‘Shopping: Town is not what it was’
Thursday 28th May 2009, 11:30AM BST.
ONE Town shopkeeper said a combination of high rent, difficult parking and lack of choice on the high street meant he was shutting up shop.
Dave Perchard said Shoestring in the Pollet would close at the end of June. His other three shops stay open. ‘I’ve seen a terrific number of changes,’ said Mr Perchard, who opened the Town store in 1991.
He said problems in St Peter Port had made trading increasingly difficult over the years.
‘The rent is very, very high. The rent on my Bridge shop is a third of what I pay in Town and the Town one is not a lot bigger.
‘Then there is the fact that the mix of shops is not what it used to be – if you want a mobile phone, a sandwich or to go to the bank then Town is the place, but there are a number of other places you can go for everything else,’ he said.
Mr Perchard said that the Bridge had a better mix of shops.
‘People are voting with their feet – Town isn’t what it used to be.’
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It’s the same everywhere – building owners would rather see their premises empty (earning no rent at all) rather than charge a reasonable rent……..
Whatever happened to ‘little profit, high return’?
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I hate to say it, but “I told you so”.
Mill street is dead, rents are too high and there is no parking
The market is struggling, the rents are too high and there is no parking
Town as a whole is struggling, the rents are too high and there is insufficient parking.
The Bridge development will succeed if the rents are reasonable. They have obviously got the parking message, as have many of the other out of town stores, which all try to provide parking in the immediate vicinity. Town will continue to decline, I believe, until the planners wake up and realise that people don’t want to use the buses, they want to use their cars and to be able to park conveniently.
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