NO CONCERN FOR TOWN CENTRES?
By David Vance On March 25th, 2011The news comes that the supermarket giant Tesco has been given the go-ahead to build a large store near Banbridge after two previous planning applications were rejected.
The store will be slightly smaller than the retailer had hoped to build at the Bridgewater Retail Park but will still be one of the largest in NI. It will be part of a development which will include retail warehouses and create hundreds of jobs. Objectors had said the development would damage Banbridge town centre.
It is the DUP which has allowed this to go ahead. I have several points to make on it. Whilst I welcome the new (mostly part-time) jobs considering them much needed, I share the anxiety of Town Centre traders. This huge new out of town store is aimed at attracting shoppers OUT of town, away from the high street. This will undoubtedly damage the town centre which has a rich diversity of local businesses. So what is needed is a plan and help to ensure that the local traders are not wiped out and the town centre turned into a ghost town. Have the DUP any such plan? Forget it – I heard the Minister concerned, Edwin “Not of the World” Poots waffle on about some sort of distress fund they had put in place! Is he joking? Is he really saying that the best the DUP can do for local business is to throw a few pounds their way as they head for economic oblivion? Surely not?
It’s simple what is needed here. There should be a clear plan to reduce the business rates the town centre traders pay – this will give instant relief. There should be a joined up marketing plan to ensure that shoppers going to the new out of town centre will be encouraged to try out the riches found in the main street. This could take various forms but I believe Tesco should be a primary funder. Action, not words, is what matters to town centre traders. I shop in Banbridge town on a regular basis and enjoy it, some very good stores. It would be a terrible shame if these are sacrificed in order for a large multinational to further advance its empire.
Hold on!
YOU want the government to get involved in business in Banbridge?
What about the Free Market?
Wait until I tell Patty and Pete!
They should be able to build a steel mill or a slaughterhouse in the centre of Banbridge if they feel like it!
No rules on capital!
Of course a landowner should be able to build a steel mill or slaughterhouse in the centre of Banbridge if they like. The alternative is that people with no stake in the land get to boss about people with a stake in the land and its wellbeing. Apparently this is democracy. It’s actually fascistic.
In reality no-one would build such a thing in the centre of town because land values dictate that higher value uses, such as offices or retail, would be attracted instead.
A slaughterhouse or steel mill needs lots of “dead land” for access and storage. Rent would be paid on large areas of hardstanding simply for vehicle to turn and pallets to stand and waste products to be guided away. No-one in their right mind would pay a high rent on high value land in the centre of town. They’d go away to where values are lower outside of town, where land is more plentiful, where too much capital would not tied up in land and where access is good.
Thus, the price mechanism allocates resources quite efficiently, all without the dead, clunking hand of a bureaucrat.
Actually there are small slaugherhouses in towns including New York
And not everyone wants to live next to one of them.
And there are legacy steel mills in big cities – Naples Italy has a steel mill right in town. One of the reasons a once beautiful city has long been one of the most polluted in Europe.
Planning is a good thing. Capital has its rights, but the rights of people should trump them in most planning matters.
Externality
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Externality
In this case of David the conservative versus David the politician it is obvious that David the politician is a clear winner.
Phantom -
Erm … that steel mill in Naples is an example of state planning – doh!
A century ago a consortium wanted to develop a seaside resort at Bagnoli. It would have been a privately developed town of open spaces and trees. The central planners guiding the “risanamento” of Italian cities following unification decided this was old hat.
By the way, did I mention I studied Italian town planning when I lived in Rome?
So the people of the bay were projected into the new industrial future by the planners. The market offered a beautiful settlement on the Med, the central state gave them a steel mill instead.
This list of state central planning triumphs is endless.
Yes, but there have been plenty of examples of steel mills in towns not built by the state
I visited one in Canada this year.
These mills emit a lot of pollution that the people have to breathe. And you just said
Of course a landowner should be able to build a steel mill or slaughterhouse in the centre of Banbridge if they like
The residents of towns have a right to say what happens in their town. And their right is a far greater one than the right of rich people to build any old thing anywhere they wish.
I lived near Bagnoli for two years!
Best pizza anywhere.
But between the funk coming out of Vesuvius, the steel mill and the cars without pollution controls at the time, the air was not as good as it could have been
All over the UK supermarkets led by Tescos are taking over where the little shops used to be.
But whilst people SAY the don’t want to lose the little shops, they USE the supermarkets ‘cos they’re convenient and tend to be cheaper.
Unfortunately their buying power drives prices down for our farmers and food producers, whilst our jolly old government INSIST our farmers adhere to the highest standards of animal husbandry…
They then stand idly by and watch as British farmers are priced out of the market by FOREIGN producers who don’t HAVE to rear their animals humanely.
But we consumers want the lowest prices and the widest choice -so if that’s what the supermarkets are supplying, what’s the problem??
Fews,
Ever wondered what Conservative means? There is a clue in the word.
