When you take a stroll around Harpenden it remains a great environment with lots of independent shops providing a range of shopping opportunities for our community. The newly opened Art Boutique in the High Street http://www.thebestof.co.uk/local/harpenden/business-guide/feature/the-art-boutique/74869 has already brought the work of international artists of repute to our town. Restaurants such as The Bangkok Lounge serving Thai food, http://www.thebestof.co.uk/local/harpenden/business-guide/thai-restaurants
Bar Azita, with its Mediterranean cuisine, http://www.thebestof.co.uk/local/harpenden/business-guide/mediterranean-restaurants
provide excellent dining experiences and pubs such as The Engineer in Southdown http://www.thebestof.co.uk/local/harpenden/business-guide/feature/the-engineer/55880 and The Old Bell http://www.thebestof.co.uk/local/harpenden/business-guide/feature/the-old-bell/49246
have great reputations as pub restaurants.
There are strong sports clubs and societies in the town and everything seems fine….but we mustn’t take this all for granted.
If you want an example of somewhere that was once a thriving market town you need only take a short drive to Dunstable. There the main road divides the High Street too and as you drive through the town, notice the empty shops that now haunt this once vibrant community. You will soon run out of fingers counting them. It is sad to see how the empty shops pervade an air of desolation and depression. It was not always so but greedy landlords have forced small businesses to close and the effect it has had on the town has been catastrophic.
We cannot allow anything like the same to happen in Harpenden and we must take positive action to make sure it does not. How? By identifying the best local businesses and using them! Use them or lose them should be our mantra. If we want the best in Harpenden then we must seek out the best businesses, identify them to the local and wider community and support them. Times are hard for the small independent shops in all towns.
Help us at The Best of Harpenden to identify the best businesses in town harpenden@thebestof.co.uk so that we can shout about them and keep Harpenden the busy, buzzy place it still is…..for now.