Stafford shops closing - Turning into a ghost town?

T

Tumble weed

Well-Known Forumite
Also why don't these companies work with each other. Work only finished on the high street paving last week, n then today I saw in disbelief the same road being dug up by either a gas or electric company, was gobsmacked tbh.
 
HopesDad

HopesDad

Don't feed the troll
Tumble weed said:
Just noticed yet another shop in town closing down, Shoe Zone at the bottom of town is having a closing down sale now .
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The one-stop shop and the Age Concern charity shop, both in the road facing the Kingsmead car non-park have now both closed too. Says a lot about a town when it can't even support a charity shop.
 
G

Gareth

Well-Known Forumite
Tumble weed said:
Just noticed yet another shop in town closing down, Shoe Zone at the bottom of town is having a closing down sale now .
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I wonder if it will go on for as long as the To Let has been up.

Shoe Zone have had full window length closing down signs for over a year now (as of jan 17).

Hmmmm
 
G

Gareth

Well-Known Forumite
Tumble weed said:
Also why don't these companies work with each other. Work only finished on the high street paving last week, n then today I saw in disbelief the same road being dug up by either a gas or electric company, was gobsmacked tbh.
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It isn't the same section. The part the council relaid goes up to Hadleigh.

The part being dug by the utility company from outside ryman was not part of the works.
 
G

Gareth

Well-Known Forumite
HopesDad said:
The one-stop shop and the Age Concern charity shop, both in the road facing the Kingsmead car non-park have now both closed too. Says a lot about a town when it can't even support a charity shop.
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But you don't like charity shops...you complained about them a number of times lol.
 
Z

Zylo

Well-Known Forumite
HopesDad said:
The one-stop shop and the Age Concern charity shop, both in the road facing the Kingsmead car non-park have now both closed too. Says a lot about a town when it can't even support a charity shop.
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Why don't you move elsewhere?

All you do is complain, do something about it?
 
Goldilox

Goldilox

How do I edit this?
littleme said:
Right, to stop arguement - the *Wildwood/Queensville/Meadowcroft Park/Radford Bank end of town smells like a bad day at the seaside today!

*I dont even know what the area that Aldi is in is called!
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I believe the Penk is the official boundary between Queensville & Radford, which would mean Aldi is in Queensville, but only just.
 
G

Gareth

Well-Known Forumite

Few take Local Company Data seriously and they would have good reason.

The reason for this is because of the lack of consistency in their data collection.

I used to work for them.

LDC do not count all the shops in towns and city centres. They count a portion of shops in an area and based on that count average out the percentage to the rest of the town or city centre.

So if the count in Stafford took place in the north of town this would be worse than the south.

They also do not count offices, leisure, council buildings or homes in towns/ cities in their stats. Although they have been known to be included in some areas.

In some cases they have been known to count empty upper floor premises as an empty unit even when the ground floor retail is a occupied.

Councils and anyone who wants real data do not rely on LDC as their stats are somewhat negligible. Councils tend to ( or should) be doing an actual count.

If someone did an actual count in a number of towns they should not be surprised to see a variance range of at least 2% either way compared to LDC data :)
 
tek-monkey

tek-monkey

wanna see my snake?
2% is pretty accurate tbh! For this sort of data anyway, can you get lists from the council regarding business rates perhaps? Your data is only a snapshot regardless, even if 100% accurate it may not be next month.
 
G

Gareth

Well-Known Forumite
2% is the minimum one would see, sorry didn't describe that properly.

Even that minimum that is effectively 10 shops extra or worse.

Those 10 shops would fill up and more of one of the north end, guildhall, salter/ eastgate st.

If it goes the other way it is another guildhall equivalent empty.

So it is very significant in a small town centre.

I also question the term _437 shops in the town centre. No chance...not in Stafford.
 
HopesDad

HopesDad

Don't feed the troll
Gareth said:
But you don't like charity shops...you complained about them a number of times lol.
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I hate charity shops, they are the lowest form of retail, with minimal overheads and contributing noting to the economy of the town. My point was that if Stafford is sobtun down that it cannot even sustain charity shops (two closed down already) then there is little chance of any decent business, which much bigger overheads, can be sustained.
 
HopesDad

HopesDad

Don't feed the troll
kyoto49 said:
I wonder what the percentage of empty shops is in town from the old Co-Op northwards?
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Virtually all of them. The precinct behind the old co-op and old Woolworths is now virtually a derelict no-go area. Not much left in salter street. The card shop has gone, Co-op has gone, M&S has gone, millets closing down, shoe zone closing, even the recycled furniture shop going. Not many left now. Council puppet Gareth will say, no doubt, that end of the town is thriving! Haha
 
Mikinton

Mikinton

Well-Known Forumite
Make of this what you will, but here's the shops I visited on my route around town this morning. Note that the map doesn't show that I walked through the Market and the Riverside.

Shops north of the Co-Op are in red.

The Katharine House charity shop on the corner of Mill Street
Waterstones
Poundland
Several stalls in the Market
Oxfam
Sports Direct
Millets
Ryman
The toy shop on Salter Street
Max 99p
WH Smiths
Too Fat Goblinz

I didn't buy anything, though I was tempted by a book on card games in Oxfam.
 
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