Another High Street shop closes, could Midsomer Norton become a ghost town?

By Desert Divas Ltd | Tuesday, February 16, 2010, 09:13

With the recent closure of Mickey’s menswear shop and the forthcoming closure of Nice, could Midsomer Norton be on its way of becoming a ghost town?

Mickeys, which only opened in August has now closed
After two years trading Nice will be shutting in April
The Cookware shop in Midsomer Norton's High Street is still empby

Research by the Local Data Company (click here for details) shows retail vacancy rates across Britain rose 2% in the past six months of last year to 12%, with some towns seeing as much as 24% of its shops lying empty.

Barry Gilbertson, real estate partner at PricewaterhouseCoopers, warned that up to a fifth of vacant retail property will never be reoccupied. "The high street has seen coffee shops, betting shops, charity shops, mobile phone shops and pound shops. What's coming next? It's hard to predict."

Towns and cities have been hit by a number of regeneration schemes becoming mothballed leaving compulsorily purchased shops in anticipation of revamps disused. Also a string of high profile retail failures – particularly in the furniture, carpet and off-licence sector –have left shops without tenants.

Liz Peace, chief executive of the British Property Federation, said: "The fact of the matter is that Brits now do a lot more shopping over the web, so we're seeing a fundamental reshaping of high streets. The next government will need to balance cuts in spending with ideas for reinvigorating regions that have suffered from years of underinvestment."

Stephen Robertson, British Retail Consortium director general, said: "High street shops are often battling big bills for business rates and rents, parking and access difficulties, as well as failure to manage and invest in the area.

"High streets are the heart of local communities and economies, providing jobs and essential services. Their future success cannot be left to chance. Town centres need to be actively managed by local authorities with their retailers, other businesses and residents."

.Andrew Simms, policy director of the New Economics Foundation, suggested that the wholesale transformation of British retailing in which independent stores have largely failed to resist the tide of chains and superstores makes town centres more vulnerable to downturns.

"Past experience shows remotely owned chains tend to be fair-weather friends," he said. "As the economy changes and fails to match internal targets they are more likely to pull out unlike independent shops that are embedded in a community and more likely to go into savings to survive."

For more images of closed shops in Midsomer Norton, click on the galleries button

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Comments

We need to attract more people to the shops in Midsomer Norton. We're doing a lot better than some other towns I've been to recently. The free parking really helps us, but I think we do need to slow the traffic on the High Street.
Some speed bumps perhaps, or narrowing of the road in some places so the cars have to slow down?
Not sure which I'd dislike the least, if you know what I mean....

By coopslad at 11:34 on 28/02/10
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We need to attract more people to the shops in Midsomer Norton. We're doing a lot better than some other towns I've been to recently. The free parking really helps us, but I think we do need to slow the traffic on the High Street.
Some speed bumps perhaps, or narrowing of the road in some places so the cars have to slow down?
Not sure which I'd dislike the least, if you know what I mean....

By coopslad at 11:33 on 28/02/10
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So it seems that we should encourage shoppers to the High Street ?
Then what will happen about all of the complaints about too much traffic and not enough parking spaces ? As we are already having issues with this?

By msner at 17:46 on 27/02/10
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Individual property owners charge far too much rent to start up businesses, making it virtually impossible for them to hang in there to make a go of it, not to mention the business rates, planning costs and "backward thinking" planning office members, licenses etc etc. You just need to see the still empty properties in the "sought after" central high street which you would think would have been snapped up!

Locals drive straight down the high street focussing on the car parks further down or just visiting the Supermarkets and many have commented that they can't be bothered to walk back up to the top as they don't think there is anything worthwhile visiting (not a view shared by me, both tea rooms are lovely but there is a concentration of service businesses at the top rather than good quality retail outlets). We need a good car park at this end to encourage people to walk through the whole of the shopping centre (can't an agreement be made with Welton Rovers Football club with a simple pedestrian crossing??)

Comprehensive signage needs to be put in place from top to bottom showing where ALL high street shops are (visit any decent town or village on holiday etc and this is the first thing you see!) A decent leaflet campaign to inform locals AND people from outlying towns and villages of what Midsomer Norton has, there are sooo many people from places like Peasedown, High Littleton, Clutton that have said they go in the opposite direction because they didn't know what shops were in MSN! And what about putting these leaflets in tourist attractions like Cheddar, Wookey Hole etc other towns already do so. There are two soft play centres in the local area along with the sport centres, but how many people from outside of MSN know about them, if families know they can entertain their children they will be much more likely to shop while they are here - which hopefully the new skate and play park will bring people in, but again it MUST be promoted along with the town facilities effectively.

I totally agree that we need a shopping plaza at the top and it seems ludicrous that the empty garage and small shop unit hasn't had this done already, and I believe that with the new residential sight behind Geoffrey Smith and the now empty shop this is an obvious way forward.

By Ling-Chi Holistic Therapies at 11:55 on 26/02/10
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We need a retail outlet at the top end of the High Street to pull the shoppers up through. A national company such as New Look or McDonalds would probably work.

By BoxOffice1 at 11:31 on 21/02/10
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