| Topic: | Re:Re:Re:Re:Hewson Books not reopening | |
| Posted by: | Raymond Havelock | |
| Date/Time: | 22/03/25 19:20:00 |
| I don't think you can blame Rachel Reeves for the must avoid area that Brentford has become. her scaring the heck out of all but the very well heeled goes a long way to practically destroying small end business and sole traders and making it almost impossible to expand and employ unless you want to sell your soul to banks or backers. But the mess in Brentford and it's recent decline was sown way back. People have flagged up concerns for decades about the way developers factor in retail and 'community' facilities to push their developments through. Planners and Authorities have been too keen to do done deals without digging in over quality of architecture, build or actually understanding what works and what won't. What won't are rents and leases way beyond the viability of small independent shops, businesses and even health services. Its all very we'll providing 'community space' but when the rent for say a GP surgery exceeds the funds available from the NHS or taxpayer funded resources a line gets drawn and these facilities never emerge and if they do it's not for long before reality of solvency even for a funded facility fails. Virtually every development has boarded up or disguised unused ground floors. They all have one thing in common, even if almost rent free, they will not generate good reliable footfall. To hidden and contrived but not desirable or a 'must go' location Then there's the usability and accesibility. The push for walk or cycle is all very well and those who can do but when Hospitals and GPs also get pushed in to such requirements it goes wrong. When we are young most of us are rare customers at GPs but not so as we get older or we have elders to look after or little ones to see through the more vulnerable years. And in urban areas we are all forced into a rush, rush, rush mentality, like it or not. With over densification it make matters worse as crowding thousands in to boxes with balconies too small for a cafe chair and table and simply not enough open space or privacy creates more problems that even though identified in the late 1960s have been pushed aside since the turn of this century. Brentford is terrible for basic footfall and passing trade. No stop and shop parking in the right places and over priced parking in any case. It's been isolated by over congested direct roads and the huge increases in bus journey times. Hammersmith to Brentford now taking an age. Richmond or Ealing similarly. People have time limitations and they don't dare stop off in Brentford even for a sandwich and the road mess has made that a must avoid whether you drive or take the bus. The best places in Brentford are very much organic and just happened and the best was the abundance of very low cost locations scattered about which brought life and activity to the whole town on top of the hat full of large employers and before that the huge amount of large employing businesses whose employees where largely from a 7 mile radius. That is now almost gone. Barely a shed left that does not cost the earth to rent and just what are the thousands moving here actually going to do for a living as the wide gamut of jobs has narrowed to jobs that are short term or simply over subscribed which results in an employers market and those crap money and long hours. Bad design and planning is the turn off but the rest is bad overseeing. A director of Regeneration which is a trades description offence as degeneration when it comes to good quality and career long jobs especially very small businesses purely because they may not be part of the ' Digital' Vision. Problem is ' the Digital Vision suffers from being myopic and is limiting in itself, it depends on non digital business to feed from but it's being pushed away to other locations. That's less people, less spending and less interaction and cohesion of what was a pretty vibrant and wide gamut community here which having survived almost every thing thrown at it for the past 50 years but now is being fragmented. Losing so many good business, retail and all and the chance to be a place to go to being scuppered by all manner of poor stewardship ,is quite heartbreaking really, especially for those who have tried to do so much to stop the rot here. It's got so much going for it but it's all been isolated one way or another. |