politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » Covered market: the politics of towns

System · January 2020

politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » Covered market: the politics of towns

Since the election, talk of towns has been the talk of the political town. Labour politicians and Conservative politicians alike have concluded that is the key to political success right now.

Read the full story here

Nigelb · January 2020

An interesting article, Alastair.

DecrepiterJohnL · January 2020

You have to wonder if pedestrianisation (as shown in the header photograph of Reading) helps or hinders -- more footfall but harder to buy very much if you need to lug it half a mile to the car or bus stop. Good for coffee shops but less so for supermarkets and DIY stores, perhaps.

Sandpit · January 2020

DecrepiterJohnL said:
You have to wonder if pedestrianisation (as shown in the header photograph of Reading) helps or hinders -- more footfall but harder to buy very much if you need to lug it half a mile to the car or bus stop. Good for coffee shops but less so for supermarkets and DIY stores, perhaps.

The single biggest issue in most towns in parking. There isn't enough of it, it's far too expensive and it's often enforced by people who could at best described as jobsworth zealots - or worse, automatic numberplate readers. People don't want to pay a tenner in parking to still have to walk half a mile with their purchases, and they sure as hell don't want to spend half an hour getting on a bus to the park and ride with their hands full of bags and children. So Amazon and Ocado it is, then.

Fishing · January 2020

An interesting article. I think that points one and two apply everywhere, not just to towns. It's point three that has really kicked many of our towns in the balls (though probably not Reading, the town apparently pictured).

Also, I note it's not just the UK with this issue - in many ways it affects towns in the United States worse, as they are often much more distant from prosperous cities.

An obvious solution would be to stop wasting money on foreign aid and spend it on problems nearer to home.

tlg86 · January 2020

Interesting piece, thanks Alastair. I wonder how much people care about this. The media - the BBC in particular - give this issue a disproportionate amount of attention in my opinion.

DecrepiterJohnL · January 2020

tlg86 said:
Interesting piece, thanks Alastair. I wonder how much people care about this. The media - the BBC in particular - give this issue a disproportionate amount of attention in my opinion.

One imagines people care about their town in particular, even if not towns in general.

ydoethur · January 2020

That’s a truly bizarre list. I don’t know who drew it up or what their criteria was, but they don’t have a clue what is or isn’t a small, medium or large town. For example, Carlisle is a large town, while Cannock, 20% larger, is a medium town. You might, quite rightly, point out that in context Carlisle is far more important as a local centre than Cannock - until you remember Aberystwyth is more important than either of them in its regional context and is classified as a ‘small town.’

They haven’t even included quite a large number of towns, while including other settlements that are not towns at all. (Again, Carlisle is a city).

If this is the work of Lisa Nandy, it’s putting me right off her.

Casino_Royale · January 2020

Sandpit said:

DecrepiterJohnL said:
You have to wonder if pedestrianisation (as shown in the header photograph of Reading) helps or hinders -- more footfall but harder to buy very much if you need to lug it half a mile to the car or bus stop. Good for coffee shops but less so for supermarkets and DIY stores, perhaps.
The single biggest issue in most towns in parking. There isn't enough of it, it's far too expensive and it's often enforced by people who could at best described as jobsworth zealots - or worse, automatic numberplate readers. People don't want to pay a tenner in parking to still have to walk half a mile with their purchases, and they sure as hell don't want to spend half an hour getting on a bus to the park and ride with their hands full of bags and children. So Amazon and Ocado it is, then.

Winchester has a park and ride. I don't think I've ever used it.

I pay about £5-£7 to park right in the very centre for 3-4 hours. Now, I can afford that but many people can't and end up having to choose whether to lug it with spaghetti arms on buses, or order from home on Amazon and have it delivered to them. Often at a lower price too.

It's not surprising that many choose the latter.

ydoethur · January 2020

Casino_Royale said:

Sandpit said:

DecrepiterJohnL said:
You have to wonder if pedestrianisation (as shown in the header photograph of Reading) helps or hinders -- more footfall but harder to buy very much if you need to lug it half a mile to the car or bus stop. Good for coffee shops but less so for supermarkets and DIY stores, perhaps.
The single biggest issue in most towns in parking. There isn't enough of it, it's far too expensive and it's often enforced by people who could at best described as jobsworth zealots - or worse, automatic numberplate readers. People don't want to pay a tenner in parking to still have to walk half a mile with their purchases, and they sure as hell don't want to spend half an hour getting on a bus to the park and ride with their hands full of bags and children. So Amazon and Ocado it is, then.
Winchester has a park and ride. I don't think I've ever used it.

I have. It cost about that anyway and it was a right bugger to find a space.

Casino_Royale · January 2020

On topic, good article.

Free parking for two hours (or refundable with a local purchase) and a major reform of business rates would be good places to start rejuvenating high streets. Their future is in becoming social destinations (sitting behind a computer ordering with a click of a mouse button is never going to provide that) and engendering enough local civic pride with its shops and facilities that venturing into something people want to do.

Shifting the primary business tax base from physical shops to digital ones is a real challenge for the Exchequer but one that needs to be done in the medium term.

DecrepiterJohnL · January 2020

ydoethur said:
That’s a truly bizarre list. I don’t know who drew it up or what their criteria was, but they don’t have a clue what is or isn’t a small, medium or large town. For example, Carlisle is a large town, while Cannock, 20% larger, is a medium town. You might, quite rightly, point out that in context Carlisle is far more important as a local centre than Cannock - until you remember Aberystwyth is more important than either of them in its regional context and is classified as a ‘small town.’

They haven’t even included quite a large number of towns, while including other settlements that are not towns at all. (Again, Carlisle is a city).

If this is the work of Lisa Nandy, it’s putting me right off her.

Classification into small, medium and large towns is on the basis of population.

550 small towns with between 10,000 and 30,000 residents
242 medium towns with between 30,000 and 75,000 residents
102 large towns with over 75,000 residents
https://www.centrefortowns.org/our-towns

ydoethur · January 2020

DecrepiterJohnL said:

ydoethur said:
That’s a truly bizarre list. I don’t know who drew it up or what their criteria was, but they don’t have a clue what is or isn’t a small, medium or large town. For example, Carlisle is a large town, while Cannock, 20% larger, is a medium town. You might, quite rightly, point out that in context Carlisle is far more important as a local centre than Cannock - until you remember Aberystwyth is more important than either of them in its regional context and is classified as a ‘small town.’

They haven’t even included quite a large number of towns, while including other settlements that are not towns at all. (Again, Carlisle is a city).

If this is the work of Lisa Nandy, it’s putting me right off her.
Classification into small, medium and large towns is on the basis of population.

550 small towns with between 10,000 and 30,000 residents
242 medium towns with between 30,000 and 75,000 residents
102 large towns with over 75,000 residents
https://www.centrefortowns.org/our-towns

Well, they haven’t even got that right. For example, Dursley has 7,000 inhabitants and is defined as a ‘town’. The only way they could have got it over 10,000 is to include its satellites, notably Cam and possibly Stinchcombe. But if you use that logic, Cannock (‘medium town’) has 90,000 inhabitants.

But in any case, population is an extremely poor metric to use for the importance of an urban settlement. Let’s take Cardigan. Tiny place, very remote, few people could pick it out on a map. I suspect for most people it’s a bay, not a town. Yet its relative importance would be considerably greater than that of say, Tamworth. That’s also reflected in the quality and variety of shops you find in their respective town centres. (And yes, even with just 2000 inhabitants Cardigan is most definitely a town.) So much depends on the geographical context, a context these people have simply not considered.

That list, as much as anything else, exposes Labour’s embarrassing ignorance about Britain outside its metropolitan centres and their lack of understanding of its complexity - and therefore the complexity of its problems.

squareroot2 · January 2020

Casino_Royale said:

Sandpit said:

DecrepiterJohnL said:
You have to wonder if pedestrianisation (as shown in the header photograph of Reading) helps or hinders -- more footfall but harder to buy very much if you need to lug it half a mile to the car or bus stop. Good for coffee shops but less so for supermarkets and DIY stores, perhaps.
The single biggest issue in most towns in parking. There isn't enough of it, it's far too expensive and it's often enforced by people who could at best described as jobsworth zealots - or worse, automatic numberplate readers. People don't want to pay a tenner in parking to still have to walk half a mile with their purchases, and they sure as hell don't want to spend half an hour getting on a bus to the park and ride with their hands full of bags and children. So Amazon and Ocado it is, then.
Winchester has a park and ride. I don't think I've ever used it.

I pay about £5-£7 to park right in the very centre for 3-4 hours. Now, I can afford that but many people can't and end up having to choose whether to lug it with spaghetti arms on buses, or order from home on Amazon and have it delivered to them. Often at a lower price too.

It's not surprising that many choose the latter.

We have a Sainsburys 30 mins free and its I think 10 for 2 hrs unless you spend £10 in Sainsburys,. I am a lot quicker on my feet these days, most can be accomplished in 30 mins, but if it cannot, a couple of of bottles of decent Chianti does the job (more than £10 I hasten to add). There is also a large Tesco out of town that is free to park, but I don't like it and only go there rarely to do a "big" / heavy shop for dog and cat food.

Dura_Ace · January 2020

Gammons, prepare yourselves for anger.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-01-26/madeline-diamond-climate-statement-australian-of-year-awards/11901788

IanB2 · January 2020

DecrepiterJohnL said:
You have to wonder if pedestrianisation (as shown in the header photograph of Reading) helps or hinders -- more footfall but harder to buy very much if you need to lug it half a mile to the car or bus stop. Good for coffee shops but less so for supermarkets and DIY stores, perhaps.

There’s a view that town high streets have two futures - either the future is residential, as in most villages where the butchers shops and post offices of the past are now someone’s home and there aren’t any shops left at all - or it as some sort of meeting place with a predominance of cafes and restaurants with any remaining retail being ancillary and incidental. Instead of going into town to do your shopping and having a snack while you are there, you go into town to meet friends for lunch and might happen to buy something while you are there.

Pedestrianisation is seen as something to enhance the prospects of the latter, creating a safer and more pleasant environment (at least in the daytime) and opening up street space as outside space for cafes.

The challenges are maintaining accessibility including parking, and that the British weather doesn’t always lend itself to the kind of street living found in Europe.

IanB2 · January 2020

DecrepiterJohnL said:

ydoethur said:
That’s a truly bizarre list. I don’t know who drew it up or what their criteria was, but they don’t have a clue what is or isn’t a small, medium or large town. For example, Carlisle is a large town, while Cannock, 20% larger, is a medium town. You might, quite rightly, point out that in context Carlisle is far more important as a local centre than Cannock - until you remember Aberystwyth is more important than either of them in its regional context and is classified as a ‘small town.’

