Two news stories have caught my eye recently: the proposed changes to planning laws to allow more houses to be built on green belt land and the death of the high street. This got me thinking.
Most of us have a nostalgic view of the good old British high street. One which is full of independent shops, with a friendly greengrocer and a butcher called George, who knows everyone's name. A high street with a couple of pubs full of old characters with a tale or two to tell, a bright lively place full of community spirit. We have this view because whenever the six o'clock news do a story on the demise of the high street and show all the empty shops and boarded up pubs, they play a news reel from the 1950s when the high street was thriving. But life's just not like that now.
The reason people used to shop on the local high street is because they didn't have supermarkets, shopping malls and retail parks. People in the old days were also willing to use an outdated method of transport called walking. We need to move on accept that the old high street has gone forever. Just like coal mining and ship building. People need to move on from this romantic view we have that Britain can return to what it once was.
I also don't have much time for the theory that the high street is dying because of recession or the threat of a double dip. Most shopping malls are packed to the rafters with people spending money all year round. Some shops simply close because of basic economic factors like supply and demand. Why would I go to a shop on the high street, spend 20 minutes trying to park, which also costs money, to buy a CD or a book when I can do it with the click of a button on my iPhone or kindle?
There is also the factor of what's on offer of at the local high street compared to a supermarket or shopping mall. There's a high street near to where I live that has about thirty shops and four pubs, two of which are boarded up. Of the thirty shops there are four banks, five hairdressers, seven charity shops and about twelve restaurants and takeaways. Even looters during the recent London riots passed through without finding anything worth stealing, let alone buying.
Then we come to the governments idea of making more land available to build on by relaxing planning laws to build more houses in the English countryside. Which seems to be about as popular as a pork store in a Mosque.
So what's the answer to the housing crisis? High rise tower blocks are unpopular, so up is not the answer. Building half a dozen houses in your back garden is a sure way to upset the neighbours. And poping down the local for a quick pint only find it's been converted into luxury modern apartments puts a real dampener on the evening.
So put the two problems of a dying high street and a lack of available space to build new homes together and I believe you come up with the answer: reduce the size of the high street and replace the empty shops and boarded up pubs with homes.
By reducing the number of shops this will increase trade and turnover for those left. Having empty shops has been proven to have a negative affect on trade. So buy condensing the high street into a smaller local shopping area and building homes on the land close buy, local people will start shopping locally again.
Napoleon once described Britain as being a "nation of shop keepers" and now change in the way we live and shop is needed to make sure the British high street is not lost forever.
