Whether you live in Maidstone or a smaller town or possibly village you may well be concerned about the state of your local high street. The Best Of recently commissioned a national survey to find out what local high streets could do to stop people from abandoning them in favour of out of town supermarkets and shopping centres where space is not a problem and national chain stores abound around ample free parking areas.
Covering 26 traditional high street shop categories over half of the people surveyed thought their local high street lacked a fishmonger’s. A further third of shoppers would like to see a higher presence of butcher’s and 43% felt that green grocer’s were disappearing from their local high street. Of course not very long ago these were precisely the shops that you would visit the high street for – very often on a daily basis, especially when you factor in that nearly a quarter of respondents found that bakeries were no longer sufficiently represented. Additionally over a third of those taking the survey were unable to find a toy shop on their high street. All of these items are now of course readily and very often more cheaply available in supermarkets.
On the other hand; hairdressers, newsagents, opticians, pharmacies, florists, estate agents, charity shops and banks were deemed to be present in abundance – probably as much as ever with the possible exceptions of opticians, charity shops and estate agents which all seem to have flourished in recent years. The vast majority of people asked were also satisfied with the number of food and drink outlets, such as pubs, cafes, restaurants and takeaway/fish and chip shops, although it was felt by some that these could be improved and their hours extended. Nor was it particularly observed that food retailers, furnishing stores, doctors and dental surgeries, pound shops, off licenses and post offices were underrepresented.
When asked what would make them shop on their local high street more regularly nearly 40% said that they would like to see more shops with longer opening times, while almost three quarters of all respondents replied that they would like to see a more varied mix of shops. Well over half cited free parking as an incentive with a third simply asking for more parking to lure them back to the high street. Disabled access didn’t seem to be a problem with 93% saying they were satisfied. When it came to national chain stores on the high street 26% said they would like to see more while 23% would like to see less – fairly balanced there then! However, over half of all those asked felt that national chain stores were responsible for the closure of the independent local shops that used to give their local high street its unique flavour.
So people are still shopping on their local high streets for goods and services that are either unavailable or less readily available at supermarkets and out of town shopping centres. But the increased options offered by out of town outlets and their longer opening hours give the consumer a far greater flexibility than ever before. And when you combine this with the fact that according to the survey car ownership is running at 91% it just shows that people today can pop to the shops more-or-less whenever they want.
To find out more about this survey and what the respondents think can be done to revive the high street, keep a look out for another blog here at The Best of Maidstone!
In the meantime, if you have any thoughts or comments to make on the above, or on Maidstone’s High Street, for example, you can post them in the box below.
Until next time
India J