Where have all the shops gone?

I went to Bangor earlier as I needed some stuff I can only get from there and hoped to get a few things I want/need, like new shoes, even though there's only one shoe shop there now. I found the shop where I can often find clothes to fit me closed. The shoe shop had very little in store, H&B don't do the hemp oil I wanted, despite it being on thier website. 

It's really doing my head in, it's bad enough having to go there to get spices and bits from an ethnic grocers and other stuff from the wholefood shop, but to find pretty much empty streets with such a post apocalyptic and feral feeling is really upsetting. I know I could get some stuff online, but the P&P on a lot of it is expensive and it dosen't come free with prime either. I'd like to use amazon less too. As for other stuff, I've now no idea where I will get clothes or shoes, the usual places have nothing I like or that fits, or is suitable.

Its making feel really worried, it's bad enough having to wear winter boots in summer because I can't find any shoes, will I be wearing sandals in winter, because all of a sudden suitable stuff will appear in end of season sales? I had this before, I remember walking home from town with broken shoes, crying my eyes out because there was nothing in my size in 3 or 4 different shoe shops I went into, this was a few years ago now, but it seems those times are on the way back.

So if you see someone walking about wearing a blanket with a hole cut in it for my head and a pair of wellingtom boots that leak and are falling off my feet, it will be me.

Parents
  • I'm in Scotland for some work thing and I visited Ayr for the first time in 20 years or so. There are now so many empty shops on and just off the high street, it's really sad. I know COVID probably had a massive impact but some of them look as if it pre-dates that unfortunate event. From what I remember, Ayr was was always a busy, pleasant seaside town. 

    I supposed it's replicated all over the country, buildings are now either empty or house charity shops, nail bars, Turkish barbers or vape stores. 

    Maybe if rent and business rates were lowered specifically for small businesses the high street might come back to life.

  • I supposed it's replicated all over the country, buildings are now either empty or house charity shops, nail bars, Turkish barbers or vape stores

    Yep.  I live at the other end of this island, near Portsmouth, and the above is exactly what we have left.

    In fact, this town was featured in a national newspaper as an example of the decimation of the high street.

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  • I supposed it's replicated all over the country, buildings are now either empty or house charity shops, nail bars, Turkish barbers or vape stores

    Yep.  I live at the other end of this island, near Portsmouth, and the above is exactly what we have left.

    In fact, this town was featured in a national newspaper as an example of the decimation of the high street.

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