Pinky
I hate to break it to you but the government is already involved in local business. They charge us vats rates. And in return. As has been pointed out before, the obligation of Government is to ensure that town centres are not turned into ghost towns. This is NOT to the exclusion of out of town but requires planning/rating/developement strategy.
You point out an uncomfortable truth.
Same deal in America of course. Wal Mart and places like them have sucked the life out of many small and middle sized commercial centers.
It is an awful trend, very well advanced in many areas.
Village Green Preservation Society where are you when we need you? Mr. Davies?
It is noted that some who call for ” civil society ” here don’t want civil society to have any powers at all, and want all power in the hands of those who own the land.
Which is by definition a corporatist stance.
Sorry, the rich have enough power, they don’t need to have all of the power.
Let the Banbridge officials do what the locals elected them to do. Which may or may not be what the CEO of Leviathanmart wants to do.
Pete Moore,
>>By the way, did I mention I studied Italian town planning when I lived in Rome?<<
Did you ever study urban planning closer to home?
If you did, I'm sure you will know that in bygone days – in fact especially in the early 19th C, a period you look back on as the golden age of individual freedom, I believe – planning was much more strictly, and rigidly, controlled than in the late 20th C.
The acres upon acres of Georgian architecture in Dublin, for example, cover just a fraction of what it once did, and it is beautiful because of its regularity and classical discipline. That was all no coincidence of course, and certainly not the result of benevolent market forces working in strange harmony, nor did a single architect and builder construct all of Dublin. Fact is that building and urban development in the Georgian and Victorian age was controlled and monitored as closely as your imagined statist could ever wish for – down to the door handle and fanlight.
Fast forward to the 1960's, when the Left and Gramsci and all that were all the go, and we see Georgian symmetry and modesty make way for a hodgepodge of brash individuality, each item a grotesque monument to some businessman's vanity.
Corporate ego means you have to stick your chest out further than your competitors, and to hell with the rest. I've no doubt it was the same elsewhere (Prince Charles can't be wrong all the time); regulation started only when it was too late and much of what was good from the past was lost forever.
And of course even Georgian Dublin pales beside the classic Italian cittá. Montefeltro of Urbino (does the name not mean "ideal town"?) is certainly a more attractive figure than a town corporation or the central state, but the job is – or should be – fundametally the same. Old Monte was another lad far too clever to expose his city to market forces.
The old High Streets have served their purpose, their day is done. Premises that are too small and too expensive, both in rent and rates, to offer goods at a competitive price, have had their day, to be left to a selection of charity shops, estate agents, hairdressers and other assorted so-called ‘service businesses’.
As mentioned above, individual small retail shops have neither the turnover nor the space or finance to carry large stocks, and thus, cannot offer the selection that a supermarket can offer, even small ‘local conglomerates’, have difficulty in this respect.
Add to all this the British love of anything ‘cheap’, has precluded the availability of much of the craft or handmade items being, quite simply, unprofitable. The days of the butcher, the baker, and the candlestick maker, are long gone, to be replaced by factory made tat, – tastless meat, tastless bread, and greengrocery, all produced down to a price by unskilled labour, – i.e. all those migrants that do the jobs the Bits wont do. The artisan has now become a specialist, and his prices reflect that, – such a pity that the availablity and appreciation for such goods and such food are now in the domain of the ‘Joneses’ and other such dilettantes, (that’s Snobs, for you Yanks).
Huh?
I’ve seen Regent St in London, Fifth Avenue in NYC and even in small town suburbs like Lancaster Avenue in Wayne Pa and those streets are doing very well.
In areas of wealth and high population, or in towns like Wayne PA there is a love of community. A lot of those people will go well out of their way to spend their money in the town.
But sadly these places are exceptions
We have Walmart here too, only we don’t call it “Walmart”,
it sounds so vulgar, so American….
Nah!!!
We call it Asda, innit?
Ernest!
Thought you had packed up.
How are you, me old china?
They are designer ghettos for the affluent Phantom,
Best avoided by the likes of you…
Specially with your “digestive” problems..
Very embarrassing.
???
Agit8ed,
Fine – thank you! hope you are the same!
Been rather busy sorting a few things in Fl. I haven’t really felt like commenting much, – too many other things on my mind, so a good time to give the children here on ATW a chance to play on their own.
I still think the nested comments template has a negative effect on comment flow, and rather spoils debate while encouraging a spiteful element – more than usual that is!
Were you actually calling Phantom an ‘Old Fart’? –
Phantom,
They are largely areas for the fashion concious, the WAGs, and other assorted types to shop, and yes, London is particularly well served by the Underground service.
After all, Bankers wives have to have somewhere to spend their pocket money…
But here in NY too, the high streets are thriving.
