[BBC News] Town shops to get government help

[triskelion]

Doesn't Liverpool have a system whereby delivery vehicles are able to lower the bollards in order to gain access to the otherwise pedestrianised shopping street?

[Foxtrotlima]

Doesn't Liverpool have a system whereby delivery vehicles are able to lower the bollards in order to gain access to the otherwise pedestrianised shopping street?

 

You are absolutely right on that one triskelion. The emergency services are able to lower the bollards too.

[trostagh]

..and Manchester.

 

 

Could attract some extra sightseers too.

[manshimajin]

Yes indeed. The government's real role in this should be to look at all of this strategically: in terms of planning, infrastructure etc. etc. - not to simply throw a marketing consultant at a few shops to offer them advice (though I'm sure that is welcome).

It's a fine point as to what extent a government should provide this kind of consulting support rather than the retailers paying for it.

 

Generally Governments and local councils seem to have been keen to encourage large multiple stores and to make it increasingly harder to park in town centres. I recall being told by a retailer in Abergavenny when the council wanted a supermarket in town that research indicated that for every large town fringe supermarket that opened in the UK approximately 35 to 40 small shops were forced to close.

 

Is this the Government shutting the stable door after the horse has fled? Colour and movement at the taxpayers expense by the sector which caused the problem?

[asitis]

I wouldn't be surprised to find that senior management at the DOT have been secretly buying up retail space in Ramsey

 

So that when they have accomplished their mission of making Douglas a no-go area for motorists, Ramsey will be the new destination of choice for shoppers

 

I couldn't agree more, Douglas is a parking nightmare. I was 20 mins late on Saturday afternoon returning to my car parked in a 90% empty Shaws Brow car park after shopping on Strand Street and got a £30.00 ticket for being so. I don't have a problem with getting the ticket, the fault is mine, but there seems something amiss when it would be obvious to anyone the cars in there were supporting the local shops but still the parking controllers enthusiasm was unabated. Solution, use the internet ! and let Douglas raise whatever it can through parking fines and not shops and customers.

[Albert Tatlock]

I wouldn't be surprised to find that senior management at the DOT have been secretly buying up retail space in Ramsey

 

So that when they have accomplished their mission of making Douglas a no-go area for motorists, Ramsey will be the new destination of choice for shoppers

I couldn't agree more, Douglas is a parking nightmare. I was 20 mins late on Saturday afternoon returning to my car parked in a 90% empty Shaws Brow car park after shopping on Strand Street and got a £30.00 ticket for being so...

The vast majority of people only go to town for shopping on a Saturday. Time they only operated traffic wardens/parking attendants Mon to Friday - other than for obvious offences such as dangerous parking, parking on corners and causing obstructions etc. IMO.

 

Parking fees and parking fines are simply a tax. The corpy take monster rates off businesses, yet still penalise them all on their busiest day. I wouldn't think of going into town these days if I needed something like a stereo lead etc. - it's straight out of town to the bigger stores on the outskirts for me, even if it's further.

 

The corpy have to ask revisit the question and ask themselves: 'who are we here to serve?'.

[Pontius]

A couple of thoughts here.

 

Firstly, someone on the radio this morning made the point that so many people shop in Douglas because that is where they work - so it is more convenient for them.

 

Secondly, the loss of small independents is not just a Ramsey problem - it's just about every other community outside Douglas - and even Douglas is apparently suffering too.

 

My feeling is that, to use a cliche, 'we need a level playing field'. The economics of market forces are causing changes in favour of charities and larger outfits like supermarkets, and squeezing out small local businesses which cannot compete. We end up with dead villages (no small shops, no bank, no Post Office, no pub ...) which are just dormitories and it would appear that a lot of people - me included - are unhappy with that. I object to having to drive miles to buy food, for example - there is only so much you can do with veggie boxes each week, and yet only so much you can do to support your local small retailer who is facing punitive rent rises.