They haven’t even included quite a large number of towns, while including other settlements that are not towns at all. (Again, Carlisle is a city).

If this is the work of Lisa Nandy, it’s putting me right off her.
Classification into small, medium and large towns is on the basis of population.

550 small towns with between 10,000 and 30,000 residents
242 medium towns with between 30,000 and 75,000 residents
102 large towns with over 75,000 residents
https://www.centrefortowns.org/our-towns

There clearly are plenty of places with fewer than 10,000 residents that are towns and not villages. In historical times wasn’t the decider whether they had a weekly market?

ydoethur · January 2020

IanB2 said:

DecrepiterJohnL said:

ydoethur said:
That’s a truly bizarre list. I don’t know who drew it up or what their criteria was, but they don’t have a clue what is or isn’t a small, medium or large town. For example, Carlisle is a large town, while Cannock, 20% larger, is a medium town. You might, quite rightly, point out that in context Carlisle is far more important as a local centre than Cannock - until you remember Aberystwyth is more important than either of them in its regional context and is classified as a ‘small town.’

They haven’t even included quite a large number of towns, while including other settlements that are not towns at all. (Again, Carlisle is a city).

If this is the work of Lisa Nandy, it’s putting me right off her.
Classification into small, medium and large towns is on the basis of population.

550 small towns with between 10,000 and 30,000 residents
242 medium towns with between 30,000 and 75,000 residents
102 large towns with over 75,000 residents
https://www.centrefortowns.org/our-towns
There clearly are plenty of places with fewer than 10,000 residents that are towns and not villages. In historical times wasn’t the decider whether they had a weekly market?

Well, technically the decider is what the local council is. If it’s a town or borough council, it’s a town. If it’s a city council, it’s a city. If it’s a village council, it’s a village.

In historic times, it was as I understand it dependant on whether (a) it was walled or (b) it had the right to hold a market. But the latter was granted to create a town, not as a consequence of it.

DecrepiterJohnL · January 2020

ydoethur said:

DecrepiterJohnL said:

ydoethur said:
That’s a truly bizarre list. I don’t know who drew it up or what their criteria was, but they don’t have a clue what is or isn’t a small, medium or large town. For example, Carlisle is a large town, while Cannock, 20% larger, is a medium town. You might, quite rightly, point out that in context Carlisle is far more important as a local centre than Cannock - until you remember Aberystwyth is more important than either of them in its regional context and is classified as a ‘small town.’

They haven’t even included quite a large number of towns, while including other settlements that are not towns at all. (Again, Carlisle is a city).

If this is the work of Lisa Nandy, it’s putting me right off her.
Classification into small, medium and large towns is on the basis of population.

550 small towns with between 10,000 and 30,000 residents
242 medium towns with between 30,000 and 75,000 residents
102 large towns with over 75,000 residents
https://www.centrefortowns.org/our-towns
Well, they haven’t even got that right. For example, Dursley has 7,000 inhabitants and is defined as a ‘town’. The only way they could have got it over 10,000 is to include its satellites, notably Cam and possibly Stinchcombe. But if you use that logic, Cannock (‘medium town’) has 90,000 inhabitants.

But in any case, population is an extremely poor metric to use for the importance of an urban settlement. Let’s take Cardigan. Tiny place, very remote, few people could pick it out on a map. I suspect for most people it’s a bay, not a town. Yet its relative importance would be considerably greater than that of say, Tamworth. That’s also reflected in the quality and variety of shops you find in their respective town centres. (And yes, even with just 2000 inhabitants Cardigan is most definitely a town.) So much depends on the geographical context, a context these people have simply not considered.

That list, as much as anything else, exposes Labour’s embarrassing ignorance about Britain outside its metropolitan centres and their lack of understanding of its complexity - and therefore the complexity of its problems.

Not Labour, but in any case the number of inhabitants is not the only classification they use. It is, however, the metric also adopted by parliament.
https://researchbriefings.parliament.uk/ResearchBriefing/Summary/CBP-8322

Centre for Towns also divides towns into: Ex-industrial towns; University towns; Market towns; New towns; Commuter towns; and Coastal towns. So far as I can see, they do not claim population is a measure of importance. Click around the site before attacking any more straw men.

ydoethur · January 2020

DecrepiterJohnL said:

Not Labour, but in any case the number of inhabitants is not the only classification they use. It is, however, the metric also adopted by parliament.
https://researchbriefings.parliament.uk/ResearchBriefing/Summary/CBP-8322

Centre for Towns also divides towns into: Ex-industrial towns; University towns; Market towns; New towns; Commuter towns; and Coastal towns. So far as I can see, they do not claim population is a measure of importance. Click around the site before attacking any more straw men.

I have, and it was launched by a Labour organisation with a view to reconnecting Labour with small towns.

The fact Parliament’s draftsmen are equally ignorant of life outside Watford in no way invalidates my point.

Morris_Dancer · January 2020

Good morning, everyone.

Mr. Sandpit, parking's a big issue in Leeds. Most people I know, with cars, prefer to take the bus/train to get there because parking's such a pain in the arse.

On top of that, there were mutterings a few months ago about 'going green' by increasing charges on vehicles that aren't clean enough. Which includes most taxis and buses, which will, in turn, increase costs on consumers.

Jonathan · January 2020

More expensive, less choice, less reliable , time consuming and subject to weather. Why town centre shopping struggles with the Internet.

It has two benefits, personal service and immediacy.

felix · January 2020

Interesting that the Beeb has recognised it's Londoncentric problem by suggesting it moves Nick Robinson from the left liberal capital to the capital of the left liberal north - Manchester. What could possibly go wrong?

MattW · January 2020

ydoethur said:

Casino_Royale said:

Sandpit said:

DecrepiterJohnL said:
You have to wonder if pedestrianisation (as shown in the header photograph of Reading) helps or hinders -- more footfall but harder to buy very much if you need to lug it half a mile to the car or bus stop. Good for coffee shops but less so for supermarkets and DIY stores, perhaps.
The single biggest issue in most towns in parking. There isn't enough of it, it's far too expensive and it's often enforced by people who could at best described as jobsworth zealots - or worse, automatic numberplate readers. People don't want to pay a tenner in parking to still have to walk half a mile with their purchases, and they sure as hell don't want to spend half an hour getting on a bus to the park and ride with their hands full of bags and children. So Amazon and Ocado it is, then.
Winchester has a park and ride. I don't think I've ever used it.
I have. It cost about that anyway and it was a right bugger to find a space.

Successful scheme, then :-)

DecrepiterJohnL · January 2020

IanB2 said:

DecrepiterJohnL said:
Classification into small, medium and large towns is on the basis of population.

550 small towns with between 10,000 and 30,000 residents
242 medium towns with between 30,000 and 75,000 residents
102 large towns with over 75,000 residents
https://www.centrefortowns.org/our-towns
There clearly are plenty of places with fewer than 10,000 residents that are towns and not villages. In historical times wasn’t the decider whether they had a weekly market?

From the Centre for Towns site:

Identifying a ‘town’ isn’t as easy as one might think. If one were to ask a sample of residents from any town to draw the boundaries of their town there would likely be many different responses. The Centre has created a database of around seven thousand places across the United Kingdom, ranging in size from villages to small towns to large towns and cities. Those towns have been further categorised where possible into types of towns:

Seaside towns – towns with over 10,000 residents with a significant non-estuary coastal boundary. Examples include Rhyl, Blackpool, and Grimsby.
University towns – towns with a university and a significant proportion of resident students. Examples include Lancaster, Huddersfield, Aberystwyth, Canterbury and Loughborough.
Ex-industrial towns – towns which were formerly the home of heavy industry, but which have found it difficult to adapt to a decline in those industries. Examples include Redcar, Rotherham, Merthyr Tydfil, Greenock and Mansfield.
Commuter towns – towns which are within a relatively easy commuting distance of our cities and which are attractive to commuters for that reason. Examples include Luton, Maidenhead, Canterbury and Halesowen.
Market towns – small to medium-sized semi-rural towns with traditional market ‘rights’. Examples include Skipton, Abingdon, Market Harborough, Ludlow and Hexham.
New towns – designated new towns such as Milton Keynes, Stevenage and Harlow

But classifying towns into small, medium and large by population seems perfectly valid. You could argue that doing it by council tax revenue or number of shops or bus routes would be valid for different purposes but that is not to invalidate simply counting people.

ydoethur · January 2020

DecrepiterJohnL said:

IanB2 said:

DecrepiterJohnL said:
Classification into small, medium and large towns is on the basis of population.

550 small towns with between 10,000 and 30,000 residents
242 medium towns with between 30,000 and 75,000 residents
102 large towns with over 75,000 residents
https://www.centrefortowns.org/our-towns
There clearly are plenty of places with fewer than 10,000 residents that are towns and not villages. In historical times wasn’t the decider whether they had a weekly market?
From the Centre for Towns site:

Identifying a ‘town’ isn’t as easy as one might think. If one were to ask a sample of residents from any town to draw the boundaries of their town there would likely be many different responses. The Centre has created a database of around seven thousand places across the United Kingdom, ranging in size from villages to small towns to large towns and cities. Those towns have been further categorised where possible into types of towns:

Seaside towns – towns with over 10,000 residents with a significant non-estuary coastal boundary. Examples include Rhyl, Blackpool, and Grimsby.
University towns – towns with a university and a significant proportion of resident students. Examples include Lancaster, Huddersfield, Aberystwyth, Canterbury and Loughborough.
Ex-industrial towns – towns which were formerly the home of heavy industry, but which have found it difficult to adapt to a decline in those industries. Examples include Redcar, Rotherham, Merthyr Tydfil, Greenock and Mansfield.
Commuter towns – towns which are within a relatively easy commuting distance of our cities and which are attractive to commuters for that reason. Examples include Luton, Maidenhead, Canterbury and Halesowen.
Market towns – small to medium-sized semi-rural towns with traditional market ‘rights’. Examples include Skipton, Abingdon, Market Harborough, Ludlow and Hexham.
New towns – designated new towns such as Milton Keynes, Stevenage and Harlow

But classifying towns into small, medium and large by population seems perfectly valid. You could argue that doing it by council tax revenue or number of shops or bus routes would be valid for different purposes but that is not to invalidate simply counting people.

That might be a valid argument if they had got population figures right to start with. As they haven’t, however...

As it happens, however, their argument doesn’t stand up to scrutiny. Relative size to the local area is what matters, and defines the success, resilience and versatility of a town.