Its in middle America that the Walmarts of this world have killed them
Saint Pancras station and hotel in London is a great example of how old buildings can be firstly saved from demolition and then adapted to meet the needs of this century. It was going to be demolished and replaced by the usual glass and concrete monstrosities, but it was saved by a determined campaign led by the late Sir John Betjeman. Now we have the glorious Eurostar terminal and the Victorian Gothic hotel is about to be reopened after decades of being closed.
Great pictures here
The statue beside the picture of the clock is Betjeman.
p.s. Retail rents in Oxford Street are on the up, and in the region of 700 pounds per sq.ft. Thats over $1,100 per sq.ft. for zone A footage – that’s the bit nearest the street, some 10 feet or so…with most stores being over 5,000 sq.ft. that is some rent to pay, and explains why Fortnum’s is the most expensive grocery store in the country.
Shopping in Fortnum’s is more than just shopping – it’s an experience, if for no more than the people you are likely to meet while shopping there.
Noel Cunningham -
Unless provided with evidence to the contrary, your comment that planning controls in the early 19th century were much more strictly, and rigidly, controlled than in the late 20th Century is preposterous.
Those glorious Georgian terraces throughout the British Isles are the result of capitalistic growth and a civilisation sure of itself. The first attempt at planning as we know it was the Garden City Movement of the late-19th Century. Today, the regime still follows principles laid down by the Town & Country Planning Act 1947.
As for those 1960s monstrosities, your cheek in fingering a businessman’s vanity is admirable. State central planning of the environemnt swept away everything from medieval town centres to Victorian terraces. Up and down the land planners and municipal architects went mad with concrete trying to recreate Le Corbusier’s dreams.
Nothing and no-one, not even the Lufwaffe, has been so destructive of the beautiful and human like the British state was in the post-war years. Every concrete block, every disgusting housing estate into which human cattle were tipped and every soulless estate without transport or local facilities, these are all monuments to post-war socialistic human engineering.
The reconned St Pancras is a great building, – it was before and still is! but can hardly be compared with your common or garden High Street can it?
The capital city of any country is bound to be vastly different from your normal suburban environment in all respects, but especially in the number of people passing the front door, which gives a good clue to the possible commercial success of any enterprise.
Just what message would it send if Oxford St, had shops boarded up with For Sale signs everywhere? Why people might think we were a nation of bankrupts…
Peter -
That’s the old Midland Hotel designed by George Gilbert Scott, a stunning building and one of London’s glories.
It’s now a Marriot Hotel and, if I remember correctly, David Vance stayed there during the ATW London Summit.
Wow! I understand it’s only about to re-open about now! And the rooms start at £300 (?) per night.
The new terminal is magnificent. Needless to say, Ken Livingstone supported the developer / demolishers and was quite pissed off by the old farts like Betjeman who led the campaign against demolition.
London is one seriously expensive city.
Phantom
You can stay in decent hotels in the centre of London for under £100 per room per night. Still dear, but Covent Garden is worth it!
Thank you Ernest,
You illustrate the point I was trying to make to Phantom. In my own little town where I served as a Councillor, the people who pined for the high street and “cute little shops” that specialise in over priced goods were the affluent people, the people with plenty of disposable income.
The people struggling to make ends meet headed straight for Tescos…
So often it is the professional, the well to do retired, and the green wellie brigade who like to frequent these “ghettos” and boast afterwards about how much they paid for their goods.
NOT that there’s anything wrong with being professional or well-to- do, of course..
No,
I was trying to be humorous, but failed miserably.
But I think I had picked up on the notion that he likes a drink or two, and you know what THAT can do to the digestive tract…
Actually I like Phantom, and follow his “on-off like/loathe” affair with Patty with great interest….
Nothing wrong with it at all! – but I do wonder at the sanity of folk who will quite happily pay 2.50 – 3.00pound for a cup of frothy milk with a dash of coffee in it.
Nothing wrong with folk coming by their cash easily either, – good luck to them! – it is those with the ‘easy come, easy go’ attitude, and who are no more than wastrel spendthrifts who get my goat, – they are an insult to every working man who has ever worked hard for a living…and they do seem to be a feature of modern life, seeing little virtue in the excercise of prudence.
I must be part Scottish, and can be mighty thrify most times.
I will rarely buy a Starbucks by the cup as it is grossly overpriced. I buy their unground beans by the pound, because they are very good product and good value when you buy it that way.
There are many things that I can buy at an equal or nearly equal price at my local shop as opposed to the megastore.
And I give my local shop the benefit of all the close price calls.
This too is one area where NYC is different than many other US cities – we still have many small hardware stores, florists, groceries, coffee shops not part of chains, newspaper vendors/ candy stores, fruit and vegetable markets, family bakeries.
They have reason to fear Megastores, but they are still alive today.
The residents appeared to be all for this dv, some say they travel into porty down to shop rather than banbridge, as there is not much in the town centre, it is only the traders who appear to be against it.
Peter i love covent garden, but i think hotel prices in london have come down a bit, depending on when you travel.