Connecting Crouch End and Hornsey with news, views and information
Did you catch this piece on shop rents on the One Show this week . Shocking.
Thanks to all these good folk from Twitter
MichaelH14Jan 23, 11:55pm via Twitter for iPad
@GiuliaFlorimo @N8CrouchEnd @OpinionN8 I was wondering if they were corporate owners or small landlords - probably the former
MichaelH14: @GiuliaFlorimo @n8crouchend@opinionn8 who are the owners btw ?11:18pm, Jan 23 from Twitter for iPad
GiuliaFlorimo: @MichaelH14 @N8CrouchEnd@OpinionN8 owners not mentioned!11:52pm, Jan 23 from Twitter for Android
MichaelH14: @GiuliaFlorimo @n8crouchend@opinionn8 I was wondering if they were corporate owners or small landlords - probably the former11:55pm, Jan 23 from Twitter for iPad
Tags: crouch end, rent
And online sales I think as far as Two Wheels Good goes.
But I thought the big problem was the council's parking charges according to councillors?
According to this Haringey survey of travel habit part of this Haringey campaign for Smarter Travel if you double the number of motorists in a shopping centre you make damn all difference to 'footfall', well 8%. Do shop keepers believe that motorists spend a lot more money than cyclists? Or maybe motorists set out specifically to do shopping and are therefore more likely to spend?
Very interesting. A recent report for London Councils looks at this in detail
http://www.londoncouncils.gov.uk/news/current/pressdetail.htm?pk=1549
It reports studies from town centres showing that free parking made no difference to the bottom line, and suggests that shoppers coming on foot or by bus visit more frequently and spend more than those coming by car. And generally the range and quality of the shops and other facilities is more important than whether you can park or how much it costs.
But shopkeepers do consistently over-estimate how many of their customers come by car, and how much they spend.
The full report, accessible from the link, is well worth reading.
This note appeared in the Ham and High:
Dear Sir
Last week's One Show (BBC, 24th January) item about meteoric rent increases really pulls the veil back on the immense daily challenges to survival faced by independent shopkeepers in our Town Centres.
When I became a Crouch End councillor a decade ago, the going rate for a prime spot in the Broadway was about £20k a year. A couple of years ago, a multinational mobile phone company signed a lease committing them to a rent of £80,000 per year or, as my old grocer dad would have said, £1 600 per week before you put the key in the door!
Traders also must find wages and National Insurance, energy costs, insurance, stock and a myriad of other odds and sods. On top of this, thoughtless councils continue to pile on the pressure by extracting exorbitant parking charges but at the same time claim they are the friend of small businesses.
Property owners (usually the banks and pension funds) must be made to realise that their greed risks killing off town centres and thus lose their investment. Why not declare a five-year rent freeze to allow retail to retrench?
But shoppers are not powerless.
A survey done a decade ago showed that £90 out of every £100 spend by Crouch Enders was not spent locally: the subsequent increase in internet retail means that this measly £10 has probably shrunk even more.
If, collectively, we decide to move a single pound of that £90 back to Crouch End we would be massively helping small shopkeepers and in effect increase their turnover by 10%.
Use 'em or lose 'em! It's up to us.
Cllr David Winskill
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GiuliaFlorimo: @N8CrouchEnd @OpinionN8 Crouch End on the One Show BBC about ridiculous rent increase for indy shops! #haringey7:43pm, Jan 23 from Twitter for Android