DayTripper · January 2020

Reading is an interesting case. When I first lived there (leaving only 32 years later, more fool me) it started off as the archetypal town. Companies such as Beefeater inns were reputed to test out new menus there because it was the "average" population. However, at the time it also suffered from a very obvious lack of facilities, especially as a huge new housing development (Lower Earley) was being built on the outskirts of town. Developments were started and not finished; for many years the inner ring road finished as a ski jump rather than a flyover. (The third Thames Crossing never got built, unless they've started since I left, because Oxfordshire objected to the possibility that all these Berkshire oiks might come over to live in their county, conveniently ignoring the fact that all *their* people crossed the river to work in the M4 corridor).

Then things changed. Broad St (pictured) got pedestrianised, they built the Oracle shopping centre, big and glitzy stores moved in. This shifted the centre of gravity away from the Thames and the railway station. Friar St, which had previously been an equally busy shopping street, had to reinvent itself and turned into a party street, full of huge bars, comedy clubs, and the like, People used to flock in from all over on the train, spend the evening cruising between bars, taking the late train home to throw up all over the place.

It's been a few years since I went back there, but I gather quite a few of the bars have gone. Shops like House of Fraser in the Oracle shopping centre are closing down. A lot of the employers that used to be around (computer companies such as the one I used to work for) have gone, merged, retrenched. A lot of the residents are commuters, with fast trains into Paddington (and Crossrail, sometime), which led to the development of huge numbers of flats within walking distance of the station. I guess the town is still prosperous, but I have no doubt reinvention will take place; it's still within the gravitational pull of London and thus unlikely to suffer terminal decline.

IanB2 · January 2020

ydoethur said:

IanB2 said:

DecrepiterJohnL said:

ydoethur said:
That’s a truly bizarre list. I don’t know who drew it up or what their criteria was, but they don’t have a clue what is or isn’t a small, medium or large town. For example, Carlisle is a large town, while Cannock, 20% larger, is a medium town. You might, quite rightly, point out that in context Carlisle is far more important as a local centre than Cannock - until you remember Aberystwyth is more important than either of them in its regional context and is classified as a ‘small town.’

They haven’t even included quite a large number of towns, while including other settlements that are not towns at all. (Again, Carlisle is a city).

If this is the work of Lisa Nandy, it’s putting me right off her.
Classification into small, medium and large towns is on the basis of population.

550 small towns with between 10,000 and 30,000 residents
242 medium towns with between 30,000 and 75,000 residents
102 large towns with over 75,000 residents
https://www.centrefortowns.org/our-towns
There clearly are plenty of places with fewer than 10,000 residents that are towns and not villages. In historical times wasn’t the decider whether they had a weekly market?
Well, technically the decider is what the local council is. If it’s a town or borough council, it’s a town. If it’s a city council, it’s a city. If it’s a village council, it’s a village.

In historic times, it was as I understand it dependant on whether (a) it was walled or (b) it had the right to hold a market. But the latter was granted to create a town, not as a consequence of it.

A village council is a parish council (some parishes containing more than one village). Whether it renames itself a town council is up to the council itself, and apart from its chair becoming a mayor there isn’t any difference.

IshmaelZ · January 2020

Dura_Ace said:
Gammons, prepare yourselves for anger.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-01-26/madeline-diamond-climate-statement-australian-of-year-awards/11901788

Pound shop Greta. Takes more than that to get me apoplexing these days, I'm afraid.

OldKingCole · January 2020

ydoethur said:

IanB2 said:

DecrepiterJohnL said:

ydoethur said:
That’s a truly bizarre list. I don’t know who drew it up or what their criteria was, but they don’t have a clue what is or isn’t a small, medium or large town. For example, Carlisle is a large town, while Cannock, 20% larger, is a medium town. You might, quite rightly, point out that in context Carlisle is far more important as a local centre than Cannock - until you remember Aberystwyth is more important than either of them in its regional context and is classified as a ‘small town.’

They haven’t even included quite a large number of towns, while including other settlements that are not towns at all. (Again, Carlisle is a city).

If this is the work of Lisa Nandy, it’s putting me right off her.
Classification into small, medium and large towns is on the basis of population.

550 small towns with between 10,000 and 30,000 residents
242 medium towns with between 30,000 and 75,000 residents
102 large towns with over 75,000 residents
https://www.centrefortowns.org/our-towns
There clearly are plenty of places with fewer than 10,000 residents that are towns and not villages. In historical times wasn’t the decider whether they had a weekly market?
Well, technically the decider is what the local council is. If it’s a town or borough council, it’s a town. If it’s a city council, it’s a city. If it’s a village council, it’s a village.

In historic times, it was as I understand it dependant on whether (a) it was walled or (b) it had the right to hold a market. But the latter was granted to create a town, not as a consequence of it.

Good morning everyone. There is a 'community' locally (pop ca 6000) where there is a long-running argument was to whether it is a town or a village,It has a market, and has had, albeit with a short break, since the time of Henry III.
Generally speaking it's the newcomers, generally middle-class commuters, who refer to it as a village.

DecrepiterJohnL · January 2020

ydoethur said:

DecrepiterJohnL said:

Not Labour, but in any case the number of inhabitants is not the only classification they use. It is, however, the metric also adopted by parliament.
https://researchbriefings.parliament.uk/ResearchBriefing/Summary/CBP-8322

Centre for Towns also divides towns into: Ex-industrial towns; University towns; Market towns; New towns; Commuter towns; and Coastal towns. So far as I can see, they do not claim population is a measure of importance. Click around the site before attacking any more straw men.
I have, and it was launched by a Labour organisation with a view to reconnecting Labour with small towns.

The fact Parliament’s draftsmen are equally ignorant of life outside Watford in no way invalidates my point.

You may as well complain Sir Isaac Newton classified falling apples by their mass and not by their colour or variety. He was inventing gravity not painting a still life or baking a pie. Same with measuring "towns" by population or whether they have markets but not cathedrals. Different measures for different purposes.

OldKingCole · January 2020

MattW said:

ydoethur said:

Casino_Royale said:

Sandpit said:

DecrepiterJohnL said:
You have to wonder if pedestrianisation (as shown in the header photograph of Reading) helps or hinders -- more footfall but harder to buy very much if you need to lug it half a mile to the car or bus stop. Good for coffee shops but less so for supermarkets and DIY stores, perhaps.
The single biggest issue in most towns in parking. There isn't enough of it, it's far too expensive and it's often enforced by people who could at best described as jobsworth zealots - or worse, automatic numberplate readers. People don't want to pay a tenner in parking to still have to walk half a mile with their purchases, and they sure as hell don't want to spend half an hour getting on a bus to the park and ride with their hands full of bags and children. So Amazon and Ocado it is, then.
Winchester has a park and ride. I don't think I've ever used it.
I have. It cost about that anyway and it was a right bugger to find a space.
Successful scheme, then :-)

Chelmsford has an excellent Park and Ride. One North of the city, one South, and from the Northern site a minibus suns regularly to the local hospital. Which is Good Thing because parking at the hospital is totally inadequate.

IshmaelZ · January 2020

Vehicle size inflation has a lot to do with it. If you change from a car size car to a Discovery type thingy you find that street size parking spaces and multi stories are suddenly out of bounds, and therefore so are town centres.

MattW · January 2020

Interesting piece, Alistair.

I do not see these failing "larger cities". Manchester, Leeds, Brum all seem to be doing reasonably well.

The key item being that they are all well connected transport wise to the national economony.

Which is why HS2 and HS3 just both need to be built, with or without the billions of extra gold plated tunnels wished on it by Nimbys in the SE. It is to do with basic plumbing for a 21C economy.

The other proven ace imo is suburban / metro transport systems, which have been built across the Midlands / North over the last 30 years and are a huge unsung success.

ydoethur · January 2020

OldKingCole said:

ydoethur said:

IanB2 said:

DecrepiterJohnL said:

ydoethur said:
That’s a truly bizarre list. I don’t know who drew it up or what their criteria was, but they don’t have a clue what is or isn’t a small, medium or large town. For example, Carlisle is a large town, while Cannock, 20% larger, is a medium town. You might, quite rightly, point out that in context Carlisle is far more important as a local centre than Cannock - until you remember Aberystwyth is more important than either of them in its regional context and is classified as a ‘small town.’

They haven’t even included quite a large number of towns, while including other settlements that are not towns at all. (Again, Carlisle is a city).

If this is the work of Lisa Nandy, it’s putting me right off her.
Classification into small, medium and large towns is on the basis of population.

550 small towns with between 10,000 and 30,000 residents
242 medium towns with between 30,000 and 75,000 residents
102 large towns with over 75,000 residents
https://www.centrefortowns.org/our-towns
There clearly are plenty of places with fewer than 10,000 residents that are towns and not villages. In historical times wasn’t the decider whether they had a weekly market?
Well, technically the decider is what the local council is. If it’s a town or borough council, it’s a town. If it’s a city council, it’s a city. If it’s a village council, it’s a village.

In historic times, it was as I understand it dependant on whether (a) it was walled or (b) it had the right to hold a market. But the latter was granted to create a town, not as a consequence of it.
Good morning everyone. There is a 'community' locally (pop ca 6000) where there is a long-running argument was to whether it is a town or a village,It has a market, and has had, albeit with a short break, since the time of Henry III.
Generally speaking it's the newcomers, generally middle-class commuters, who refer to it as a village.

Does it have a Lord High Executioner?

OldKingCole · January 2020

ydoethur said:

OldKingCole said:

ydoethur said:

IanB2 said:

DecrepiterJohnL said:

ydoethur said:
That’s a truly bizarre list. I don’t know who drew it up or what their criteria was, but they don’t have a clue what is or isn’t a small, medium or large town. For example, Carlisle is a large town, while Cannock, 20% larger, is a medium town. You might, quite rightly, point out that in context Carlisle is far more important as a local centre than Cannock - until you remember Aberystwyth is more important than either of them in its regional context and is classified as a ‘small town.’

They haven’t even included quite a large number of towns, while including other settlements that are not towns at all. (Again, Carlisle is a city).

If this is the work of Lisa Nandy, it’s putting me right off her.
Classification into small, medium and large towns is on the basis of population.

550 small towns with between 10,000 and 30,000 residents
242 medium towns with between 30,000 and 75,000 residents
102 large towns with over 75,000 residents
https://www.centrefortowns.org/our-towns
There clearly are plenty of places with fewer than 10,000 residents that are towns and not villages. In historical times wasn’t the decider whether they had a weekly market?
Well, technically the decider is what the local council is. If it’s a town or borough council, it’s a town. If it’s a city council, it’s a city. If it’s a village council, it’s a village.

