J4CKO

iTrader: (1)

Was just walking past ours before and realised that they are really good, bakery, butchers, news agent, boozer, fish shop, grocers, Builders merchants, sandwich shop, chippy, Chinese, tv repair and a shoe shop that I have never seen a soul go in, it has a 1970s sign and the same shoes in the window since we moved here so I reckon its a front for money laundering or a knocking shop. Some of the shops still put there stuff out on green astro-turf.

The ones I used to live near as a kid have mainly been converted to flats apart from the chippy and a manky convenience store that has aisles one person wide. Its a shame, used to thrive, now its just for a Chinese and some cans, funny how those have all gone yet near us they seem to do quite well.

Does anyone think there is a slight resurgence in local shops (not in the League of Gentlemen mode) ?

Jamz3k

generally the "Main Street" consists of banks, building societies & estate agents and thats it! quite poor really.

Chip

We always use our local village shops for fruit , veg, meat ,bread etc then use the s/markets only for things like washing powder , shampoos etc.

Chip

Turbohot

We used to have a small shop-stroke-post office-stroke-car dealing garage in our village. It used to thrive once upon a time! It started to deteriorate about 8 years ago, and finally shut down about 3 years ago. Deterioration included selling out-of-date foods and goods, poorly prepared and clingfilmed sandwiches on the spot, and about 2-3 convenience related things. Hungry lorry drivers kept the shop going by buying crappy bacon butties. Post office catered for a very little number of people. Most villagers could easily go into the town for the purpose. It was heart-breaking to see the shop and post office struggle like that. Just as well it shut down. Garage was not allowed to renew the lease for the place either. Coach company owner landlord lands his coaches on that pad now. The little shop in it's thriving stage is sadly missed. The shabby stage is best forgotten.

The Zohan

Local butchers is superb, nearest parade of shops has a co-op which there is always a huge que, chinese and indann takeaways are average at best, brilliant Indian 2 miles away and next to Tesco's Mereway which where we shop for most things

No local bread or grocers shops

BOB.T

It's all too easy for the little shops to blame supermarkets for their downfall, when in fact it's cos their shop is crap! I'm out in my van all day, with a chocolate addiction, it's a wonder some places haven't been shut down!!

Route 66 was the same, all the motels blame the freeway for taking custom away, which I spose is valid to a degree, however!! I stopped to take some pics of a 'desolate' motel, the curtains twitched, it was still open!!

I'm all for local shops and produce but they do need to provide a good service.

Will

God our village used to be superb. We had 2 butchers, 2 petrol stations, 6 news agents, 3 pubs, 1 ex-service men's club, , 1 bakery, 1 clothing shop, 2 cafes, 2 chinese take aways 1 chip shop, 2 banks, 1 builders merchant, 2 chemists, 1 post office and 2 barbers

Now we have, 1 butcher, 0 petrol stations, (They just sell cars and do M.O.T's now) 4 news agents, 1 pub, 1 ex-service men's club, 1 bakery, 2 chinese take aways, 1 indian take away, 1 bank that only open 9am till 12pm, 1 barber, 1 chemist, 1 post office, 1 builders merchant and 2 extra M.O.T garages

And i do use my local shops etc all i can.

pimmo2000

iTrader: (6)

tarmac terror

iTrader: (2)

Yep the village where I live has lots of great little shops - sadly we lost a couple of them around a year ago when the recession took hold, Mrs T buys as much as she can from them; as you would expect the locally sourced produce from local farms and growers is a whole lot better than the supermarket giants. It is nice to go in and be known by name too.

To be honest if the big supermarkets were to go, the only thing I would miss from them is the few pence saving from petrol and diesel.

David Lock

Local councils don't help. Loads of yellow lines where they're not really needed and parking charges or "Display your disc" and it's £30 if you forget. I often forget if I am in a hurry. Local super market means free parking with car close to shop. dl

dpb

What,in the same way marriage is becoming more popular?

dpb

The shops in the high street here are pretty basic for anyone uinder 85 , theres 2 newsagents a shoe shop a gentelmans outfitters ,used to be a ladies one next door as well but that closed down last year - this shop did all the skool uniforms for miles around ( maybe too expensively) , a woolworths (deceased) ,an original chemist probably been there a hundred years , a photo shop that does everything anybody computer literate could do at home , an abbey national , a tacky mobile phone shop bossed by some scruffy wideboy on drugs ,somebody who should be at skool and a sorry looking middle eastern pensioner. Theres a large electrical store sells everything , more expensively than if you went to currys etd ,but thats 12 mile away by car

and the rest is charity apart from a small co-op and couple of hoootch stores

ChrisB

Nearest shop to our house is... Tesco Express

Have some great farm shops not too far away though

j4ckos mate

your chippy is worth going in for the comedy value alone, the kids with the fused ankles and the clearly insane woman.


that shoe shop is like something out of "get smart" you press a hidden lever and you get whisked away to an mi6 bunker, i have nenver seen it open ever, it looks like one of the shops in the old public information films you used to get one, or the follow the green cross code film, or a shot of a high street in one of those childrens film foundation films.

its a constant source of amazement how it stays open or sells enough to pay a wage even.

J4CKO

iTrader: (1)

"How your Friend"

Remember when when she asked "Do you want your chips tweet noooow" (to eat now)

So we started making bird noises.

Or when I rang from the boozer to "Book a table"

Lisawrx

iTrader: (1)

We have a post office, two newsagents, two chip shops, a butchers, a chinese, two sandwich shops (1 doubles up as a cafe), a chemist, two off licences, a supermarket, a car shop, a carwash, a grocers, a little hardware store, two hairdressers, and a tanning shop that doubles as a hairdressers.

In all honesty, they are mainly crap. They are overpriced, and don't have a huge selection amongst them. It's not all that far to get to a supermarket/larger stores so I don't really use any of the above shops very much at all.

Leslie

Most of our local shops are good. They give a friendly and helpful service and on specialist items such as meat or bread, the quality is far superior to the supermarkets.

les

Scoobychick

iTrader: (1)

You're so right! My local high street has been pedestrianised with a big barrier at the end which is closed from early in the morning to late at night. A man from the council is employed to stand there all day (he leans on it looking really, really bored ) and open it to let the occasional bus through All the surrounding roads which make up the town centre have double yellow lines. The only option if you need to pop into town for something is to drive around the one-way system, stop at the lights, stop at more lights, park in a car park, pay for the pleasure, and walk a distance to the shops. It's actually much quicker and cheaper just to drive to one of the two supermarkets on the outskirts of town, park for free, dash in, dash out, drive home again.

I think the council have missed the point by discouraging cars in that they have also discouraged the people that drive them. I'm hardly likely to walk to the nearest bus stop, wait for half an hour for a bus, take half an hour to be driven a mile, get off the bus, buy a pint of milk and repeat the whole process to get home, when by driving to the supermarket I can be back at home drinking my cuppa 15 minutes after first noticing that I'd run out of milk

And as for the bloke that is paid to lean on a barrier, opening it once a blooming hour for a bus to go though, it's nice to know that my council tax is being so well used...

StickyMicky

I know the owner of our local shop quite well, to be honest i feel he does himself no favors by the way he always has boxes of crap on the floor every time i walk in (if the shelves are full put the rest out the fooken back man!)

We usually have a bit of business banter, and ask each other how it is going, he is basically funding his shop, with the profits of his mothers shop in a different town.

Thats how bad things have gotten for him, if he did not have his mother to lean on, he would have went under last year..

Some shops buy the stock/products from supermarkets, as its cheaper to get them from tesco/asda on special, then it is from a proper cash and carry/supplier.