BHS Broughton closure
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Posts
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This is a tricky one. When a company is under pressure and contracting its branches, you can never be sure where closures will come. Sometimes it is the profitable branch which actually closes because of strategic considerations.
Of more interest to me is the Council’s Plan B if a closure was to take place in the near future. If BHS was to close, what is already a marginal part of town will be even more marginal in future. 10 years ago there were several Anchor stores in that quarter of Wrexham (including TJs, MVC and BHS). The Post Office moved to what was perceived as a vibrant area and the mix of scale Multiples, Independents and the Markets did give the town some level of vibrancy beyond the traditional streets.
Whilst Councils cannot entice shops into high rated properties away from Eagles Meadow, I trust that every effort is made by local politicians to get the re-rating brought forward generally and specifically, to get a mall through the TJs property asap, and to shore up the Markets by creative measures.
These are all difficult things but if they are not achieved Wrexham will see a real domino effect if BHS ever does close
Sorry to put a dampner in some of the views in this thread but the solution to empty shops is to accept that 100% occupancy will never be the case in the future. Wrexham along with other towns and cities has at least 25% more space than required (at present- the prediction nationally i that on current floor space there will be a 45% surplus by 2020).
Everyone needs to plan for the future and stop trying to resurrect the past – it will never come back.
The salvation of any retail business starts with the product/price and service offering not with politicians tinkering at the edges of the business expenses by reducing rates. If a business is desperate to get a 10/15% reduction in rates to make them profitable then they need to look very closely at the overall sustainability as the profitability is clearly far to low to survive.
For small one person businesses spending all there waking hours trying to make end meet — I would ask the question WHY? Your life and family is worth more than ‘dying behind the counter’. When did you last have a day off and dare I ask when did you last have a holiday with your partner or family?@Peterthewatcher 19025 wrote:
Sorry to put a dampner in some of the views in this thread but the solution to empty shops is to accept that 100% occupancy will never be the case in the future. Wrexham along with other towns and cities has at least 25% more space than required (at present- the prediction nationally i that on current floor space there will be a 45% surplus by 2020).
Everyone needs to plan for the future and stop trying to resurrect the past – it will never come back.
The salvation of any retail business starts with the product/price and service offering not with politicians tinkering at the edges of the business expenses by reducing rates. If a business is desperate to get a 10/15% reduction in rates to make them profitable then they need to look very closely at the overall sustainability as the profitability is clearly far to low to survive.
For small one person businesses spending all there waking hours trying to make end meet — I would ask the question WHY? Your life and family is worth more than ‘dying behind the counter’. When did you last have a day off and dare I ask when did you last have a holiday with your partner or family?There are parts of this I agree with and parts that I don’t. What the Reports are actually showing is that retail floor space will no longer needed at current levels and that, looking forward, towns will have to get used to a different mix of occupation (or be faced with empty properties). Fine…plan for this. Wrexham has actually morphed in this way over the years anyway with the evaporation of Bridge Street and High Street as Retail centres. Secondly, the Reports are not all premised upon inevitabilities. The Manchester Met Report has shown how those towns who rise to the challenge can avert the supposed inevitable….and have produced numerous recommendations to assist a turnaround. Thirdly, not all towns will see a net reduction in their shops (etc) because they are growth towns. As it happens, Wrexham may be one of them because it is one of a handful of Welsh towns which is pencilled in to burgeon over the next 7 years. Fourthly, I have to take issue with the idea that things like Rates shouldn’t play a part in business decision making. Not all retail ventures are enduring death behind a counter and I would quite happily move to the main street in Wrexham if Rates were lower. I currently pay more Rates than Rent per month (which is crazy) and many businesses would expand quite rapidly without this burdensome cost.
Several years ago Chester was facing the death of the Rows, which is one of their big tourist draws. They dropped the business rates (NNDR) and the shops came flooding back. I did notice last time I was in Chester that the Rows seem to dying again and can only assume that the price crept up again. Yes Councils need to make money from NNDR to pay for bin collection, street cleaning and pavement maintenance etc, but they are doing themselves and the community they serve harm if the rates are so high no one can afford to run a business. Many businesses suffer and fail in the 1st year of business as they forget to budget or hugely under budget for NNDR.
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