I was looking at the magnificent picture of Solihull, and was thinking just how empty the streets were. I wondered if I had misremembered dodging around all those people on a Saturday, so I looked up some pics.
Admitedly, this was taken just before Christmas, but that really was how it used to be! You used to bump into anyone and everyone, and going to town was a real event!
I find it ironic that there are probably double the number of people in the world since that picture was taken but the town centres are now ghost towns
Before the cancer of retail parks, which sucked business out of the high street into massive grey shitboxes only accessible by car.
When town centres were heavens for chains and independent stores alike.
Now the chains ran the independents out, they can’t survive in the centre and move to retail parks for cars and towns centres are for vapes, pubs, Turkish barbers, and the odd pet/ grooming store
Photos like this get posted on Facebook groups for my nearest city (Bradford) and the comments are just endless xenophobic/racist remarks from old pink people with flags in their profile pictures.
This inserted the idea of separation of traffic and the pedestrian into town planning, either by zoning as we mostly see today, or more contraversially by vertical separation. This meant raising the pavement onto a pedestrian level and bulldozing through dual-carriageways underneath. Unsurprisingly this was never really achieved at any great scale in Britain, though Leeds had a go.
Imagine a time when people had access to trains that ran everywhere, and fed into town centres. It wasn’t a car based society. Very few large supermarkets hoovering up custom from smaller shops. Town centres and high streets full of shops, and customers.
Ahh… the days before the hell of internet shopping.
Ultimately I think the internet means we’ll never see a return to form, it’s often cheaper and more convenient which are big factors when everyone is skint and extremely time-poor.
Unless we rolled out a 4 day work week and improve pay, I can’t see towns ever picking up.
Commutes have gotten longer and longer for most people compared to 30-40 years ago, as nobody can afford to live closer, and you’re not going to go do a big shop during work hours and lug it home. By the time you’re back to where you live everything is likely to be closed.
The days of the ‘stay at home house wife’ are pretty much dead, too. My nan didn’t work and would go to town regularly to do the shopping, while she always says it was a struggle but best for the kids, most families are struggling with 2 working parents so there isn’t anyone about to do a day time trip to town.
I thankfully work from home and live in a moderately affordable town, so I can go into the centre, which I try to do regularly but there’s not enough people in my situation to sustain anything useful in town.
Hard to believe this photo was taken in 2007
Out of interest, does anyone know what year this photo was taken, or have a rough guess?
This was before things like Amazon and when every highstreet shop wasn’t empty
Lots of people but nobody with shopping bags, it was a bit of exercise and a chance to look through windows at what you’d buy if you weren’t perpetually skint – they couldn’t even afford colour!
Personally speaking, that looks like hell.
Run public transport at a loss subsided by the government and people will start using trains. I like nearly 3 hours from london, 1 hour from my nearest city but it’d cost me more to get the train (including parking) than it would in fuel to drive down and pay to park
bak wen fings were betta!
– Every boomer on Facebook
I remember my town being like that around 2000. I didnt live here at the time, but use to visit. But to get across roads you’d have to take your life in your hands, and just run across roads as there wasnt any trraffic lights or zebra crossings. It was manic. Its now pedestrianised, and is a lot better in my opinion. Older people who have lived here all of their lives think differently.
So now we have pedestrianised centres but all the shops are boarded up lol.
How much of it is also down to you could only go to the shops on a Saturday?
Exeter high street still looks like this tbf
Oxford Street still looks exactly like this.
We swapped it for an app on our phones, and big ugly warehouses, where all the profits go to some American cunt who pays no taxes.
Reading is still this busy and they still have trucks rolling through the pedestrianised main streets.
And now the high street is dead and Amazon has all the power in the world. Great…
I emigrated to Australia in 2010 and on my most recent visit I couldn’t believe how depressing the high streets were, even in quite affluent towns. I loved the countryside, I loved the country pubs (despite the expensive food), I loved the history and culture, but the high streets were really the most depressing thing I’ve ever seen. Vape shop, barber, pound shop, vape shop, barber, sports direct. No wonder they were deserted.
It was a real shock to me, and although I dearly love the UK overall, it was sad to see the concept of the “High Street” was truly dead.
Why are councils continuing to pedestrianise town centres? It makes no sense to me.
It’s mind boggling that someone can look at this picture, which clearly contains a BIG ROAD and lots of VEHICLES and draw the conclusion that pedestrianisation is solution to get all the people back.
The very reason the people are gone is that cars have been made unwelcome. There is way way more pedestrianisation in town centres now than when this picture was taken, yet there aren’t more people. Out of town retail parks are plenty busy because they offer plentiful free parking.
It’s like the people that insist illegal drugs can be solved with just one more hard push to crack down on them… it never works. Yet for some reason they keep insisting on trying a failed solution.
Apparently this is Church Street Liverpool, Google street view shows that it’s just as rammed today:
My town center is easily this busy every weekend. But we’re in a river loop which kept the center small during the boom years, and I think that’s why it’s always busy.
Health and safety gone mad; only a relatively small percentage of pedestrians were ever killed, maimed or disfigured and now I can’t even drive back home from the pub down the high street whilst surfing the web without the woke brigade moaning.
The pedestrianisation of town centres was the start of the end for the high street
34 comments
What about traders who need access to Dixons?
Ah I remember K Shoes
I was looking at the magnificent picture of Solihull, and was thinking just how empty the streets were. I wondered if I had misremembered dodging around all those people on a Saturday, so I looked up some pics.