In historic times, it was as I understand it dependant on whether (a) it was walled or (b) it had the right to hold a market. But the latter was granted to create a town, not as a consequence of it.
Good morning everyone. There is a 'community' locally (pop ca 6000) where there is a long-running argument was to whether it is a town or a village,It has a market, and has had, albeit with a short break, since the time of Henry III.
Generally speaking it's the newcomers, generally middle-class commuters, who refer to it as a village.
Does it have a Lord High Executioner?

Not yet, but no-one dares let their dog foul the pavement. Public excoriation on Facebook follows.

MattW · January 2020

IshmaelZ said:

Dura_Ace said:
Gammons, prepare yourselves for anger.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-01-26/madeline-diamond-climate-statement-australian-of-year-awards/11901788
Pound shop Greta. Takes more than that to get me apoplexing these days, I'm afraid.

Slightly older abusive schoolgirl. Are we supposed to be bovvered (said Tony) other than when she occasionally alights on something coherent?

Just pity the mother.

matt · January 2020

How very PB. It’s an engaging piece (although there’s not much new there other than the thought that Labour has little to gain from a sub-metro area focus) and one finds:

A. Expats commenting on parking;

B. A pointless argument over the detail of what is big, small and medium, rather than engaging in the thrust and its political consequence; and

C. Inevitably, the troll sitting in the corner shouting about “gammons” while failing to realise that every of of his predictions has turned to dust.

AlastairMeeks · January 2020

MattW said:
Interesting piece, Alistair.

I do not see these failing "larger cities". Manchester, Leeds, Brum all seem to be doing reasonably well.

The key item being that they are all well connected transport wise to the national economony.

Which is why HS2 and HS3 just both need to be built, with or without the billions of extra gold plated tunnels wished on it by Nimbys in the SE. It is to do with basic plumbing for a 21C economy.

The other proven ace imo is suburban / metro transport systems, which have been built across the Midlands / North over the last 30 years and are a huge unsung success.

That’s a whole new article, one I might write at some point. But here’s a taste of the problem:

https://www.citymetric.com/business/chart-shows-how-badly-britain-s-major-cities-are-underperforming-economically-2477

https://www.corecities.com/publications/new-report-underlines-power-and-potential-core-cities-drive-post-brexit-growth

MarqueeMark · January 2020

DecrepiterJohnL said:

IanB2 said:

DecrepiterJohnL said:
Classification into small, medium and large towns is on the basis of population.

550 small towns with between 10,000 and 30,000 residents
242 medium towns with between 30,000 and 75,000 residents
102 large towns with over 75,000 residents
https://www.centrefortowns.org/our-towns
There clearly are plenty of places with fewer than 10,000 residents that are towns and not villages. In historical times wasn’t the decider whether they had a weekly market?
From the Centre for Towns site:

Identifying a ‘town’ isn’t as easy as one might think. If one were to ask a sample of residents from any town to draw the boundaries of their town there would likely be many different responses. The Centre has created a database of around seven thousand places across the United Kingdom, ranging in size from villages to small towns to large towns and cities. Those towns have been further categorised where possible into types of towns:

Seaside towns – towns with over 10,000 residents with a significant non-estuary coastal boundary. Examples include Rhyl, Blackpool, and Grimsby.
University towns – towns with a university and a significant proportion of resident students. Examples include Lancaster, Huddersfield, Aberystwyth, Canterbury and Loughborough.
Ex-industrial towns – towns which were formerly the home of heavy industry, but which have found it difficult to adapt to a decline in those industries. Examples include Redcar, Rotherham, Merthyr Tydfil, Greenock and Mansfield.
Commuter towns – towns which are within a relatively easy commuting distance of our cities and which are attractive to commuters for that reason. Examples include Luton, Maidenhead, Canterbury and Halesowen.
Market towns – small to medium-sized semi-rural towns with traditional market ‘rights’. Examples include Skipton, Abingdon, Market Harborough, Ludlow and Hexham.
New towns – designated new towns such as Milton Keynes, Stevenage and Harlow

But classifying towns into small, medium and large by population seems perfectly valid. You could argue that doing it by council tax revenue or number of shops or bus routes would be valid for different purposes but that is not to invalidate simply counting people.

I would say Grimsby is not a seaside town - that is its sister town, Cleethorpes. Grimsby is an ex-industrial town, fishing having departed and having found it difficult to adapt to a decline in that industry.

DecrepiterJohnL · January 2020

Yes, Minister on regenerating Northern towns.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y9oKo-QvBpo

MattW · January 2020

AlastairMeeks said:

MattW said:
Interesting piece, Alistair.

I do not see these failing "larger cities". Manchester, Leeds, Brum all seem to be doing reasonably well.

The key item being that they are all well connected transport wise to the national economony.

Which is why HS2 and HS3 just both need to be built, with or without the billions of extra gold plated tunnels wished on it by Nimbys in the SE. It is to do with basic plumbing for a 21C economy.

The other proven ace imo is suburban / metro transport systems, which have been built across the Midlands / North over the last 30 years and are a huge unsung success.
That’s a whole new article, one I might write at some point. But here’s a taste of the problem:

https://www.citymetric.com/business/chart-shows-how-badly-britain-s-major-cities-are-underperforming-economically-2477

https://www.corecities.com/publications/new-report-underlines-power-and-potential-core-cities-drive-post-brexit-growth

Cheers.

One of the stats that interests me .... again tangential ... is the 20% modal shift from air to rail achieved by the upgraded WCML on the Glasgow to London route. Though helped significantly by our very high Air Passenger Duty (which the Scottish Govt are about to cut off at the knees iirc).

I see one of the aims of HS2 / 3 / 4 to provide alternatives to air, which could then realistically be hit quite hard.

https://www.railnews.co.uk/news/2019/11/11-virgin-reports-record-modal-shift.html

Dura_Ace · January 2020

matt said:
How very PB. It’s an engaging piece (although there’s not much new there other than the thought that Labour has little to gain from a sub-metro area focus) and one finds:

A. Expats commenting on parking;

B. A pointless argument over the detail of what is big, small and medium, rather than engaging in the thrust and its political consequence; and

C. Inevitably, the troll sitting in the corner shouting about “gammons” while failing to realise that every of of his predictions has turned to dust.

You forgot:

D. YT clip from Yes, Minister

This is what's it's going to be like in the post Brexit thematic wasteland - shitposting about urban planning.

CatMan · January 2020

matt said:

A. Expats commenting on parking;

Migrants surely? Or Immigrants...

TGOHF666 · January 2020

There is strong evidence that having car free zones in urban centres leads to regrowth of retail and HORECA outlets.

Govt local and central could do a lot more to create these zones.

AlastairMeeks · January 2020

Dura_Ace said:

matt said:
How very PB. It’s an engaging piece (although there’s not much new there other than the thought that Labour has little to gain from a sub-metro area focus) and one finds:

A. Expats commenting on parking;

B. A pointless argument over the detail of what is big, small and medium, rather than engaging in the thrust and its political consequence; and

C. Inevitably, the troll sitting in the corner shouting about “gammons” while failing to realise that every of of his predictions has turned to dust.
You forgot:

D. YT clip from Yes, Minister

This is what's it's going to be like in the post Brexit thematic wasteland - shitposting about urban planning.

One can never have enough clips from Yes Minister. I only noticed recently how in so many clips one or more of the three main actors are desperately trying not to corpse.

kle4 · January 2020

Good header. Some parts are simple, some not, but no one caring about finances anymore provides an opportunity at least.

Nigelb · January 2020

This is not good news:
China’s national health minister Ma Xiaowei said the new coronavirus is also infectious during incubation, which is different from Sars....

SARS has a nearly two week incubation period, which made isolation and control pretty simple. This sounds a great deal tougher.

TGOHF666 · January 2020

Casino_Royale said:
On topic, good article.

Free parking for two hours (or refundable with a local purchase) and a major reform of business rates would be good places to start rejuvenating high streets. Their future is in becoming social destinations (sitting behind a computer ordering with a click of a mouse button is never going to provide that) and engendering enough local civic pride with its shops and facilities that venturing into something people want to do.

Shifting the primary business tax base from physical shops to digital ones is a real challenge for the Exchequer but one that needs to be done in the medium term.

Bit of an oxymoron - places where people want to spend time don’t need more cars
- quite the opposite.

MaxPB · January 2020

Business rate reform is probably the most pressing concern for town centres. The likes of Amazon and other online only retailers have extremely low rateable value of their consumer focused property (warehouses) compared high street retailers. The government needs to urgently address this by hugely increasing the rates for warehouses that are directly in the consumer supply chain (the goods stored are delivered to the end user, not to other businesses which then sell to the end user) and lowering the rates for high street shops.

That would remove the artificial killer of high street shops, then they would only need to contend with dickhead landlords, having too many staff and too few customers.

isam · January 2020

Our High St has started to charge £1.50 to park for even 10 mins, quite offputting for people who drive there. Big corporates find loopholes to pay very little tax while consumers are chased down for pennies to use local businesses it seems.

Here is a sad story of a local business having to close. I used to go there rather than use Amazon (sometimes), although their twitter account being run by Arch Remainers put me off a bit!

https://www.romfordrecorder.co.uk/news/upminster-s-swan-books-to-close-1-6447854

On the second point, it would be nice if the end result were fewer identikit high streets, more independent shops etc, lets hope so.

kle4 · January 2020

IanB2 said:

ydoethur said:

IanB2 said:

DecrepiterJohnL said:

ydoethur said:
That’s a truly bizarre list. I don’t know who drew it up or what their criteria was, but they don’t have a clue what is or isn’t a small, medium or large town. For example, Carlisle is a large town, while Cannock, 20% larger, is a medium town. You might, quite rightly, point out that in context Carlisle is far more important as a local centre than Cannock - until you remember Aberystwyth is more important than either of them in its regional context and is classified as a ‘small town.’

They haven’t even included quite a large number of towns, while including other settlements that are not towns at all. (Again, Carlisle is a city).

If this is the work of Lisa Nandy, it’s putting me right off her.
Classification into small, medium and large towns is on the basis of population.

550 small towns with between 10,000 and 30,000 residents
242 medium towns with between 30,000 and 75,000 residents
102 large towns with over 75,000 residents
https://www.centrefortowns.org/our-towns
There clearly are plenty of places with fewer than 10,000 residents that are towns and not villages. In historical times wasn’t the decider whether they had a weekly market?
Well, technically the decider is what the local council is. If it’s a town or borough council, it’s a town. If it’s a city council, it’s a city. If it’s a village council, it’s a village.

