ask is:- how will all this affect us leaving the Common Market?
Janice, you have expressed my sentiments exactly. We live in Frome, Somerset. Friends invited us to Sussex for a few days and thought we might like to shop in a close by large town. We gave up after an hour due to boredom. We ended up in their local village coffee shop chatting and eating homemade cake.
We started to talk about Frome. Why we love it so and why we do not really want to shop elsewhere. Frome’s council is Independent. All our councillors were elected because they had a vision for our town, they listened to us and they all lived and worked locally. Due to their foresight we have many small, exciting, independent shops who do not pay large business rates. We have the necessary banks, Boots Pharmacy and M&S food. Apart from this every outlet bar a couple of coffee shops and Fat face is owned by our own locals. We are famous in the West for our retro and vintage clothes shops, our individual food shops and our markets (three each week).
We came to the conclusion we didn’t need to go to any large town to shop as we had all the excitement, fun and friendliness on our doorstep. Even Mary Portas said we had a unique town and should treasure it. Why can’t other councils listen to their demographic instead of Central Office. It doesn’t take much to create a twice yearly forum of local people with great ideas and knowledge to help make a town or village an inviting place to be.
There is a lot of creative talent in Britain but the majority are unable to get their goods into the high street shops simply because they are too “small” (as an individual) and often unable to create/produce in bulk. Ultimately their only openings are the smaller, more personal shops who are happy (usually) to support local talent, be they artists, potters, knitters, dressmakers, etc. Any small British shoe or clothes designers are, I imagine, at the mercy of cheap imports where labour is costed in pennies. And of course it’s the smaller, more individual shops that are buckling under the high business rates and being forced to close. A massive change is needed; very much should be a case of put Britain first.
Janice you are so right, I hate shopping now it is so boring and such an effort, I can never seem to find things I like or that even fit me. In the big stores the assistants are not very helpful and that is if you can find one, I always feel like I am interrupting their day if I ask for help. This is especially so in London where a lot of the assistants seem disinterested in selling anything to you, then when you do decide to buy something there are not enough cashiers to take your money, and you get asked a zillion questions: do you want this or do you want that. It is all a big ‘turn off’ and clothes are not cheap unless you go to the really cheap stores and as you say the items do not last for more than a couple of years.
what do you expect when those who don’t care shop on line with companies who pay no tax and very low wages so it a double blow no customers in the shops as no money and the ones with money doing it on line. The should all be shut down online traders
Another great article by perhaps Independence Daily’s best writer
The are several reasons for the state of our high streets, and in fact everywhere.The Most obvious are of cause Globalisation,( Similar in every shop,). The second is taxes. the governments and the dragging weight of bad legislation and the governments income.You cannot make a mistake. Third is Internet Retail. Which has it’s natural place but not where it is now., Finally, Available money.
Today everybody believes that globalisation is the ultimate destination of capitalism. It isn’t. Not even close
Government and tax… It is believed that government is benevolant. Ridiculous!. Like everything it maximises income and minimises costs. Nothing else is of concern. ( Really,… Look at the High Street, Look at all the windfall taxes. No reasons etc , Just you’ve got plenty ,, we’ll have some.
As for money !, It’s now an illegal pyramid scheme…. .I’ll borrow some money Invent some more , give you some back. I’m rich.with invented money. Dummy. No point in investing in something real. Dummy
One day we’ll wake up and realise we’re wearing the wrong trousers. So many many many things wrong.
I agree Janice but we need also to be aware that so much on the High Street is now sourced from China and it shows in the quality. Gone are the times when a pair of shoes could be expected to last years and then be re-soled to last many more – one is lucky to get a year out of them.
A good pair of shoes ( like Church’s ) will last a lifetime. I had a pair resoled only last week – in a proper local cobblers, not Timpsons . I bought them in 1991 and I remember that they cost £90. Today the same shoes are north of £300. I only have 3 pairs of ‘proper’ shoes, all of similar vintage.
All English made.
Nowadays people will have 20 pairs of junk shoes and never polish or repair them (in fact, most can’t be repaired )
The same goes for many things. New cars can’t be tinkered with at home as they are too complex, people don’t make do and mend clothes or re-cover furniture, it’s all buy it and bin it. The young who go on about saving the planet are complicit in destroying it by buying too much plastic and polypropylene rubbish
Britain still makes good things, and shoes that were expensive at £90 in 1991 are a bargain when worn 27 years later .
I agree with you. I think ‘the High Street’ is full of Chinese junk and that people buy too much of it. The romance of local shopping is in the variety and quality that CAN be available. A good example is Whitstable, a nice town with variety and little in the way of the soulless shopping malls.
The other plague on the High Streets though are drunks, illegal migrants , junkies with dogs-on-string and other street -scum surrounded by litter that the local councils refuse to clear up.
A classic example is Margate. It wallows in filth, cannabis and drunks. There is ONE street cleaner for the town, despite having very expensive Council Tax and the pavements are covered in dog sh*t. Who is to blame ? The individuals who litter and stink up the place of course – often bussed in from London councils, but also the authorities who fail to take any action and the total apathy of the laziest Tory – Remainer- MP in the Commons, Sir Roger Gale.
Getting towns like Margate back to being towns like Whitstable is what UKIP should be about. Real issues, obvious solutions.
Kevin, Myself and my husband also bought some shoes from ‘Crockett and Jones’ eleven years ago and my pair cost £255.00 which is an awful lot of money to pay for one pair of shoes, but you are right they last forever. They are not terribly stylish but very hard wearing, we used to call them our London shoes because we wore them every time we came to London. Now we live in London so I wear mine most of the time and they are indestructible. Since living in London we also bought some ‘Churches’ shoes for work which needed to be smart and hard wearing for the funeral business, my husband says they are the most comfortable shoes he has, and again extremely hard wearing. They also were expensive but worth every penny when you are on your feet for long periods so it works out cost effective. By the way, ‘Crockett and Jones’ make shoes for the Queen so if they are good enough for her they are good enough for me!
Hi Deborah.
Exactly. The thing is that these are English companies. There must be a way for people to buy good shoes ( and other British durables ) over a longer time to offset the initial price ” Shoe HP ” if you like !
It would revive many proud British industries.
We may have something of an idea here…
Outside of the EU we can do WHAT WE LIKE… The Government could get smart again free from the EU shackles…
Businesses, and artisan businesses could be helped to start up again. Subsidies/ apprenticeships / start up loans/ training—- all disallowed by Brussels.
We will win Debbie, we WILL win…
Mr Bav.