Admitedly, this was taken just before Christmas, but that really was how it used to be! You used to bump into anyone and everyone, and going to town was a real event!
I find it ironic that there are probably double the number of people in the world since that picture was taken but the town centres are now ghost towns
Before the cancer of retail parks, which sucked business out of the high street into massive grey shitboxes only accessible by car.
When town centres were heavens for chains and independent stores alike.
Now the chains ran the independents out, they can’t survive in the centre and move to retail parks for cars and towns centres are for vapes, pubs, Turkish barbers, and the odd pet/ grooming store
Photos like this get posted on Facebook groups for my nearest city (Bradford) and the comments are just endless xenophobic/racist remarks from old pink people with flags in their profile pictures.
Much of our contemporary urban planning has been influenced by a popular 1963 book [Traffic in Towns](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traffic_in_Towns) by Colin Buchanon.
This inserted the idea of separation of traffic and the pedestrian into town planning, either by zoning as we mostly see today, or more contraversially by vertical separation. This meant raising the pavement onto a pedestrian level and bulldozing through dual-carriageways underneath. Unsurprisingly this was never really achieved at any great scale in Britain, though Leeds had a go.
Imagine a time when people had access to trains that ran everywhere, and fed into town centres. It wasn’t a car based society. Very few large supermarkets hoovering up custom from smaller shops. Town centres and high streets full of shops, and customers.
Ahh… the days before the hell of internet shopping.
Ultimately I think the internet means we’ll never see a return to form, it’s often cheaper and more convenient which are big factors when everyone is skint and extremely time-poor.
Unless we rolled out a 4 day work week and improve pay, I can’t see towns ever picking up.
Commutes have gotten longer and longer for most people compared to 30-40 years ago, as nobody can afford to live closer, and you’re not going to go do a big shop during work hours and lug it home. By the time you’re back to where you live everything is likely to be closed.
The days of the ‘stay at home house wife’ are pretty much dead, too. My nan didn’t work and would go to town regularly to do the shopping, while she always says it was a struggle but best for the kids, most families are struggling with 2 working parents so there isn’t anyone about to do a day time trip to town.
I thankfully work from home and live in a moderately affordable town, so I can go into the centre, which I try to do regularly but there’s not enough people in my situation to sustain anything useful in town.
Hard to believe this photo was taken in 2007
Out of interest, does anyone know what year this photo was taken, or have a rough guess?
This was before things like Amazon and when every highstreet shop wasn’t empty
Lots of people but nobody with shopping bags, it was a bit of exercise and a chance to look through windows at what you’d buy if you weren’t perpetually skint – they couldn’t even afford colour!
Personally speaking, that looks like hell.
Run public transport at a loss subsided by the government and people will start using trains. I like nearly 3 hours from london, 1 hour from my nearest city but it’d cost me more to get the train (including parking) than it would in fuel to drive down and pay to park
bak wen fings were betta!
– Every boomer on Facebook
I remember my town being like that around 2000. I didnt live here at the time, but use to visit. But to get across roads you’d have to take your life in your hands, and just run across roads as there wasnt any trraffic lights or zebra crossings. It was manic. Its now pedestrianised, and is a lot better in my opinion. Older people who have lived here all of their lives think differently.
So now we have pedestrianised centres but all the shops are boarded up lol.
How much of it is also down to you could only go to the shops on a Saturday?
Exeter high street still looks like this tbf
Oxford Street still looks exactly like this.
We swapped it for an app on our phones, and big ugly warehouses, where all the profits go to some American cunt who pays no taxes.
Reading is still this busy and they still have trucks rolling through the pedestrianised main streets.
And now the high street is dead and Amazon has all the power in the world. Great…
I emigrated to Australia in 2010 and on my most recent visit I couldn’t believe how depressing the high streets were, even in quite affluent towns. I loved the countryside, I loved the country pubs (despite the expensive food), I loved the history and culture, but the high streets were really the most depressing thing I’ve ever seen. Vape shop, barber, pound shop, vape shop, barber, sports direct. No wonder they were deserted.
It was a real shock to me, and although I dearly love the UK overall, it was sad to see the concept of the “High Street” was truly dead.
Why are councils continuing to pedestrianise town centres? It makes no sense to me.
It’s mind boggling that someone can look at this picture, which clearly contains a BIG ROAD and lots of VEHICLES and draw the conclusion that pedestrianisation is solution to get all the people back.
The very reason the people are gone is that cars have been made unwelcome. There is way way more pedestrianisation in town centres now than when this picture was taken, yet there aren’t more people. Out of town retail parks are plenty busy because they offer plentiful free parking.
It’s like the people that insist illegal drugs can be solved with just one more hard push to crack down on them… it never works. Yet for some reason they keep insisting on trying a failed solution.
Apparently this is Church Street Liverpool, Google street view shows that it’s just as rammed today:
https://maps.app.goo.gl/Y3m1SZB7hbjMNgMU8?g_st=ac
My town center is easily this busy every weekend. But we’re in a river loop which kept the center small during the boom years, and I think that’s why it’s always busy.
Health and safety gone mad; only a relatively small percentage of pedestrians were ever killed, maimed or disfigured and now I can’t even drive back home from the pub down the high street whilst surfing the web without the woke brigade moaning.
The pedestrianisation of town centres was the start of the end for the high street
Are they not that busy anymore?
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