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Debenhams and the Arcadia group!


TIGHTCHOKE
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When will people accept that the High Street as a concept is dead?

Who will step in and "rescue" these stores and their employees?

Is there another Phillip Green out there who will take them on, strip their assets and their pension funds and then let them die in peace?

The current situation is only the last nail in the coffin.

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1 hour ago, TIGHTCHOKE said:

When will people accept that the High Street as a concept is dead?

The concept would continue to work if they were actually open when most people were not at work. Opening 9-5.30 monday-friday means most with a job cant use it!

Edited by ferguson_tom
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I suspect the high street will never recover. Many, many years ago, a town would have a variety of shops, then supermarkets and department stores flourished. Later came shopping centres - Meadowhall, Trafford Centre etc- now they are struggling. With the advent of the internet - Ebay etc - the future was never going to be good.

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1 hour ago, MirokuMK70 said:

Its desperately sad for those employees, another 25000 jobs gone and what will replace those jobs in most areas? There won't be any retail operation that can. Online shopping distribution centres which might are very localised... 

The people who worked in these shops had 'proper' jobs, albeit not very well paid jobs. They did however have employment contracts with holiday pay, sick pay and pensions. Plus they enjoyed the employment rights and protections that unions fought hard for us to enjoy.

The jobs that will replace them will be gig economy jobs on zero hours contracts in massive mail order distribution hubs. Then the goods will delivered by 'self employed' drivers working in the equivilent of modern day slavery.

This is the reality   

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The only high streets that seem to flourish nowadays are in affluent areas where there is a market for small, niche businesses.

Consumer markets have changed so drastically that I cant see there ever being a return to people going from shop to shop for weekly necessities now.  We use our local butcher for all our meat but it's simply a fact that if I want the other things I need it has to be a supermarket or amazon.

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1 minute ago, old'un said:

Its strange how all these redundancies and possibly more redundancies in the new year does not seem to have effected the sale and upward trend in house prices, surly something got to give at some point.

I don’t know what’s driving it in other areas but in Herts/Essex/Suffolk it’s being driven by an exodus from London. 

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17 minutes ago, AVB said:

I don’t know what’s driving it in other areas but in Herts/Essex/Suffolk it’s being driven by an exodus from London. 

Well with the average price for a two/three bed semi in the London area being 600k and above, with that sort of money in the bank they could buy a nice place away from London. But is the bubble about to burst with all the possible redundancies due mainly to C19?

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10 minutes ago, old'un said:

Well with the average price for a two/three bed semi in the London area being 600k and above, with that sort of money in the bank they could buy a nice place away from London. But is the bubble about to burst with all the possible redundancies due mainly to C19?

Counting on working remotely being the new normal. You could buy a nice place in the countryside round here for that... probably with little or no mortgage therefore you might not be that bothered if your redundancy number came up.

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40 minutes ago, MirokuMK70 said:

Counting on working remotely being the new normal. You could buy a nice place in the countryside round here for that... probably with little or no mortgage therefore you might not be that bothered if your redundancy number came up.

That was what I was looking at with our aborted move to Norfolk in 2015. We sold our house in Herts to cash buyers from London for £1.25mln. They had sold their small place in islington for just over a million. I thought with remote working or me working away anyway we could find  decent place in Norfolk and have money in the bank. As it happens we only lasted about 9 months!      

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38 minutes ago, AVB said:

That was what I was looking at with our aborted move to Norfolk in 2015. We sold our house in Herts to cash buyers from London for £1.25mln. They had sold their small place in islington for just over a million. I thought with remote working or me working away anyway we could find  decent place in Norfolk and have money in the bank. As it happens we only lasted about 9 months!      

Why so short? Not enough fingers to fit in?

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3 minutes ago, MirokuMK70 said:

Why so short? Not enough fingers to fit in?

That’s what we laugh about. But no we struggled to find anywhere that ticked enough boxes and the longer it went on my wife got more and more frustrated living in rented. We decided to move back nearer to where we came from. I would have hung on for longer but it’s all about keeping the wife happy. 

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1 minute ago, AVB said:

That’s what we laugh about. But no we struggled to find anywhere that ticked enough boxes and the longer it went on my wife got more and more frustrated living in rented. We decided to move back nearer to where we came from. I would have hung on for longer but it’s all about keeping the wife happy. 

you mean you could not find anywhere close enough to 🤣 

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3 hours ago, Dave-G said:

Beats me why so many edge of town shopping centres sprung up everywhere with the same shops that were just a few miles into the town centre. It was a crash just waiting to happen in my mind.

 

Car parking costs. And removal of places to park. That's what killed shopping in the centre of Leicester. That and abysmal privatised bus services form those living outside the city. You're a "Leicester lad" if your moniker is correct. It's all gone (depending on your age) Marshall & Snelgrove, Simpkin & James, Lewis's, Fenwick's and now in the 21st Century after BHS comes Debenhams. All had stores in Leicester and all just became too much effort to find a place nearby to park let alone then have to pay for it. If I'm going to have to pay to park it already an disincentive to then shop at that location. And if it takes me an half an hour to find a place that's enough to be done with it. I'll go elsewhere where I can not only park for free but find a place to park it, at worst, five minutes.

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I hate clothes shopping but I do not buy clothes online as I like to see lots of things and try them on very quickly. Then basically just buy a new version of something I own and have worn out.  I only ever really shopped in John Lewis, Reiss, M&S and Ralph Lauren. My local John Lewis has reduced men's lines drastically, the cheaper brands (Selected Homme etc) are no longer stocked so no point in me shopping there. Reiss and Ralph Lauren have out of town discount outlets at much more sensible prices and so I would never buy in the city centre. M&S is the only shop that o bother to go to and that is to buy staples, socks etc, and the odd item  such as a heavy duty wildfowling shirt. I feel very much like the high street left me, I’ve not left it. 

Edited by WalkedUp
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