Have been on the sidelines of many conversations recently about things that a design agency might do to help out the UK’s desultory high streets (and I’d not really thought about why they’re called ‘high’ streets, come to that. Excuse the aside, but according to one Rupert Matthews, the ‘high’ label was applied from at least the C.12th as a way of designating importance or status - so the ‘most important’, commercially at least, part of a town’s real estate. Amazing), most of those conversation being heavy on intent but very light on substance.
What appears easy to discuss is, like most things in life, hard to turn from good intentions into actual concrete action.
Design agencies are usually, umm, designed, to shape how things work and look for mass markets, rather than individual outlets or communities. Of course there are many ‘craftspeople’ who commission from design practices, but these tend to be outliers.
I used to shop in the Tesco in Maldon (Essex) - not Jack Cohen’s first proper supermarket (had no idea at the time he picked off the town as lunch platform for the behemoth it’s become) - and didn’t really think about it as a ‘supermarket’ as it seemed to fit right in among a parade of shops; the nature of which made the small coastal town pretty much self-sufficient from a customer’s perspective.
When I moved away, around the beginning of the 1990’s, the rot was starting to set in, as the delicatessen closed, followed by the bakery, followed by the Tesco which transferred to a massive new facility on the edge of the town. I’ve not been back since, but a quick look on Streetview seems to show things are looking, well, ok for the town. Jack’s old store became Shoe Zone, but I can’t tell who took it over when they moved to the edge of town retail park.
Where places bemoan the lack of ‘independent’ retailers as a signal of the declining health of high streets, design companies would be hard-pressed to find much they could contribute to thwart the slide to empty plots and boarded-up shops.
But there are hints of other avenues and answers. Take B&Q’s foray out of warehouses and into small formats, which sounds great (and clearly if a town lacks a thriving (or surviving) general hardware shop.) Helping big-box retailers decant their offer into a couple of hundred square feet is a challenge we can rise to. Planting these small shops might stimulate the footfall, creating little halo-economic pools of growth.
Saving high streets would seem to start with saving us from ourselves. Our habits as shoppers are the thing that needs to change.
Putting our custom back into the places we live would be a great step. Even designers can do this. It might be the most valuable thing we can do right now.
