Thursday, February 28, 2013

Consumer revolt


I DON’T like being called a “consumer”.
OK, I’ve been called a lot worse things in my time. When you’re a journalist, it goes with the territory. But I prefer to think of myself as an individual who goes shopping when the need arises.
I’m not being holier than thou. I admit I’m prone to random fits of self-indulgence where clothes and shoes are concerned.
But I’m fed up with our media and politicians harping on about the need to get us “consuming” more in order to revitalise the economy.
It implies that we’re mindless servants of the great god Growth, rather than rational human beings getting on with our lives, making informed choices for our own benefit.
In my experience, the reasons that we aren’t shopping quite as madly as we used to are:
a)  that we can’t afford it, or
b) that we’ve already got one and we’ve realised that we don’t need another, newer, shinier version just for the sake of it, thank you very much.
We do not exist purely to “consume” whatever stuff someone is hoping to make money from.
I’m also turning into a grammar grump.  I find myself repelled by windows plastered with posters boasting of bargains “instore” or “in branch”.
Whatever happened to the definite article? And what’s wrong with that good old-fashioned English word “inside”?
I’ve never parked my car and collected a trolley whilst remarking to my husband: “Oh look, there’s a special offer instore.” Or headed for the bank thinking: “I’ll just go in branch and get some cash out.”
If these businesses want to use their ghastly jargon among themselves, that’s fine. But don’t inflict it on me. I’m not buying it, and they can BOGOF.

Thursday, February 21, 2013

Park and get taken for a ride


LET me make something clear. Unlike many people, I can afford to pay £1.50 to park my car for an hour. In that respect I’m lucky, and I know it.
But I don’t do it. Or at least, I do it as infrequently as possible.
I can’t exactly say why. Some psychological barrier has gone up.
It used to be that if I had an errand in town on a day off, I’d happily pay £1 to park for an hour, or even stretch to two hours, and spend any leftover time browsing, possibly buying the occasional frock or pair of shoes on impulse. To my husband’s relief, I don’t do that any more.
Since I retired as a Journal reporter I have more leisure time than I’ve ever had in my life. But do I use it to boost city centre trade? Sadly, I confess, I do not.
Let’s take an example. Once a month on a Wednesday morning I buy a chicken from Tom and Mark at the farmers’ market (best chicken for miles around, by the way).
To collect it, either I nip in to a bay on Milford Street and pay 20p for 15 minutes, or, if I’ve got two or three small errands like a trip to the bank that have piled up, I pay for half an hour – again, on a meter.
Anyone who’s had dealings with a traffic warden knows that means that you don’t hang about, let alone mosey round the shops.
What I do much less often than in the past is go into any car park – whether owned by Wiltshire Council or by the Old George Mall, which hikes its charges in line with the council’s but doesn’t seem to get lambasted for it in the same way by the general public, possibly because it’s a more convenient base for a shopping trip and you don’t have to decide in advance how long you’ll stay or risk a fine.
I know some people may argue that I have an axe to grind after being very heavily involved in the Salisbury Journal’s Show Some Sense campaign, which reflected public anger at enormous increases in the cost of parking.
But it’s not simply bloody-mindedness that keeps me out of town and my money in my purse.
I can’t explain it other than to say that the charges just feel like too much. And I suspect that’s why the campaign struck a chord with so many people.



Wednesday, February 20, 2013

The right Vision for Salisbury?


I'M starting to question whether it’s wise to build more shops on the central car park.
With so many stores closing locally and nationally, and with customers deserting traditional town centres for the internet, does it make long-term sense?
From the soundings I’ve taken, there’s certainly an appetite for a few more fashion outlets in Salisbury.
And we know the big chains don’t like our little olde-worlde shops because they can’t display their merchandise in bulk, as they do in every clone town in Britain.
But I don’t want to live in a Basingrad.
It’s these funny, inconvenient buildings, so full of character, that form the city’s heart and soul, just as much as the Cathedral and its swankier environs.
While the retail giants aren’t interested in occupying them, local independent traders struggle to afford them.
Commercial rents in Salisbury, even in our secondary shopping streets, are punishingly high for anyone thinking of setting up in business.
And it would seem from the evidence all around us that landlords can afford to leave shops vacant for months on end, rather than reduce their demands.
Add to all this the general reluctance of the paying public to walk more than a hundred yards from their cars, and I feel uneasy.
Don’t we risk parts of our city centre – i.e. those furthest away from the new development – degenerating into retail wastelands, just as the Marlands in Southampton did after West Quay was built?
With wages around here so low, there’s only so much shopping that the population of South Wiltshire can do.
And the world’s moved on from those heady days when a credit card and a day out at a mall were seen as the answer to all our woes. I don’t believe we’ll be going back there again.
In terms of what Salisbury actually needs, I think there’s an arguable case for the central car park to be developed in another way - for affordable homes for sale to first-time buyers, if possible with some kind of covenant to prevent private landlords snapping them up.
And maybe some housing aimed at older people, too, to take advantage of the level walk to all the central facilities.
More people living in the city centre would help support the traders we’ve still got, and maybe we wouldn’t need to build on quite so many green fields.
And while I’m on about it, what about some incentives for the owners of our existing shops to turn their empty upper floors into homes? There are a lot of them.
Well, that’s my Salisbury Vision.