 

I don't know what the answer is to 'levelling the playing field' - there probably isn't a single answer but a combination of a lot of little answers. Maybe others have ideas from elsewhere which have been shown to work?

[House]

I wouldn't be surprised to find that senior management at the DOT have been secretly buying up retail space in Ramsey

 

So that when they have accomplished their mission of making Douglas a no-go area for motorists, Ramsey will be the new destination of choice for shoppers

 

I couldn't agree more, Douglas is a parking nightmare. I was 20 mins late on Saturday afternoon returning to my car parked in a 90% empty Shaws Brow car park after shopping on Strand Street and got a £30.00 ticket for being so. I don't have a problem with getting the ticket, the fault is mine, but there seems something amiss when it would be obvious to anyone the cars in there were supporting the local shops but still the parking controllers enthusiasm was unabated. Solution, use the internet ! and let Douglas raise whatever it can through parking fines and not shops and customers.

 

Shaw's Brow is always deserted at the weekends (well, not quite that bad, but you certainly never have to park next to anyone else) - it amazes me that people will prowl up and down the prom in their cars to get a freebie space close to the shops, when for just £1 they could park with ease at Shaw's Brow and, erm, still be close to the shops.

[oldmanxfella]

Shaw's Brow is always deserted at the weekends (well, not quite that bad, but you certainly never have to park next to anyone else) - it amazes me that people will prowl up and down the prom in their cars to get a freebie space close to the shops, when for just £1 they could park with ease at Shaw's Brow and, erm, still be close to the shops.

 

Except on bank holidays where the corporation still charges for parking in Shaws Brow but nobody else seems to enforce the disk zones or payment machines in other carparks because its a bank holiday. The other problem with Shaws Brow is that because its corporation its total jobsworth zone. You know damn well that if your two minutes late some jobsworth has already slammed a ticket on you - because its the corpy and they have sod all else to do but enforce petty rules to the absolute letter.

[jehovah]

I agree with the multi storey car park idea, people find it hard to get parked in ramsey, come pension day forget it, as we all know the north see's a mass migration on a friday to the post office and supermarkets.

 

The reason ramsey retail is dying is because its just charity shops and take aways and supermarkets.

 

If you got rid of supermarkets we would have streets full of shops thats why the streets are dying.

In the whole of Parliament Street; 2 charity shops; 3.5 takeaways and NO supermarkets.

You really are badly informed Mr Smelly.

[Mission]

How'd you get 0.5 of a takeaway? Is it just a take or an away?

[jehovah]

Next door, one half restaurant, one half takeaway. Two outlets in one, if you like. Mind you the chippy is also half and half, so corrected it's only 3 takeaways, or 5?

[Mission]

I thought that was what you meant, as you say though, the street is hardly full of them.

 

Has anyone been watching Kevin McCloud and The Big Town Plan on Channel 4 lately? It's focussing on the regeneration of Castleford in Yorkshire. Quite interesting really, not just for the proposals made by the community/architects but also the constraints they face from the council/budgety restrictions.

[DRIVER]

I thought that was what you meant, as you say though, the street is hardly full of them.

 

Has anyone been watching Kevin McCloud and The Big Town Plan on Channel 4 lately? It's focussing on the regeneration of Castleford in Yorkshire. Quite interesting really, not just for the proposals made by the community/architects but also the constraints they face from the council/budgety restrictions.

 

 

Ramseys biggest problem is some of the shopkeepers, take monday for instance, heaving with people wanting to spend money and most of the shops and cafes were shut.

some shops even shut for lunch, close on mondays,close on wednesdays, only open at night.

Another favourite is to park out side their own shops all day and most of ramseys police officers park out side the court house for the whole of their shift.

If it says POLICE on the road why dont they park their private cars in those spaces and not ones restricted to one hour.

Registration numbers available !!!

 

n

[Mission]

The banks weren't open either, nor most of the offices - how very dare they!