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The High Street is dying – The Society ideas may save it!
The High Street is dying, if not dead. There has been a significant jump in the number of empty shops (charity shops are included in this category) in the last year and attempts made by the planning authority to remedy this situation consist of the creation of talking shops and consulting other groups like the Town Centre Partnership, the Federation of Small Businesses and the Town Council, (no attempt has been made to include The Aylesbury Society).
We believe that the planning brief for Waterside (the Hale Leys extension part) should have required links to the High Street as near to the AVDC offices as possible and maybe near to Hale Leys Passage. This would increase the footfall and made the street more attractive to potential shop-keepers.
When the latest plans for Waterside are published we know they will be nothing like the original consultation proposals from Crest Nicholson. The whole development is now confusing as a number of schemes are called Waterside. The flats in Viridian Square, Walton Street car park and Ex Services club are known as Waterside, and the Crest Nicholson board says as much. The new Theatre now being built is part of the Waterside project (and it seems will be called Waterside) as is the now seemingly aborted Canal basin residential and commercial scheme. Perhaps it is now an appropriate time to call the proposed new shopping centre on the old Civic Centre and car park site – The Hale Leys Mall extension.
The new theatre will be called Waterside
Because the developers, Warner Estates, already own Hale Leys whatever is produced will attempt to draw shoppers primarily, if not solely, past the existing shops. In order to maximise footfall (not a game but a measure of the number of pedestrians passing shop fronts) any development will attempt to provide a magnet at the further end (e.g. Debenhams/Waitrose). That is why the Central Milton Keynes shops had John Lewis at one end and Peter Robinson etc., at the other when the shops were first built. These shops recognise their importance and negotiate cheaper rents etc., leaving the profits to arise from the smaller shops between them. In order to ensure that the intervening shops have maximum footfall, hence maximum returns and the ability to pay higher, the Waterside developers do not really want ‘leakage’ through onto the High Street with some of ‘their’ shops being by-passed.
The High Street in 1985
As a result the High Street is now and will continue to be a ‘cul-de-sac’ for shoppers. With all due respect to QD and AVDC they are not magnets likely to draw pedestrians down the High Street.
Instead short-sighted policies of land owners have pushed up rents/leases faster than the local market can bear. As a result those specialist shops operating on the margins and become empty or charity shops reducing the income of the landowners and lowering the quality of the streets. This in turn reduces the potential rents further reducing the potential income for the land-owner.
What can be done? Firstly object to any Waterside proposals that do not provide a link through to the High Street. Secondly, require all empty shops and charity shops to pay the full business rate and any other charges. Thirdly reduce the car parking charges at Hampden House to make them very attractive to shoppers. Modelling the charges on The Junction (Cambridge Close) including free for the first two hours would seem to have the most effect.
20 MPH Zone is needed now
The Society has been corresponding with The Hickman Charity and Bucks County Council in trying to get a 20 mph zone introduced in the old part of Aylesbury.
The Society proposes that a ‘Home Zone’ based on the Rickfords Hill, Castle St., Church St., Temple St area could be implemented with an overall 20 m.p.h. limit and removal of clutter by allowing parking and loading in designated bays only.
Now that most buses are no longer travelling through Kingsbury a similar order restricting speeds to 20 m.p.h. or less together with parking/loading bays applied to Kingsbury, Buckingham St., and Cambridge St., within the Inner Ring Road. Narrowing the carriageway over the full length of Buckingham St., would also assist possibly providing parking for 30-40 minutes in every hour over much of Buckingham Street.
At the moment Bucks County Council do not have money in the pot but Val Letheren Cabinet Member for Transportation has told us that it will be considered in the next budget round.
All awash in Walton
Do you remember the old nursery rhyme about Dr Foster in Gloucester. This could equally apply to Aylesbury. After heavy rain huge puddles appear throughout the town. The one in the photograph is in Walton Road near the pond and on the verge outside HSBC bank. The Society lobbied Bucks County Council over ten years ago about this particular area but nothing happened. The good news is that Aylesbury Town Council now have an agreement with Bucks County Council to carry our minor works on verges, roads, pavements and footpaths. The work entails levelling surfaces and cutting back foliage. Projects are referred to ATC from the public, councillors or Bucks County Council and after costing a decision is made on whether the work is cost effective and viable. As ATC has its own work force the work can be carried out very quickly. The Society intends to see whether the verge in question can be made good and vehicles prevented form parking on it.