In historic times, it was as I understand it dependant on whether (a) it was walled or (b) it had the right to hold a market. But the latter was granted to create a town, not as a consequence of it.
A village council is a parish council (some parishes containing more than one village). Whether it renames itself a town council is up to the council itself, and apart from its chair becoming a mayor there isn’t any difference.

It's not up to the parish council or town council what to call itself, it's a decision of the principal authority of the area. Remarkably I know of several places which call themselves something which is not their legal name and they are always shocked to find out.

Interestingly if creating a new parish you can go by village council or community council rather than the typical parish/town/city council approach. I think community council might be the form in Wales?

But you're right it makes no difference in legal status. Though that doesn't stop some very town like areas furiously insist they are rural villages despite massive urban development. I've not seen that many go from parish to town in their name.

Nigelb · January 2020

Morris_Dancer said:
Good morning, everyone.

Mr. Sandpit, parking's a big issue in Leeds. Most people I know, with cars, prefer to take the bus/train to get there because parking's such a pain in the arse.

On top of that, there were mutterings a few months ago about 'going green' by increasing charges on vehicles that aren't clean enough. Which includes most taxis and buses, which will, in turn, increase costs on consumers.

Problems of growth, rather than decline, in the case of Leeds.

Big_G_NorthWales · January 2020

Llandudno has a wonderful high street with free 90 minute parking and that includes all the side streets and secondary shopping areas. There is a paid car park and paid parking is available along the promenade

Additionally the shopping centres have lots of free parking

Nigelb · January 2020

MattW said:

IshmaelZ said:

Dura_Ace said:
Gammons, prepare yourselves for anger.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-01-26/madeline-diamond-climate-statement-australian-of-year-awards/11901788
Pound shop Greta. Takes more than that to get me apoplexing these days, I'm afraid.
Slightly older abusive schoolgirl. Are we supposed to be bovvered (said Tony) other than when she occasionally alights on something coherent?

Just pity the mother.

Why ?

Casino_Royale · January 2020

isam said:
Our High St has started to charge £1.50 to park for even 10 mins, quite offputting for people who drive there. Big corporates find loopholes to pay very little tax while consumers are chased down for pennies to use local businesses it seems.

Here is a sad story of a local business having to close. I used to go there rather than use Amazon (sometimes), although their twitter account being run by Arch Remainers put me off a bit!

https://www.romfordrecorder.co.uk/news/upminster-s-swan-books-to-close-1-6447854

On the second point, it would be nice if the end result were fewer identikit high streets, more independent shops etc, lets hope so.

Normal people running organisations and businesses (if and when they get a twitter account) can't seem to help but use it to broadcast their political opinions it seems.

MarqueeMark · January 2020

isam said:
Our High St has started to charge £1.50 to park for even 10 mins, quite offputting for people who drive there. Big corporates find loopholes to pay very little tax while consumers are chased down for pennies to use local businesses it seems.

Here is a sad story of a local business having to close. I used to go there rather than use Amazon (sometimes), although their twitter account being run by Arch Remainers put me off a bit!

https://www.romfordrecorder.co.uk/news/upminster-s-swan-books-to-close-1-6447854

On the second point, it would be nice if the end result were fewer identikit high streets, more independent shops etc, lets hope so.

Would they have survived if parking had been free? I suspect not - Amazon has killed them. They can hold a modest level of stock, but anything that as to be "ordered" will be slower and more expensive than the retail behemoth.

Casino_Royale · January 2020

TGOHF666 said:

Casino_Royale said:
On topic, good article.

Free parking for two hours (or refundable with a local purchase) and a major reform of business rates would be good places to start rejuvenating high streets. Their future is in becoming social destinations (sitting behind a computer ordering with a click of a mouse button is never going to provide that) and engendering enough local civic pride with its shops and facilities that venturing into something people want to do.

Shifting the primary business tax base from physical shops to digital ones is a real challenge for the Exchequer but one that needs to be done in the medium term.
Bit of an oxymoron - places where people want to spend time don’t need more cars
- quite the opposite.

What if you want to drive in for a few hours window shopping and coffee with a friend? Or go there with your family for lunch after trying on a new watch?

If you live more than a mile away, most will drive in.

SouthamObserver · January 2020

It would be interesting to see how the average age of a town affects how it looks and feels, and the general levels of satisfaction within it.

Casino_Royale · January 2020

AlastairMeeks said:

Dura_Ace said:

matt said:
How very PB. It’s an engaging piece (although there’s not much new there other than the thought that Labour has little to gain from a sub-metro area focus) and one finds:

A. Expats commenting on parking;

B. A pointless argument over the detail of what is big, small and medium, rather than engaging in the thrust and its political consequence; and

C. Inevitably, the troll sitting in the corner shouting about “gammons” while failing to realise that every of of his predictions has turned to dust.
You forgot:

D. YT clip from Yes, Minister

This is what's it's going to be like in the post Brexit thematic wasteland - shitposting about urban planning.
One can never have enough clips from Yes Minister. I only noticed recently how in so many clips one or more of the three main actors are desperately trying not to corpse.

Despite being broadcast well over 30 years ago far Yes Minister - far from feeling dated - still seems rather fresh and contemporary.

You can't say that about many other sitcoms from the 70s and 80s, or even the 90s.

isam · January 2020

MarqueeMark said:

isam said:
Our High St has started to charge £1.50 to park for even 10 mins, quite offputting for people who drive there. Big corporates find loopholes to pay very little tax while consumers are chased down for pennies to use local businesses it seems.

Here is a sad story of a local business having to close. I used to go there rather than use Amazon (sometimes), although their twitter account being run by Arch Remainers put me off a bit!

https://www.romfordrecorder.co.uk/news/upminster-s-swan-books-to-close-1-6447854

On the second point, it would be nice if the end result were fewer identikit high streets, more independent shops etc, lets hope so.
Would they have survived if parking had been free? I suspect not - Amazon has killed them. They can hold a modest level of stock, but anything that as to be "ordered" will be slower and more expensive than the retail behemoth.

Probably right. To be fair, I think people from my town should walk to the shops anyway. I cycle so it doesn't bother me.

Someone mentioned it earlier, but I think for a shop like Swan Books to merge with a local cafe might work. A nice cafe within a bookshop, mmm lovely

OldKingCole · January 2020

MarqueeMark said:

isam said:
Our High St has started to charge £1.50 to park for even 10 mins, quite offputting for people who drive there. Big corporates find loopholes to pay very little tax while consumers are chased down for pennies to use local businesses it seems.

Here is a sad story of a local business having to close. I used to go there rather than use Amazon (sometimes), although their twitter account being run by Arch Remainers put me off a bit!

https://www.romfordrecorder.co.uk/news/upminster-s-swan-books-to-close-1-6447854

On the second point, it would be nice if the end result were fewer identikit high streets, more independent shops etc, lets hope so.
Would they have survived if parking had been free? I suspect not - Amazon has killed them. They can hold a modest level of stock, but anything that as to be "ordered" will be slower and more expensive than the retail behemoth.

Looking at the story, alongside the main page was something about the local Council ending free 30min parking.

theProle · January 2020

Interesting piece, but I think Alistair has possibly got the "solutions" backwards.

Local government spending has been squeezed, but if my local council is anything to go by, there is still loads of waste, despite ever increasing screeching about evil Tory cuts. They have cut a number of things they probably shouldn't have, but that is an issue they could resolve by dealing with pointless /wasteful spend.

On the other hand the high street is at a hopeless disadvantage to Amazon et-al, because of business rates, which are little more than a tax on some kinds of employment. If we want to help the high Street, we could cut those rates.

The parking problem is also massive, unfortunately local councils see it as a cash cow. Often they are also viciously anti-car, despite revealed preferences showing that most people want to drive. Maybe there should be targeted carpark occupancy levels - i.e. If a council can't hit 90% occupancy rates in a car park, then they have to reduce the cost of parking, with councils also being given target numbers of parking spaces for given sizes of hight street (to stop them gaming this system by reducing the number of parking spaces).

More generally, I think most of the problems with local government are related to the way in which councilors generally represent national parties, and so the vote is tribal with lots of safe seats, frequently awarded on the basis of bugins's turn.
If local councilors all ran for office purely on what they might do (or not do) - e.g. Vote Alanson for making all the local car parks free, vote Bennett for a reduction in council tax funded from the pothole repair funds, vote Crawford for adding 1% to council tax to open three new public libraries - then it would increase accountability and make it more likely councils reflect what people really want. I'm not sure I can see a practical way to enforce this, although as standardize manifesto system could be interesting (break council functions into areas, each candidate has to fill in a paragraph regarding their intentions in each area, then this gets distributed to voters as a single document covering all candidates).

AlastairMeeks · January 2020

SouthamObserver said:
It would be interesting to see how the average age of a town affects how it looks and feels, and the general levels of satisfaction within it.

There is a generational aspect. The move online is being led by the young. The shops that are being lost are valued by the old. So the loss is being felt by a group who do not see the compensating gains.

Nigelb · January 2020

Casino_Royale said:

AlastairMeeks said:

Dura_Ace said:

matt said:
How very PB. It’s an engaging piece (although there’s not much new there other than the thought that Labour has little to gain from a sub-metro area focus) and one finds:

A. Expats commenting on parking;

B. A pointless argument over the detail of what is big, small and medium, rather than engaging in the thrust and its political consequence; and

C. Inevitably, the troll sitting in the corner shouting about “gammons” while failing to realise that every of of his predictions has turned to dust.
You forgot:

D. YT clip from Yes, Minister

This is what's it's going to be like in the post Brexit thematic wasteland - shitposting about urban planning.
One can never have enough clips from Yes Minister. I only noticed recently how in so many clips one or more of the three main actors are desperately trying not to corpse.
Despite being broadcast well over 30 years ago far Yes Minister - far from feeling dated - still seems rather fresh and contemporary.

You can't say that about many other sitcoms from the 70s and 80s, or even the 90s.

Which is perhaps a measure of how little politics has evolved ?

NorthernPowerhouse · January 2020

My observations... Many cities / large towns have managed to entirely reinvent themselves over the last three decades. Areas like Newcastle, Manchester, Sheffield and Liverpool are utterly changed from the stereotype of places on their knees and struggling. They really have been transformed. The same cant be said for the next tier down. Stagnant populations with ageing demographics are struggling the most.

Some areas like mine, are holding their own, but only in an absolute sense, you can see around they are going backwards relative to their larger siblings less than a hundred miles away.

