With Woolworths in trouble I think the days of the high street are now really numbered. The internet was making a mockery of the town centres well before the recession came along so will the high street vanishing be a good thing or bad thing for the environment?
Personally, I think bad. the high street, certainly in smaller towns acts to offer so much more than a place to shop. it is glue for the community without which society will further fragment. Going along just about any high street at the moment though is very depressing, certainly my nearest town of Cardigan is beginning to look a very sorry state with boarded-up shops and sad looking sales staff. Woolworths' is probably the largest store in the high street there and if it should close I dread to think how quickly the rest of the stores will go downhill.
Perhaps the only consumable items that the internet is unlikely to wrest from the town is food but edge of town supermarkets have been stealing that market for many years now. We may be just left with a few cafes and bar.
JohnB
24 Nov 2008, 11:54 PM
I spent a while around Cardigan in the summer (tempted to move to the area I'm afraid!), and quite liked the town centre. There were some signs of decay though, and with Tesco and Lidl (or Aldi) well up the road, Somerfield hidden round the back, and I read there's to be another supermarket, there's not much hope for food shopping in the high street. It's a pretty remote area so I wonder where people`will go to shop if it closes down, and travel becomes difficult. You can't buy everything on the web.
GBP-Keith
25 Nov 2008, 12:08 PM
It is a nice town John but over the last six months or so it has been suffering from the impending recession. The threat of an in-town superstore has receded but frankly a shopkeepers lot is a sorry one at the moment and I'm minded to go into every shop and shake their hand, but what they really need is for us to buy stuff from them. However this goes against the grain of being a greenie!
We need to face up to the fact that anti-consumerism, if it takes hold (I seriously doubt that it will) is likely to kill the town centre.
Maj243
26 Nov 2008, 3:16 PM
Such a shame. Woolworths is a key retailer in most towns, if they were to shut it could change the townscape forever. I remember visiting woolworths when I was barely out of the pram and that is going back some way! it is an institution.
GBP-Keith
30 Nov 2008, 12:22 PM
I have heard that the insurers of suppliers have pulled the plug on guaranteeing payment so the stocks in 'woolies' shops is likely to start falling off now.
Perhaps the government should put a drop of the ocean of taxpayers money that they have promised/given to the banks into guaranteeing the payments to 'woolies' suppliers so the stores can find a way forward with a bit more time.
Then the firms should transfer lock-stock and barrel to ethical, organic and fairtrade goods.
