To help come to the rescue of the Island’s ‘suffering’ high streets, a new guide has been produced stipulating how shopfronts should look in 2 major towns.
Last week, the Isle of Wight Council approved the Newport and Ryde Commercial Frontages Design Guide which aims to protect the identity of the town’s historic high streets.
It comes as a consultation found of the shopfronts in the towns, 71 were liked in Ryde, compared to 30 disliked and in Newport 40 shops were liked, compared to 52 disliked.
The guide now sets a new standard for commercial properties — ensuring their visual appearance enhances the conservation area, instead of having a detrimental impact — after both towns were accepted into Historic England’s High Street Heritage Action Zones (HAZ) programme in 2019.
A key aim of the HAZ is to restore buildings and traditional shopfronts and the work is hoped to help the High Streets recover and evolve, with one eye on the past and one on the future. The design guide says much of Newport High Street has lost its architectural heritage, with the stretch west of St James’ Street particularly affected, and characterised by ‘run-down or bland’ shopfronts of national retail chains.
In Ryde, the High Street is said to lack the same ‘place appeal’ as Union Street, again with national chains interrupting historic shopfronts. Through consultation, it was agreed the most important feature driving the failure of a shop was the look of the building with its appearance influencing how well-liked the shop was.
Speaking at the cabinet meeting, Cllr Paul Fuller, the council’s cabinet member for planning, said the high streets were suffering and the next few months would be crucial for their survival so anything the council can do to support them, like this policy, they would be doing.
The design guide now sets out how shop owners and landlords can redesign or refurbish their building fronts — starting with understanding the building and its heritage. It says nearly all shopfronts in the towns can be improved.
The guide recommends all shopfronts should consider a cosmetic refresh before further work takes place.
And they are all going to do this willingly at their own expense ??, Blimey, take the rose coloured glasses off and rejoin the real world. There’s a reason all the shop fronts are in such a state, and unless this is compulsory most won’t be bothered to spend what little profit they get from the High Streets.. and who pays for all these surveys and quangos, us the taxpayers.
it doesn’t matter what pointless surveys and window dressing the council wastes taxpayers money on to justify their existence, the truth in all business is the same..
“your business will only survive if you are providing the goods or services that consumers want or need, at a price they are willing to pay”
The shop can be the most rundown, dilapidated building, in the street, however, if it is providing what people want, it will succeed.
How many times have we seen in Newport and Ryde – a business opens with great fanfare, with a wonderful look from the street, but fails in less than a year, because its business model was wrong for the area.
substance over style – in other words – image, isn’t the answer.
the high streets will naturally evolve to reflect the state of the purse strings of the locals.
if hardly anyone has any money to spend, then the high street will be full of discount retailers and charity shops, which won’t spend money painting the shop front. If people are flush with cash, then you see the high end brands move in with gleaming shop fronts and the charity shops/discount close, as they cannot afford the higher rents and people aren’t shopping there, because they feel successful and want the brand names.
councils cannot have any impact on economic cycles, despite what drivel they come out with.
Do we actually need high streets anymore? These are now an out of date concept we have all moved on. Convert the shops to houses.
Fancy meating u here
The council want shops to tidy there shop fronts and then do away with parking places in the high street They are on a different planet
Newer generations do not shop in shops to the same extent, or in the same way that their predecessors did – online is the new high street. Any amount of turd polishing will not change that. The high street as we know it is forever changed. Deal with that IWC instead of wasting my money on pointless self serving surveys and unenforceable recommendations etc etc etc
“Through consultation, it was agreed the most important feature driving the failure of a shop was the look of the building with its appearance influencing how well-liked the shop was.”
Absolute tosh. The most important features were wrong place, wrong time, wrong goods, wrong prices, and listening to the wrong people (and there’s a lot of them).
Not forgetting the preposterous rates the council or landlords set business owners so why oh why would anyone want to set up a business in either Ryde or Newport.
Yet another pointless council initiative,when will they realise they are the sole reason for the state of the high streets, an average shop pays thousands a year in business rates to be told that they have to spruce their shops up, add in the parking charges and is any wonder that shoppers use free to park out of town shopping retailers, for goodness sake move into the 21st century.
Oh my how much did this consultation cost? Didn’t realise we had so many shops in Ryde and Newport, Newport especially as half the time it looks dead. Perhaps a review of the charges the Council imposes on businesses would be more appropriate and hopefully encourage more people to visit our town centres and shop. No point having a Town Centre with very few shops operating, or those that do are only there for a quick buck and shut. We also need to limit the number of Coffee outlets/quick food outlets, that would lessen the amount of rubbish being left around the town centres.
Coffee shops and fast food outlets do not create rubbish in towns. Their customers, who were dragged up with no manners, respect or regard for anything but themselves and who were never taught how to dispose of their waste responsibly, do. Most people dispose of their rubbish properly but you will never teach the morons in society.
Oh that old ethos. Like ‘responsible dog owners clear up after their dogs’, yet the streets are full of poop. No dogs – no mess. Fewer coffee shops = less mess.
Out of town shopping and the Internet have killed the High Streets, that’s the bottom line, some major high street stores still attract people into town, but they are not enough to sustain the independents. It’s a sad fact of life.
What such a waste of thousands of pounds and taking up officers and councilor’s time when some of our community are struggling with feeding themselves etc. If council want to help high streets reduce rates,as so many closed they are trying to squeeze more from those that are left, reduce rent and free parking etc. Why would I pay more for a product off high street and pay parking,walk some distance when I could go Asda or similar or order from comfort of my home and next day or same day delivery and still for less ?.
Don’t let your son go down on me