Casino_Royale · January 2020

squareroot2 said:

Casino_Royale said:

Sandpit said:

DecrepiterJohnL said:
You have to wonder if pedestrianisation (as shown in the header photograph of Reading) helps or hinders -- more footfall but harder to buy very much if you need to lug it half a mile to the car or bus stop. Good for coffee shops but less so for supermarkets and DIY stores, perhaps.
The single biggest issue in most towns in parking. There isn't enough of it, it's far too expensive and it's often enforced by people who could at best described as jobsworth zealots - or worse, automatic numberplate readers. People don't want to pay a tenner in parking to still have to walk half a mile with their purchases, and they sure as hell don't want to spend half an hour getting on a bus to the park and ride with their hands full of bags and children. So Amazon and Ocado it is, then.
Winchester has a park and ride. I don't think I've ever used it.

I pay about £5-£7 to park right in the very centre for 3-4 hours. Now, I can afford that but many people can't and end up having to choose whether to lug it with spaghetti arms on buses, or order from home on Amazon and have it delivered to them. Often at a lower price too.

It's not surprising that many choose the latter.
We have a Sainsburys 30 mins free and its I think 10 for 2 hrs unless you spend £10 in Sainsburys,. I am a lot quicker on my feet these days, most can be accomplished in 30 mins, but if it cannot, a couple of of bottles of decent Chianti does the job (more than £10 I hasten to add). There is also a large Tesco out of town that is free to park, but I don't like it and only go there rarely to do a "big" / heavy shop for dog and cat food.

Tesco is utterly ghastly.

That said, Sainsbury's has gone a little more downmarket recently. It used to feel like an affordable M&S 20 years ago, but is now scarcely better than re-branded Asda.

In fact, Morrisons might beat it now.

OldKingCole · January 2020

theProle said:
Interesting piece, but I think Alistair has possibly got the "solutions" backwards.

Local government spending has been squeezed, but if my local council is anything to go by, there is still loads of waste, despite ever increasing screeching about evil Tory cuts. They have cut a number of things they probably shouldn't have, but that is an issue they could resolve by dealing with pointless /wasteful spend.

On the other hand the high street is at a hopeless disadvantage to Amazon et-al, because of business rates, which are little more than a tax on some kinds of employment. If we want to help the high Street, we could cut those rates.

The parking problem is also massive, unfortunately local councils see it as a cash cow. Often they are also viciously anti-car, despite revealed preferences showing that most people want to drive. Maybe there should be targeted carpark occupancy levels - i.e. If a council can't hit 90% occupancy rates in a car park, then they have to reduce the cost of parking, with councils also being given target numbers of parking spaces for given sizes of hight street (to stop them gaming this system by reducing the number of parking spaces).

More generally, I think most of the problems with local government are related to the way in which councilors generally represent national parties, and so the vote is tribal with lots of safe seats, frequently awarded on the basis of bugins's turn.
If local councilors all ran for office purely on what they might do (or not do) - e.g. Vote Alanson for making all the local car parks free, vote Bennett for a reduction in council tax funded from the pothole repair funds, vote Crawford for adding 1% to council tax to open three new public libraries - then it would increase accountability and make it more likely councils reflect what people really want. I'm not sure I can see a practical way to enforce this, although as standardize manifesto system could be interesting (break council functions into areas, each candidate has to fill in a paragraph regarding their intentions in each area, then this gets distributed to voters as a single document covering all candidates).

It would also help if in multi-membered wards ...... which most are ......the councillors were elected by STV.

Nigelb · January 2020

NorthernPowerhouse said:
My observations... Many cities / large towns have managed to entirely reinvent themselves over the last three decades. Areas like Newcastle, Manchester, Sheffield and Liverpool are utterly changed from the stereotype of places on their knees and struggling. They really have been transformed. The same cant be said for the next tier down. Stagnant populations with ageing demographics are struggling the most.

Some areas like mine, are holding their own, but only in an absolute sense, you can see around they are going backwards relative to their larger siblings less than a hundred miles away.

Size matter, and if you look at the M62 corridor, going backwards is true for town twenty miles or less from their larger siblings.

OldKingCole · January 2020

NorthernPowerhouse said:
My observations... Many cities / large towns have managed to entirely reinvent themselves over the last three decades. Areas like Newcastle, Manchester, Sheffield and Liverpool are utterly changed from the stereotype of places on their knees and struggling. They really have been transformed. The same cant be said for the next tier down. Stagnant populations with ageing demographics are struggling the most.

Some areas like mine, are holding their own, but only in an absolute sense, you can see around they are going backwards relative to their larger siblings less than a hundred miles away.

To be fair, there has always been evolution in these matters. Not far from here is a small village....... I don't think anyone would argue that...... which was extremely important 1200 or so years ago, so important that King Edmund the Martyr was crowned there.

AlastairMeeks · January 2020

OldKingCole said:

NorthernPowerhouse said:
My observations... Many cities / large towns have managed to entirely reinvent themselves over the last three decades. Areas like Newcastle, Manchester, Sheffield and Liverpool are utterly changed from the stereotype of places on their knees and struggling. They really have been transformed. The same cant be said for the next tier down. Stagnant populations with ageing demographics are struggling the most.

Some areas like mine, are holding their own, but only in an absolute sense, you can see around they are going backwards relative to their larger siblings less than a hundred miles away.
To be fair, there has always been evolution in these matters. Not far from here is a small village....... I don't think anyone would argue that...... which was extremely important 1200 or so years ago, so important that King Edmund the Martyr was crowned there.

A small village I lived in as a child for three years!

NorthernPowerhouse · January 2020

Nigelb said:

NorthernPowerhouse said:
My observations... Many cities / large towns have managed to entirely reinvent themselves over the last three decades. Areas like Newcastle, Manchester, Sheffield and Liverpool are utterly changed from the stereotype of places on their knees and struggling. They really have been transformed. The same cant be said for the next tier down. Stagnant populations with ageing demographics are struggling the most.

Some areas like mine, are holding their own, but only in an absolute sense, you can see around they are going backwards relative to their larger siblings less than a hundred miles away.
Size matter, and if you look at the M62 corridor, going backwards is true for town twenty miles or less from their larger siblings.

Yup for every Leeds, there is a bradford. The key to success is to change from being a place people go to shop to a place people want to go to enjoy, eat, drink and do shopping while there. It's a tough ask.

Free parking isnt a fix all. There's a market rate for parking.

isam · January 2020

AlastairMeeks said:

SouthamObserver said:
It would be interesting to see how the average age of a town affects how it looks and feels, and the general levels of satisfaction within it.
There is a generational aspect. The move online is being led by the young. The shops that are being lost are valued by the old. So the loss is being felt by a group who do not see the compensating gains.

Town Centres should be half the size they were ten years ago in ten years time, with the failing shops used for housing. Hopefully fewer pound shops and more independent specialist outlets

MarqueeMark · January 2020

AlastairMeeks said:

SouthamObserver said:
It would be interesting to see how the average age of a town affects how it looks and feels, and the general levels of satisfaction within it.
There is a generational aspect. The move online is being led by the young. The shops that are being lost are valued by the old. So the loss is being felt by a group who do not see the compensating gains.

"The move online is being led by the young"

It really isn't. The well-off older generation are as savvy about online retail as any.

AlastairMeeks · January 2020

isam said:

AlastairMeeks said:

SouthamObserver said:
It would be interesting to see how the average age of a town affects how it looks and feels, and the general levels of satisfaction within it.
There is a generational aspect. The move online is being led by the young. The shops that are being lost are valued by the old. So the loss is being felt by a group who do not see the compensating gains.
Town Centres should be half the size they were ten years ago in ten years time, with the failing shops used for housing. Hopefully fewer pound shops and more independent specialist outlets

It’s ironic that people are complaining about a lack of housing and a glut of empty retail space simultaneously.

OldKingCole · January 2020

AlastairMeeks said:

OldKingCole said:

NorthernPowerhouse said:
My observations... Many cities / large towns have managed to entirely reinvent themselves over the last three decades. Areas like Newcastle, Manchester, Sheffield and Liverpool are utterly changed from the stereotype of places on their knees and struggling. They really have been transformed. The same cant be said for the next tier down. Stagnant populations with ageing demographics are struggling the most.

Some areas like mine, are holding their own, but only in an absolute sense, you can see around they are going backwards relative to their larger siblings less than a hundred miles away.
To be fair, there has always been evolution in these matters. Not far from here is a small village....... I don't think anyone would argue that...... which was extremely important 1200 or so years ago, so important that King Edmund the Martyr was crowned there.
A small village I lived in as a child for three years!

Nice place to live. Railway station too.

AlastairMeeks · January 2020

MarqueeMark said:

AlastairMeeks said:

SouthamObserver said:
It would be interesting to see how the average age of a town affects how it looks and feels, and the general levels of satisfaction within it.
There is a generational aspect. The move online is being led by the young. The shops that are being lost are valued by the old. So the loss is being felt by a group who do not see the compensating gains.
"The move online is being led by the young"

It really isn't. The well-off older generation are as savvy about online retail as any.

There’s a key word in your sentence that you are evidently so privileged as to be blind to.

Daveyboy1961 · January 2020

theProle said:
Interesting piece, but I think Alistair has possibly got the "solutions" backwards.

Local government spending has been squeezed, but if my local council is anything to go by, there is still loads of waste, despite ever increasing screeching about evil Tory cuts. They have cut a number of things they probably shouldn't have, but that is an issue they could resolve by dealing with pointless /wasteful spend.

On the other hand the high street is at a hopeless disadvantage to Amazon et-al, because of business rates, which are little more than a tax on some kinds of employment. If we want to help the high Street, we could cut those rates.

The parking problem is also massive, unfortunately local councils see it as a cash cow. Often they are also viciously anti-car, despite revealed preferences showing that most people want to drive. Maybe there should be targeted carpark occupancy levels - i.e. If a council can't hit 90% occupancy rates in a car park, then they have to reduce the cost of parking, with councils also being given target numbers of parking spaces for given sizes of hight street (to stop them gaming this system by reducing the number of parking spaces).

More generally, I think most of the problems with local government are related to the way in which councilors generally represent national parties, and so the vote is tribal with lots of safe seats, frequently awarded on the basis of bugins's turn.
If local councilors all ran for office purely on what they might do (or not do) - e.g. Vote Alanson for making all the local car parks free, vote Bennett for a reduction in council tax funded from the pothole repair funds, vote Crawford for adding 1% to council tax to open three new public libraries - then it would increase accountability and make it more likely councils reflect what people really want. I'm not sure I can see a practical way to enforce this, although as standardize manifesto system could be interesting (break council functions into areas, each candidate has to fill in a paragraph regarding their intentions in each area, then this gets distributed to voters as a single document covering all candidates).

