Credit Crisis: What now for Nairn High Street?
As a tourist destination Nairn seems to be begging for development and pedestrianisation of the High Street, and other developments to focus on Nairn as a place to visit, stay, and spend.
While some may object that doing so didn’t do Dingwall any favours, it’s worth asking how many people ever visit Dingwall unless they absolutely have to.
Nairn should be different – it’s a place to visit for a multitude of reasons – but the credit crunch is either going to upset or accelerate any change to the High Street sooner, rather than later.
HBOS is no more, Woollies is no more, RBS is almost nationalised, and high street retailers across the country have been filing profit warnings.
That means we’re guaranteed at least two, probably three, empty shop fronts on the high street in the near future – Woolworths of course, and Lloyds are likely to ask whether they need a Lloyds and Bank of Scotland branch on the same street.
And now that the Co-op owns Somerfield as well, they are bound to ask whether they really need two town centre supermarkets.
Others may follow.
And that’s before we even consider the fate of the small traders here.
These issues are not unique to Nairn – no doubt many high streets and retail developments across the UK are going to be badly eroded by the current economic crisis – but Nairn, as a small town, is especially vulnerable to such changes.
I think therefore Nairn’s councillors needs to look even more closely at Nairn High Street, and plan an open future for it, because in a few years time we could be looking at extensive vacancies and dereliction.
The frontage on the A96 is already bad enough, with a string of empty and decaying properties.
How long do we need to continue before Nairn realises that it already has a problem?
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6 Responses to “Credit Crisis: What now for Nairn High Street?”
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In the current state of Nairn high street (And it is going to get worse in terms of number of shops closed) I don’t understand as to why you would want to see it pedestrianised? Would you be aiming to attract the visitor who likes looking at boarded up premises? Our high street is not likely to attract big new businesses for many years to come if ever, retail has changed.
Dingwall is maybe not seen as a success as it is only part of the high street that had slabs put down and vehicles excluded, but then a giant Tescos was built which kind of defeated the idea – shoppers went there instead!
Pedestrian areas of Inverness and Elgin can be seen as pleasant and successful but then they have shops which people want to go to. Nairn is beginning to be the sort of town where we have shops that people have to go to for want of nearby alternatives.
Free parking on the high street is popular with all and sundry and brings people to the street, if it went how many people would bother to walk from a car park?
Nairn already has many places in which to stay and plenty to see. It still has many bars and restaurants in which tourists can spend, and even a smattering of small businesses which I would like to think will survive the current recession through local support.
The emphasis upon Nairn tourism should surely be to promote what we have now – a great place to visit?
Development of properties in the town adjacent to the A96 would greatly improve matters, as would a bypass, but I’m not aware of any changes that are going to happen anytime soon.
Devoid of Woolworths I am not sure as to where all the young people staying at the caravan park are going to spend their holiday fivers, maybe they could just play on the beach instead?
Nairn High Street by night is often busier than it is in the day. The reason? People heading down town for fast food. Most of them park on both sides of the street and have a short walk to their chosen outlet. Would this continue if there were no parking on the High Street? Perhaps a trip through to Pizza Hut or McD’s might become more attractive once the habit was broken.
Hundreds, perhaps thousands of car journies are made up the brae and onto the High Street every day for various reasons, often this is simply the safest and quickest route home for many people. Could the rat-runs cope with this additional traffic? And then there’s the residents that live down the various closes, you’d have to get them all onside in the first instance. I doubt very much whether the traders would have the bottle for the experiment too.
Besides all that, the way we buy things is changing forever. The dream of the planners was for Nairn to have specialist quality shops that had a niche market – just the ideal thing to set up an on-line store with. ‘The times they are a-changing’, to imagine the High Street coming back to the full potential of yesteryear is just a dream – agreed, however, cleaning it up and making it more presentable is not beyond human endeavour.
I think pedestrianisation is one option, but it’s not the only option – and pedestrianisation is not a magic bullet.
