Thursday, May 17, 2012

Retail therapy

Recently I was talking to a retailer who told me he and his staff had not sold a single item during the previous day. That’s eight hours of trading, with fixed costs – rent, wages, social security, rates, utilities – with not a penny in income. I am sure that this is not an isolated example as I am being told that things are very tough indeed ‘on the high street’. True, there continue to be new businesses ready to step into the shoes of the ones that close in the precinct; true, our town centre is less at the mercy of out-of-town shopping than is the case elsewhere. We are also seeing the benefits of visible policing, increased resources for street cleansing, and plans are underway to increase the amount of litter bins (including recycling bins) and benches around town. But urgent action is needed if St Helier is to continue to beat healthily as the Island’s retail heart. Richard MacKenzie, the Town Centre Manager, has come up with a number of ways of reversing the present decline in footfall, including such ideas as making parking free after 3pm each day. Given that there is always plenty of space for parking in Pier Road multi-storey he is suggesting that some of the commuter parking in the Esplanade car park is replaced with shopper parking, and that the entire car park at Ann Court is given over to short-stay shopper parking on Saturdays. The trial of a simpler way of paying for parking in Sand Street car park is overdue, and I would like to see a change in the way parking fines are handed out, having too often been on the receiving end of letters, emails, phone calls and tearful explanations of how a simple error with a paycard has put a person off ever trying to park in town again. And what's happened to the amendment that I made to the Island Plan whereby the Harbours dept are supposed to be converting some of the rented parking spaces on the Albert Pier to shopper parking? It’s high time everyone involved in the important process of getting shoppers into town, including several States departments, the Parish, and the Chamber of Commerce, work together to make sure that St Helier’s retailers see more shoppers this summer, not fewer.

13 comments:

Anonymous said...

TTS claims that automatic visual recognition of number plates with pre-payment will be trialled at Sand Street very soon - although I am not sure how UK and other foreign plates will be recognised or the barrier raised when they pass through....and the AG didn't seem to have ok'd this proposal when asked recently at a JHRG meeting... and I am told that Highlands is considering a Masters' Degree course in parking restriction variations and interpretations and has anybody considered writing them in Chinese now that we are so keen to encouarge trade with the Far East?

Anonymous said...

"We are also seeing the benefits of visible policing"

Be that the case could you please explain why I am woken regularly during the early hours at weekends between 2.00am and 5.00am by drunks in the street?

I live in Val Plaisant. Nowhere near the bloody nightclubs. Where is your visible policing in my part of town?

Anonymous said...

Living in Val Plaisant is the problem. The police patrols circulate from the R Bouillon HQ in an anti-clockwise rotation so that by the time they reach you they have already filled their quota of drunks and are probably too pissed to care anyway....

Anonymous said...

As I know you're a keen writer, I'm a bit mystified why you present a whole block of hard to read text rather than break it up into paragraphs?

Nice to see you add to the "blogosphere" anyway, keep it up :)

James said...

Anonymous @3.42PM: It shouldn't be a problem - for comparison, the ANPR system at Southampton airport copes fine with Jersey plates.

The ethics of ANPR and data privacy are, of course, an entirely different matter...

Anonymous said...

For me, paycards and parking accessability are not a factor in my hoice to avoid town shopping. I can afford 70p to park and there are always spaces in Sand Street apart from December. The huge difference in prices to internet retailers is tha major factor in my decision to shop offshore. My dispoable income is shrinking year by year, the result is I have to shop offshore to make it go further.

TonyTheProf said...

It is notable that quite a few new businesses - like New Look, and the one opposite BHS - are UK companies who have non-local shareholders. They are more like investment vehicles for their ultimate owners than locally owned businesses, which need to also provide a living for the local shareholder, and are hence more at the mercy of loss of trade.

Punitive first fines for parking also causes shoppers to be wary of coming to town. In the 1970s and 1980s, the fine was £5 which was probably too low, but the increase to £50 is too high.

The effectiveness of a fine is that it should dissuade the serial offender, but not punish the poor sod who makes an honest mistake.

Surely electronic systems can flag up multiple offenders and a progressive scale of fines is possible, so that someone who has been fined three months ago is not fined as much as someone who is fined weekly.

The same principle of justice is often applied to speeding. Someone caught speeding for the first time - such as Deputy Baker in 2011, for example - may not be treated by the Courts as severely as someone who speeds continually. A first offense is usually take into account.

The Courts reflect common sense notions of justice; parking fines reflect a rigid mechanical system to which no thought has been given. Perhaps some other jurisdictions do better?

Simon Crowcroft said...

Re whole block of text, since they changed the blog format I can't seem to put in para breaks!

Anonymous said...

Ever since BHS removed their public toilet facilities (in spite of having a large cafe still on the ground floor) this part of town is a no P area for lots of people. Its not just P for parking that deters shoppers. Many have health problems and disabilities and those strange creatures called children to worry about.

Come along Constable - get to grips with the problem - so to speak - and start returning some facilities inside the shops too. You can do it - other places do!!!!

Simon Crowcroft said...

Good point about the other P. Today, Weds 23rd May, we're opening the first 'Changing Places' toilet for the disabled to receive official Gold Standard accreditation. It's behind the Town Hall in Seale Street. We're also working on plans to upgrade the toilets in Conway Street having bought the site next door. The point about in-store toilets is raised from time to time - they will tell you in many cases that allowing this to happen doesn't increase their trade but does increase their costs. Even so I will look into it.

Anonymous said...

The UK movement - so to speak - is that local councils pay a small sum to shops and pubs to make their toilets available to ALL - not just customers. Thus toilets are provided at a reasonable cost and are supervised and cleaned without placing too much burden on the council...

PPP - so to speak - so whay cannot BHS join such a scheme promoted by the Parish of St Helier and why cannot the other eleven Jersey Parishes negotiate something similar where toilets are lacking or inadequate.

Lead the way Constable! Others will follow.

Anonymous said...

Parked on yellow line the other day ran to shop to buy a tin of tomatoes total infringment time about three minutes returned to find obnoxiouse traffic controll officer booking my car no wonder people are deserting the town with motorist Harrassment like this !

Anonymous said...

"Anonymous said...

Living in Val Plaisant is the problem. The police patrols circulate from the R Bouillon HQ in an anti-clockwise rotation so that by the time they reach you they have already filled their quota of drunks and are probably too pissed to care anyway...."


Val Plaisant is a major artery for drunks coming up from New Street and Bath Street. The "weekend parade" goes on until almost dawn during the summer months.

God knows where they are hanging around until that time of the morning but it never used to go on until daybreak before the last extension of licensing hours.

If the regular Police aren't patrolling that district why aren't the Honoraries?