The plight of Stafford, cannot be attributed to any specific reason, and its due to a perfect storm of numering factors that are all interlinked and are not wholly confined to the town or the surrounding areas.
1. The transport links into the town are woeful. linked to this is the numering retail parks, that clog up the roads on entry to the town, which further dimishes footfall. Also within this is the lack of bus station and public transport prices in gerneral.
2.The supermarkets are all on the edge of town, making them 'one stop locations', which in turn keeps people away from the town.
3.There is no entertainment or landmark in the town to entice people in. shops on there own cant fill the void and better cinemas, resterraunts, swimming pools, food courts etc would increase the likelyhood of footfall for the shops to feed off. only the town park in stafford should be proud of itself as a destination to spend time with people or enter the town.
4.internet shopping
5.Retail parks, and free parking at these sites.
6.old, outdated shops, that are the wrong size for modern retail units and put top end retailers off investing in the town.
7. the shops themselves sell outdated items, are overpriced, have not modernised, do not have unique selling points and struggle with the major supermarkets in town. the shops that have all or some of these aspects will survive, and prosper. Hmv relied on the same buisness model whilst the world changed around them, and millets had no unique selling point, selling overpriced gear in a woeful retail unit.
8. the worldwide economic disaster.
9. the de- centralised nature of staffords town center.
10. maybe car parking fee's.
11. less and less people being employed in and around the town center, going to college there and generally less people to combine to make the 10% portion of pick up purchases, so crucial to retail.
12. the ineptitude of the council
13. not many independents and the lack of selling point as county town and market town.
14.buisness rates, buisness tax, inflation. but this is not unique to stafford.
15 i could go on and on and on, but stafford is on a collision course for oblivion.
as a solution, i would turn the guildhall into an entertainment center, with cinema, foodhall etc. turn the old co- op into t a new indoor market, and stop giving planning permission to outdoor retail parks. fire the people who design the road networks around the town and increase the incentive for people to enter stafford, without purely relying on retail which is the biggest casualty of a wordwide economic crisis.
simple..... now back to Mr brains faggots and scotch.