I have to disgaree on the "political label" point. I live in a county in the south west of Wales where the bulk of councillors are "independents". Nothing ever gets done. There is no drive or policies to improve the local economy or facilties. All they do is manage an ever decreasing share of the budget by closing down services after services. The small towns are full of decaying ex-council buildings which housed facilties, which they are unable to sell off. They rejoice in having a very low poll tax figure, but to what end? The county is stuck in a downward spiral of neglect. You could say that the Welsh ssembkly could be stimultaing large initiatives, but they are conspicuous by their absence. If we had been on the doorstep of Cardiff perhaps....

AlastairMeeks · January 2020

OldKingCole said:

AlastairMeeks said:

OldKingCole said:

NorthernPowerhouse said:
My observations... Many cities / large towns have managed to entirely reinvent themselves over the last three decades. Areas like Newcastle, Manchester, Sheffield and Liverpool are utterly changed from the stereotype of places on their knees and struggling. They really have been transformed. The same cant be said for the next tier down. Stagnant populations with ageing demographics are struggling the most.

Some areas like mine, are holding their own, but only in an absolute sense, you can see around they are going backwards relative to their larger siblings less than a hundred miles away.
To be fair, there has always been evolution in these matters. Not far from here is a small village....... I don't think anyone would argue that...... which was extremely important 1200 or so years ago, so important that King Edmund the Martyr was crowned there.
A small village I lived in as a child for three years!
Nice place to live. Railway station too.

I’ve returned to the area - I now live one station closer to Marks Tey.

SouthamObserver · January 2020

Another issue in many town centres is homelessness and rough sleeping.

Luckyguy1983 · January 2020

Interesting header. As far as high streets are concerned, businesses have to play some role in developing models that can survive the Internet age. It is not surprising that Tattoo parlours, cafés and hairdressers/barbers are opening, because you have to be there. Clothes shops are bumping along, because some still prefer to try on, while more and more are getting used to buying clothes online. Shops that just sell 'things', or services, that you can order or do online are suffering, and I don't see how this can be reversed.

Every shop needs a reason for the customer to be physically present - of course being nice and offering great service is one, but should be a given. This could be tasting/samplings, masterclasses of some sort, opening a café/eatery, offering alterations of items to fit the customer, making whilst the customer waits, repairing things, etc etc etc Clearly doing one or more of these things is no guarantee of survival, but there are examples of High Street survivors who do them.

MarqueeMark · January 2020

isam said:

MarqueeMark said:

isam said:
Our High St has started to charge £1.50 to park for even 10 mins, quite offputting for people who drive there. Big corporates find loopholes to pay very little tax while consumers are chased down for pennies to use local businesses it seems.

Here is a sad story of a local business having to close. I used to go there rather than use Amazon (sometimes), although their twitter account being run by Arch Remainers put me off a bit!

https://www.romfordrecorder.co.uk/news/upminster-s-swan-books-to-close-1-6447854

On the second point, it would be nice if the end result were fewer identikit high streets, more independent shops etc, lets hope so.
Would they have survived if parking had been free? I suspect not - Amazon has killed them. They can hold a modest level of stock, but anything that as to be "ordered" will be slower and more expensive than the retail behemoth.
Probably right. To be fair, I think people from my town should walk to the shops anyway. I cycle so it doesn't bother me.

Someone mentioned it earlier, but I think for a shop like Swan Books to merge with a local cafe might work. A nice cafe within a bookshop, mmm lovely

Yep. Combine retail with somewhere you have to be in person. Hair. Nails.

One of the killer elements for retail is the ability to buy and try online - then send it back if you think "nah.....". Online retailers that allow you to send it back if it doesn't fit/look good on you - and take the hit. End that. Retail might stand a fighting chance if the customer had to pay to send it back. It would certainly be a boon for clothes and shoe shops.

isam · January 2020

AlastairMeeks said:

isam said:

AlastairMeeks said:

SouthamObserver said:
It would be interesting to see how the average age of a town affects how it looks and feels, and the general levels of satisfaction within it.
There is a generational aspect. The move online is being led by the young. The shops that are being lost are valued by the old. So the loss is being felt by a group who do not see the compensating gains.
Town Centres should be half the size they were ten years ago in ten years time, with the failing shops used for housing. Hopefully fewer pound shops and more independent specialist outlets
It’s ironic that people are complaining about a lack of housing and a glut of empty retail space simultaneously.

Yeah! Always strikes me as odd that

Seems to me that a lot of shops used to be housing, and plenty have residential living above them. Just convert them back

NorthernPowerhouse · January 2020

Daveyboy1961 said:

theProle said:
Interesting piece, but I think Alistair has possibly got the "solutions" backwards.

Local government spending has been squeezed, but if my local council is anything to go by, there is still loads of waste, despite ever increasing screeching about evil Tory cuts. They have cut a number of things they probably shouldn't have, but that is an issue they could resolve by dealing with pointless /wasteful spend.

On the other hand the high street is at a hopeless disadvantage to Amazon et-al, because of business rates, which are little more than a tax on some kinds of employment. If we want to help the high Street, we could cut those rates.

Th

Me pothole repair funds, vote Crawford for adding 1% to council tax to open three new public libraries - then it would increase accountability and make it more likely councils reflect what people really want. I'm not sure I can see a practical way to enforce this, although as standardize manifesto system could be interesting (break council functions into areas, each candidate has to fill in a paragraph regarding their intentions in each area, then this gets distributed to voters as a single document covering all candidates).
I have to disgaree on the "political label" point. I live in a county in the south west of Wales where the bulk of councillors are "independents". Nothing ever gets done. There is no drive or policies to improve the local economy or facilties. All they do is manage an ever decreasing share of the budget by closing down services after services. The small towns are full of decaying ex-council buildings which housed facilties, which they are unable to sell off. They rejoice in having a very low poll tax figure, but to what end? The county is stuck in a downward spiral of neglect. You could say that the Welsh ssembkly could be stimultaing large initiatives, but they are conspicuous by their absence. If we had been on the doorstep of Cardiff perhaps....

Indies are a curse.... one or two adds dimension, but you need a caucus of people who share a tribal set of values or nothing controversial ever gets accomplished.
PS. pretty much anything that changes the status quo is controversial, no matter how evident that it is failing.

SouthamObserver · January 2020

On point one ...
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2020/jan/25/former-red-wall-areas-could-lose-millions-in-council-funding-review

OldKingCole · January 2020

AlastairMeeks said:

OldKingCole said:

AlastairMeeks said:

OldKingCole said:

NorthernPowerhouse said:
My observations... Many cities / large towns have managed to entirely reinvent themselves over the last three decades. Areas like Newcastle, Manchester, Sheffield and Liverpool are utterly changed from the stereotype of places on their knees and struggling. They really have been transformed. The same cant be said for the next tier down. Stagnant populations with ageing demographics are struggling the most.

Some areas like mine, are holding their own, but only in an absolute sense, you can see around they are going backwards relative to their larger siblings less than a hundred miles away.
To be fair, there has always been evolution in these matters. Not far from here is a small village....... I don't think anyone would argue that...... which was extremely important 1200 or so years ago, so important that King Edmund the Martyr was crowned there.
A small village I lived in as a child for three years!
Nice place to live. Railway station too.
I’ve returned to the area - I now live one station closer to Marks Tey.

Close to the viaduct, eh. Fancy a drink sometime? I'm about half an hour away.

NorthernPowerhouse · January 2020

AlastairMeeks said:

isam said:

AlastairMeeks said:

SouthamObserver said:
It would be interesting to see how the average age of a town affects how it looks and feels, and the general levels of satisfaction within it.
There is a generational aspect. The move online is being led by the young. The shops that are being lost are valued by the old. So the loss is being felt by a group who do not see the compensating gains.
Town Centres should be half the size they were ten years ago in ten years time, with the failing shops used for housing. Hopefully fewer pound shops and more independent specialist outlets
It’s ironic that people are complaining about a lack of housing and a glut of empty retail space simultaneously.

You can see a city is booming by the uptake of space above shops in the central business area.

Sunil_Prasannan · January 2020

The new Worcestershire Parkway station east of Worcester "may" open on 2nd February.

MarqueeMark · January 2020

AlastairMeeks said:

MarqueeMark said:

AlastairMeeks said:

SouthamObserver said:
It would be interesting to see how the average age of a town affects how it looks and feels, and the general levels of satisfaction within it.
There is a generational aspect. The move online is being led by the young. The shops that are being lost are valued by the old. So the loss is being felt by a group who do not see the compensating gains.
"The move online is being led by the young"

It really isn't. The well-off older generation are as savvy about online retail as any.
There’s a key word in your sentence that you are evidently so privileged as to be blind to.

You think the young in poverty are leading the charge to online shopping?

OldKingCole · January 2020

NorthernPowerhouse said:

Daveyboy1961 said:

theProle said:
Interesting piece, but I think Alistair has possibly got the "solutions" backwards.

Local government spending has been squeezed, but if my local council is anything to go by, there is still loads of waste, despite ever increasing screeching about evil Tory cuts. They have cut a number of things they probably shouldn't have, but that is an issue they could resolve by dealing with pointless /wasteful spend.

On the other hand the high street is at a hopeless disadvantage to Amazon et-al, because of business rates, which are little more than a tax on some kinds of employment. If we want to help the high Street, we could cut those rates.

Th

Me pothole repair funds, vote Crawford for adding 1% to council tax to open three new public libraries - then it would increase accountability and make it more likely councils reflect what people really want. I'm not sure I can see a practical way to enforce this, although as standardize manifesto system could be interesting (break council functions into areas, each candidate has to fill in a paragraph regarding their intentions in each area, then this gets distributed to voters as a single document covering all candidates).
I have to disgaree on the "political label" point. I live in a county in the south west of Wales where the bulk of councillors are "independents". Nothing ever gets done. There is no drive or policies to improve the local economy or facilties. All they do is manage an ever decreasing share of the budget by closing down services after services. The small towns are full of decaying ex-council buildings which housed facilties, which they are unable to sell off. They rejoice in having a very low poll tax figure, but to what end? The county is stuck in a downward spiral of neglect. You could say that the Welsh ssembkly could be stimultaing large initiatives, but they are conspicuous by their absence. If we had been on the doorstep of Cardiff perhaps....
Indies are a curse.... one or two adds dimension, but you need a caucus of people who share a tribal set of values or nothing controversial ever gets accomplished.
PS. pretty much anything that changes the status quo is controversial, no matter how evident that it is failing.

Ours seem to have joined the Greens; the opposition is a Green/Indie Group.

kinabalu · January 2020

When I visit home - which is a town by any definition - I used to take my mother for coffee and cake at British Home Stores (BHS). It was a bit of a ritual. A borderline enjoyable one too. We can't do that now. The store has closed down and in its place is a trampoline park. All very well but hardly the same. My mother is in her 80s, has had two hip replacements, and so trampolining is out of the question. Winners and losers, I suppose, but still, I preferred things how they were in this respect.

