So, what are the problems facing town centres today? Last Friday I introduced Julian Dobson’s book, “How to Save Our Town Centres”. Today I shall summarise what he understands their problems to be.
What Are Town Centres?
We are making a massive mistake if we think town centres are solely about retail; fundamentally they are places where relationships develop between citizens. Retail depends on trust and so the nature of cities and their spaces, where relationships can grow, is important. At least, that is true for local retail businesses. The large corporations depend on their brand to develop trust and so have become independent of civic institutions.
Dobson writes:
“Not only the shops are going: many of the institutions that once anchored town centres, from churches to libraries to adult education centres, have disappeared or diminished. The activities that brought people into town in the 19th and early 20th centuries are often no longer there, and sometimes no longer anywhere.” (page 10)
Later, he writes:
“Go back to the ancient Greek idea of the agora and you will find a far richer mix than exists in even the most successful contemporary street markets. The agora was a civic space, not just a marketplace. In the agora of Athens there was the courtroom, places of religious worship, the gymnasium, the mint that produced the city’s coinage, and the bouleuterion, the council building where people assembled to legislate and to discuss public affairs. The agora was used for theatre and performance, meeting and holding court: it was far more than a shopping precinct.” (page 46)
The Marketplace
This vision will be familiar to readers of this blog although I’ve usually used the word marketplace to describe similar diversity. People generate all these activities and so we say they are people-centred. Of course, some institutions, for example civic authorities, manage activities such as courts or council meetings. But all these activities are essentially public activities. They take place behind closed doors only in totalitarian states.
But ideally local businesses and community organisations generate most activity. Each activity supports future activities because town centres have histories known by the people and are an inspiration to them. They take civic pride in their unique place.
Three Trends Undermine Town Centres
According to Dobson there are broadly three trends that have undermined our town centres in recent decades:
“The shopping centre, the supermarket and the internet giant: each in its way is stripping trade out-of-town centres and away from local businesses.” (page 78)
And when the trade goes it becomes more difficult to sustain the other activities.
- So, in my home city, Sheffield in the UK, we have a shopping centre called Meadowhall. It is close to the M1 and said to be within 1 hour’s drive of 20 million people. Other centres in the region feel its effects. The city centre’s problem is shops’ rents fixed to rates affordable only to large national chains. Most have moved to Meadowhall. Local businesses cannot move in because they cannot afford these rates. So, shops stand empty, footfall declines and the remaining shops find it more difficult to continue.
- With supermarkets the issue is direct competition with local businesses. Perhaps the threat these days is small branches in neighbourhoods in direct conflict with local traders. Whilst they make some contribution to the local economy, for example by paying wages to staff, their profit does not circulate locally. They usually have suppliers fixed nationally and so they undermine the local networks of small suppliers.
- Internet giants such as Amazon, are well-known for the impact they have on the High Street. It is very convenient to buy books online and even easier with e-readers. It has made it incredibly difficult to run a bookshop in real life. They cannot compete on stock or price.
The one thing that unites these three threats to town centres is branding. Meadowhall, Tesco and Amazon (for example) are all trusted brands. This means they are well-known, provide a massive range of goods and offer credible guarantees of quality.
What Can Be Done?
Whilst many local retail businesses can compete on quality they can rarely compete on their range of goods (addressed by having many businesses and not so much by increasing the range of goods held by a trader) or becoming well-known because they have limited marketing budgets and are often based in premises they can afford outside the town centre.
Somehow we have an economic system that makes no effort to protect the interests of local businesses and communities. Local authorities plan to attract corporate businesses into their areas in the hope it will regenerate their towns. Instead they take more finance out of the area, destroy local supply networks and then when they find a better offer, are likely to leave. Where are the plans to grow, support and protect local businesses and communities?
No summary can do justice to Dobson’s book and especially the wealth of examples he offers based on good and bad practice.
Next week I shall explore some of the solutions Dobson offers and reveal the one point on which I do not agree with him.