I’ve seen it work well in East Yorkshire where I came up from – Hull had pedestrianised areas for decades – as did Beverley, which was a small market town on the outskirts, and neither area suffered from the presence of large retail developments. The seaside towns along the East Yorkshire coast – Scarborough, Bridlington, Whitby – also had pedestrianised areas which worked. That’s why coming up here I found it so weird that pedestrianisation wasn’t simply absent, but also in some quarters, opposed.
What pedestrianisation offers is a safer and more relaxing shopping environment, and despite being a tourist destination, Nairn’s high street is a goat run.
Perhaps Nairn residents are simply used to it, but when I first visited with my family we were terrified for the kids – when there’s only room for a single push chair on the pavement, but pedestrians are still moving both ways. Having to regularly step out in front of buses, vans, and cars, does not make for a positive shopping experience.
But just having a safer shopping experience isn’t enough – there needs to be the kind of outlets that attract people in the first place.
While Nairn does have cafes, they are really just indoor cafes – in the summer months there’s little joy to be had sitting a family outside to suck up traffic fumes, and as a parent you just can’t relax if you’re children are sat against a main road.
Yet isn’t Nairn supposed to be a family holiday destination?
The towns in East Yorkshire enjoyed continual residential growth and business investment, so I think we couldn’t look at pedestrianisation in isolated, but as part of a co-ordinated plan that looks at the needs of Nairn and its visitors overall.
I think that’s the key here – having an overall plan and trying to implement it intelligently – nothing viewed in isolation, but as a whole – bringing together not just the high street, but look at bringing in white collar industries to the business park, catering for tourists by the sea front, planning housing developments to work within an overall structure.
Nairn has a number of major unique selling points – absolutely essential in business – but doesn’t seem to be living up to their potential.
While the current conditions and internet shopping will inevitably cause a decline of high street shopping, Nairn should be able to:
1. serve the shopping needs for the local area,
2. serve the shopping needs of tourists
3. develop to attract more of both of the above
It has to be a tragedy if the only thing Nairn’s town centre is good for on a night is buying take-outs – Nairn has much more than that.
Overall, to summarise, I think Nairn needs a co-ordinated plan – one that doesn’t look at the high street in isolation, but instead looks at Nairn overall and how to attract more people in to help the town thrive.
Nairn should be both a regional centre for the surrounding populations, as well as a key tourist destination – yet at present, resists making the effort to encourage people to stay here and spend their money, and help the town grow and thrive.
2c.
This thorny debate is a bit like that Irish joke about the tourist who gets lost and asks a local resident for directions to his chosen destination. “Oh well,” says the local man, “sure if I wanted to get there, I wouldn’t start from here…”.
I agree that there’s a desperate need for some creative, constructive and coherent planning to rescue and revive the town centre – and for that matter the harbour area(what an asset is being wasted there!). And I tend to share the view that as part of such a plan, a pedestrianised High Street (with nearby parking: there’s lots of space in the Somerfield/old filling station/old Community Centre area) would be a positive step. But even this would be hard to achieve.
So how about an experiment. Why can’t Nairn do as so many small towns do in France, and on a specified day of the week close off the High Street totally to vehicles and run a farmers’ market – or indeed a more general market with crafts and all kinds of stalls? Might take a while to catch on, so initially would need to be tried in summer when visitors are in town. Pull in the antiques vendors who use the Newton once a month, the regional craft people who exhibit at Christmas fairs, the Findhorn crystal healers, the local garlic growers, cheese makers, organic veg and venison sellers. Allow High Street shopkeepers and cafes to put their wares out in the street. Pedestrianise for a day (and prepare and publicise it well). Once folk try it, they may find they like it.
Now there’s a project that the Association of Nairn Businesses, or High Street Retailers, or whatever it’s called, might like to take on! Yes, it would need imagination, energy, and ‘bottle’. Hmmm – is there any of that around in Nairn?
That’s a very interesting idea – perhaps someone should grab Sandy Park’s ear and whisper it to him?
Let’s do it anyway, even if the Business people don’t want it. Punters love markets, bring it on, bring them all on, well said Nairn Bairn.
As long as the provost dances I’ll be there too.