While walking through Bury town centre the day before yesterday, I was shocked to see so many shops closing down or moving premises.
This ghost town phenomenon is not just a local problem, I know it is going on elsewhere but it is exacerbated in Bury because the new shopping mall.
Woolies-closed
Officers club – closing
JJB – closing (although it has been newly acquired)
Next –moving
Waterstones-moving
Topshop-moving
Monsoon-moving
Vodafone-moving
I have also been looking at the online map for the “arc” and it seems that the majority of the new space opening there are empty.
i neglected to add Barrets, the clothes shop that used to be next to Barrets and of course the boarded up shop opposite Bakers Oven.
ReplyDeleteHow about the former Woolwich BS which has been empty for two years?
ReplyDeletetrue true forgot that one.
ReplyDeleteGhost Town was a No.1 hit record by The Specials in the summer of 1981. It's an all-time great IMO. Bury St Edmunds cannot reasonably be described as a ghost town. True there are empty shops but there are, since Thursday 05 March 2009, more occupied shops than ever before. This is, of course, because there are now 35 extra shop units and a department store, and although they are not all immediately occupied the intention is that several more shops will be open in three months time.
ReplyDeleteThis will further tilt the occupied/empty ratio and once all the new units are taken, there will be a drift eastwards back across the town centre retail area of re-occupation of empty shops. Even with favourable conditions this would take some time but in a recession it will be longer.
The promised widening of Market Thoroughfare is a key element if this strategy is to succeed so The Link needs to be completed by this time next year. I think it will.
Some people say that this new development has come too soon, others say it should have happened years ago. I don't agree. Now is the right time. Several years ago, there was a debate about whether the new development should be phased over a long period or all open on one day. The latter argument held sway but due to the recession, the shop openings are happening in phases. Everybody seems to have got what they wanted except those who preferred to keep the former Cattle Market site in mothballs in perpetuity. This is a sizeable minority of local people, but still a minority.
i think the larger issue is that of parking and the road system
ReplyDeleteI have no interest in visiting the Arc and feel saddened that Bury has now become like many towns accross the country. What we had was so special and cannot be repaired. The people behind the Arc should be fired!!!
ReplyDeletewhat about the american bomber base?
ReplyDelete