ghost towns

NEF’s Report Ghost Town Britain, 2002, identify that the supermarkets play a major part in vacancy rates on the high street, and comment that an out of town store in Neath“ has been responsible for a 33% vacancy rate in the town centre” ( P.7 ), a bold statement, for it’s tome, but perhaps predicting the outcome of the later reports.

However, further evidence from a published article Business Life, 14th July 2011, suggest the following vacancy rates in the towns, Margate 37.4%, Morecombe 30%, Altrincham 29%, Newport, 28.8%, Rotherham 28.2%, Blackpool 26.6%, Doncaster 24%. These figures certainly show a pattern for the UK, with the national average, as we can see as 14.3%. reported by the BBC.
We need to establish the trend with these figures and how far they will rise.

Findings on the NEF paper, Ghost town Britain attribute the decline due to “the growth of large supermarkets and out of town developments”. (P. 12), and further discuss that the nations shopping habits “have actually shifted” (P.14), and this has happened through “ aggressive mergers and acquisitions, the leading supermarkets have managed to flex growing monopolistic muscle in the food retail sector”.

They suggest that supermarkets don’t “contribute to local economies in the same way as local shops. The very wealth that supermarkets generate actually stays in the community in which they operate”, and further more, “ very few products on the supermarket shelves are sourced locally” (P.15).

There is no doubt that these conclusions, have foundation, but serve little more than stating the obvious. They offer no real research in how to react to the increase from the supermarkets.
It is hard to argue about these statistics, and the effects on the traditional town centre. As we have already seen there is only so much consumer spend available so, in spatial terms, if a supermarket opens it is going to attract a certain amount of that areas consumer spend, and the outcome is self evident, the report suggests a “loss of 276 jobs” (P.15), in a locality, when a supermarket opens.

The conclusion to be drawn is that in NEF’s opinion, the greatest impact on the decline to the High Street is food retail, but, as we have seen view clone towns also as a contributing factor. The difference is subtle, but food stores did once only represent food retailing, where by the modern supermarket, represents other retail offerings, which once again cuts further in the total consumer spend.