Luckyguy1983 · January 2020

Regarding the third point, I have a theory that it is a lot, lot harder than we acknowledge to change the purpose of a town, filling old factories full of trendy Web design agencies etc. I know it has happened, but even in places like Glasgow it hasn't been the full picture.

The easiest way to revive a town must be to restore its original purpose. Where there were tourists, attract tourists. Where there was fishing, fish. Obviously it isn't quite as simple as that, but this is one reason why I floated opening the coal mines a while back, and why I favour repatriating fishing post Brexit.

isam · January 2020

Luckyguy1983 said:
Interesting header. As far as high streets are concerned, businesses have to play some role in developing models that can survive the Internet age. It is not surprising that Tattoo parlours, cafés and hairdressers/barbers are opening, because you have to be there. Clothes shops are bumping along, because some still prefer to try on, while more and more are getting used to buying clothes online. Shops that just sell 'things', or services, that you can order or do online are suffering, and I don't see how this can be reversed.

Every shop needs a reason for the customer to be physically present - of course being nice and offering great service is one, but should be a given. This could be tasting/samplings, masterclasses of some sort, opening a café/eatery, offering alterations of items to fit the customer, making whilst the customer waits, repairing things, etc etc etc Clearly doing one or more of these things is no guarantee of survival, but there are examples of High Street survivors who do them.

"Can we fix it? The repair cafes waging war on throwaway culture"

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/mar/15/can-we-fix-it-the-repair-cafes-waging-war-on-throwaway-culture

kle4 · January 2020

NorthernPowerhouse said:

Daveyboy1961 said:

theProle said:
Interesting piece, but I think Alistair has possibly got the "solutions" backwards.

Local government spending has been squeezed, but if my local council is anything to go by, there is still loads of waste, despite ever increasing screeching about evil Tory cuts. They have cut a number of things they probably shouldn't have, but that is an issue they could resolve by dealing with pointless /wasteful spend.

On the other hand the high street is at a hopeless disadvantage to Amazon et-al, because of business rates, which are little more than a tax on some kinds of employment. If we want to help the high Street, we could cut those rates.

Th

Me pothole repair funds, vote Crawford for adding 1% to council tax to open three new public libraries - then it would increase accountability and make it more likely councils reflect what people really want. I'm not sure I can see a practical way to enforce this, although as standardize manifesto system could be interesting (break council functions into areas, each candidate has to fill in a paragraph regarding their intentions in each area, then this gets distributed to voters as a single document covering all candidates).
I have to disgaree on the "political label" point. I live in a county in the south west of Wales where the bulk of councillors are "independents". Nothing ever gets done. There is no drive or policies to improve the local economy or facilties. All they do is manage an ever decreasing share of the budget by closing down services after services. The small towns are full of decaying ex-council buildings which housed facilties, which they are unable to sell off. They rejoice in having a very low poll tax figure, but to what end? The county is stuck in a downward spiral of neglect. You could say that the Welsh ssembkly could be stimultaing large initiatives, but they are conspicuous by their absence. If we had been on the doorstep of Cardiff perhaps....
Indies are a curse.... one or two adds dimension, but you need a caucus of people who share a tribal set of values or nothing controversial ever gets accomplished.
PS. pretty much anything that changes the status quo is controversial, no matter how evident that it is failing.

I'd agree with that. And at local level I've found many local councillors much more able to work together across parties than at national level, though that will not be true everywhere. But there's a reason political parties exist, and all independent is problematic. And you get a big mix of indies too - some are dynamic local personalities with a local vision, some are ex party members who don't play well with others, others the equivalent of isolationists.

kle4 · January 2020

AlastairMeeks said:

isam said:

AlastairMeeks said:

SouthamObserver said:
It would be interesting to see how the average age of a town affects how it looks and feels, and the general levels of satisfaction within it.
There is a generational aspect. The move online is being led by the young. The shops that are being lost are valued by the old. So the loss is being felt by a group who do not see the compensating gains.
Town Centres should be half the size they were ten years ago in ten years time, with the failing shops used for housing. Hopefully fewer pound shops and more independent specialist outlets
It’s ironic that people are complaining about a lack of housing and a glut of empty retail space simultaneously.

Some local councils are keen to put housing in or around town centres on for retail or industrial sites, but local plans are for mixed use at best, so it becomes a game of how much housing developers can put on a site whilst it still being mixed use enough for those purposes.

AlastairMeeks · January 2020

MarqueeMark said:

AlastairMeeks said:

MarqueeMark said:

AlastairMeeks said:

SouthamObserver said:
It would be interesting to see how the average age of a town affects how it looks and feels, and the general levels of satisfaction within it.
There is a generational aspect. The move online is being led by the young. The shops that are being lost are valued by the old. So the loss is being felt by a group who do not see the compensating gains.
"The move online is being led by the young"

It really isn't. The well-off older generation are as savvy about online retail as any.
There’s a key word in your sentence that you are evidently so privileged as to be blind to.
You think the young in poverty are leading the charge to online shopping?

You have identified one subset of the elderly to dispute my point that the movement online is being led by the young. I’m amazed that you find it the least bit controversial to say that old people are late adopters compared with younger people. You must move exclusively in affluent circles.

But here’s some data to prove the point:

https://www.statista.com/statistics/275972/online-purchasing-penetration-in-great-britain-by-age/

Dura_Ace · January 2020

isam said:

AlastairMeeks said:

isam said:

AlastairMeeks said:

SouthamObserver said:
It would be interesting to see how the average age of a town affects how it looks and feels, and the general levels of satisfaction within it.
There is a generational aspect. The move online is being led by the young. The shops that are being lost are valued by the old. So the loss is being felt by a group who do not see the compensating gains.
Town Centres should be half the size they were ten years ago in ten years time, with the failing shops used for housing. Hopefully fewer pound shops and more independent specialist outlets
It’s ironic that people are complaining about a lack of housing and a glut of empty retail space simultaneously.
Yeah! Always strikes me as odd that

Seems to me that a lot of shops used to be housing, and plenty have residential living above them. Just convert them back

This happens in Belgium. My mate lives in one in Leuven. Belgian town centres are quite a bit less dystopian than British ones though... They never had a dose of Thatcherism so the retail sector is highly regulated and independent shops are still viable.

AlastairMeeks · January 2020

Luckyguy1983 said:
Regarding the third point, I have a theory that it is a lot, lot harder than we acknowledge to change the purpose of a town, filling old factories full of trendy Web design agencies etc. I know it has happened, but even in places like Glasgow it hasn't been the full picture.

The easiest way to revive a town must be to restore its original purpose. Where there were tourists, attract tourists. Where there was fishing, fish. Obviously it isn't quite as simple as that, but this is one reason why I floated opening the coal mines a while back, and why I favour repatriating fishing post Brexit.

Some failed towns should be bulldozed and the land rewilded. It’s an act of cruelty to keep people in a place with no prospects.

Luckyguy1983 · January 2020

AlastairMeeks said:

Luckyguy1983 said:
Regarding the third point, I have a theory that it is a lot, lot harder than we acknowledge to change the purpose of a town, filling old factories full of trendy Web design agencies etc. I know it has happened, but even in places like Glasgow it hasn't been the full picture.

The easiest way to revive a town must be to restore its original purpose. Where there were tourists, attract tourists. Where there was fishing, fish. Obviously it isn't quite as simple as that, but this is one reason why I floated opening the coal mines a while back, and why I favour repatriating fishing post Brexit.
Some failed towns should be bulldozed and the land rewilded. It’s an act of cruelty to keep people in a place with no prospects.

I can't disagree with the principle but in practise where would one house those communities?

AlastairMeeks · January 2020

Luckyguy1983 said:

AlastairMeeks said:

Luckyguy1983 said:
Regarding the third point, I have a theory that it is a lot, lot harder than we acknowledge to change the purpose of a town, filling old factories full of trendy Web design agencies etc. I know it has happened, but even in places like Glasgow it hasn't been the full picture.

The easiest way to revive a town must be to restore its original purpose. Where there were tourists, attract tourists. Where there was fishing, fish. Obviously it isn't quite as simple as that, but this is one reason why I floated opening the coal mines a while back, and why I favour repatriating fishing post Brexit.
Some failed towns should be bulldozed and the land rewilded. It’s an act of cruelty to keep people in a place with no prospects.
I can't disagree with the principle but in practise where would one house those communities?

Far larger numbers were rehomed after the war. The third dimension in successful cities should be deployed much more.

NorthernPowerhouse · January 2020

OldKingCole said:

NorthernPowerhouse said:

Daveyboy1961 said:

theProle said:
Interesting piece, but I think Alistair has possibly got the "solutions" backwards.

Local government spending has been squeezed, but if my local council is anything to go by, there is still loads of waste, despite ever increasing screeching about evil Tory cuts. They have cut a number of things they probably shouldn't have, but that is an issue they could resolve by dealing with pointless /wasteful spend.

On the other hand the high street is at a hopeless disadvantage to Amazon et-al, because of business rates, which are little more than a tax on some kinds of employment. If we want to help the high Street, we could cut those rates.

Th

Me pothole repair funds, vote Crawford for adding 1% to council tax to open three new public libraries - then it would increase accountability and make it more likely councils reflect what people really want. I'm not sure I can see a practical way to enforce this, although as standardize manifesto system could be interesting (break council functions into areas, each candidate has to fill in a paragraph regarding their intentions in each area, then this gets distributed to voters as a single document covering all candidates).
I have to disgaree on the "political label" point. I live in a county in the south west of Wales where the bulk of councillors are "independents". Nothing ever gets done. There is no drive or policies to improve the local economy or facilties. All they do is manage an ever decreasing share of the budget by closing down services after services. The small towns are full of decaying ex-council buildings which housed facilties, which they are unable to sell off. They rejoice in having a very low poll tax figure, but to what end? The county is stuck in a downward spiral of neglect. You could say that the Welsh ssembkly could be stimultaing large initiatives, but they are conspicuous by their absence. If we had been on the doorstep of Cardiff perhaps....
Indies are a curse.... one or two adds dimension, but you need a caucus of people who share a tribal set of values or nothing controversial ever gets accomplished.
PS. pretty much anything that changes the status quo is controversial, no matter how evident that it is failing.
Ours seem to have joined the Greens; the opposition is a Green/Indie Group.

Greens make excellent indies. Against everything and entirely unprincipled in whipping up fear about anything that will get votes.

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