Recently I have become ever more wound up and incensed by the jokers
who reside in local authority planning departments and additionally all
those “local community groups” who spend their time worrying about
whether our town centres are advancing beyond the year 1948. For these
sandal wearing, bearded (including the women), left wing, let’s bring
the world down to the lowest common denominator, never worked in
finance or property worlds, brainless idiots constantly assume our
globe never advances.
To that end therefore according to them the high street should
be populated by greengrocers and women’s boutiques mixed with quaint
tea shops and butchers. It is a fantastic dream and did indeed exist in
the days of William Brown, and still exists in museums such as the York
Museum in a recreated street scene.
The reality is different, the powers of an emerging consumer
led society and believe it or not the introduction of cheaper overseas
retailers and food producers has meant our retail landscape has
changed….dramatically.
The way they clutch their hearts through their poly-blend
jumpers as they see a coffee shop opening up would have you believe
that the plague has re-emerged.
Now then the hard facts of life are this – in times of
increasing costs of living and less time to spend relaxing we consumers
are demanding more…much more. The small boutique women’s shoe shop will
face a harder and harder life as it competes with the internet and the
department store chains.
In the same way cars evolved into having disc brakes from
drum, high streets are changing…restaurants and cafes are filling the
gaps.
So instead of always hiding in Richmal Crompton novels and
imagining that the milkman still turns up on a horse drawn float to
deliver the bottles, these people should pack up their pathetic life
objects and do everyone a favour..leave planning decisions to those
people who have experience in these matters and will still respect the
townscape but can be realistic. Half the to let boards that build up
over time on a high street are due to the interfering irrelevancies
thrown up by this bunch of comedy losers.
In the same way the City always evolves – even though at the
moment it is going through seismic upheavals….it will recover. It will
do as it always has done. I wonder how long one of those bearded prats
would last in an investment bank…..
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