Coffee in the Square

The High Street - Adapt or Die

This is a picture of Lucca in Italy.  It is one of the most perfect examples of a preserved medieval town centre.  Urban planners love it because its almost archetypal in layout.  There is a central square with a church, a tight network of (we hope) busy streets and a 'cordon sanitaire' of parkland around the edge, which was once protection against invaders and now demarcates very precisely the area that tourists visit.

Its still a charming town today - for tourists.  But how economically successful is it?  

I was reminded of Lucca when I read about the furore that has been caused by the recent suggestions, not least by TV guru, Mary Portas, that the High Street is dead.   The suggestion is that the retail area should contract and the rest should be given over to housing - relaxing planning codes and getting life into the town centres.  I don't wholly disagree with the suggestion.  Portas recognises that Town Centres are about more than shopping.  It is the prevailing assumption that town centre = retail, and nothing else, that worries me. 

 Mary Portas High Street Review

Traditionally town centres were the centre of all types of commerce, and I use that word in its widest sense.  Commerce isn't just buying and selling goods.  Commerce should also be about the exchange of ideas, cultures, rumours, favours and - most importantly - employment.  That is why the out of town shopping centre, or even the town centre shopping mall is almost always a mind-numbingly dull experience.  Yes you can buy clothes and shoes, but is there a place to sit and chat with your neighbours, is there a theatre or even a bookshop? 

All the other town centre functions like civic management, offices, theatres, education - you name it - they've moved to the bypass.  Even Cambridge University has been steadily developing out of town for the last twenty years, to such an extent that the bicycle clutter is disappearing.  Students need cars, like everybody else now, if they are to get to their labs several miles outside town.

One of the reasons that I call my blog coffee in the square is because of a realisation that town centres are as much about meeting your friends and colleagues over coffee than they are about shopping.  In fact, in a bid to reduce my consumption I rarely frequent the high street these days - even though I live five minutes from Oxford Street.  I'd much prefer to mooch around Soho, with its independent shops, galleries, cafes and studios than slog through the crowds visiting the high street chains. 

The simplification of high street commerce has got to such a point that very few towns have independant retailers anymore.Yet, all the great high street brands that we know and love started off somewhere as independants.  It's a fact of life that the vast majority of our consumption is with the high street retailers.  If you don't believe me just look at what you are wearing today - I'll bet most of you will be wearing high street brands, down to your socks!

But is it chicken or egg?  Do we buy from the high street because they have pushed out all the other functions, or have we only got high street brands because we never shopped anywhere else? 

A friend of mine went out for lunch is Phoenix the other day.  He related his dismay when, instead of stopping at some down-town haunt their hosts car drew up at a mall.  They were pleased to get a window seat at the restaurant, the food was excellent, the company stimulating.  But what was the window view?  It was the car park!  (So much for cultural richness.)

Travelling everywhere by car isn't just costly in carbon terms.  A car based society is socially divided.  It is in walkable city centres that rich and poor, foreign and native meet on equal terms.   I would maintain that the ability to meet your fellow citizens on equal terms is one of the tenets of civilisation.  How else do ideas travel; how else do people learn to empathise with those less or more fortunate than themselves?

We all understand that a car based society excludes the underprivileged.  But I would question whether this hatred of bankers, this suspicion of politicians isn't also because we just never meet them face to face.  How often do we see snippets of TV news footage of the privileged speeding away from the camera inside a nice car? John Major is credited in winning the 1992 election because he got up on a soap box, to deliver his speeches.  But the real benefit to his campaign was that he got down amongst ordinary people, who responded by believing in him as an ordinary human being and not a party grandee.

So I would advise town centres to be cautious of heeding Mary Portas's advice, to turn those secondary shopping streets into housing.  I think, even though she mentions them in her report,  she's forgotten all the other reasons for town centres to exist.  Her twenty eight recommendations are very retailer focused. Of course we should be looking at widening the retail offer, but Local Authorities should be more pro-active in introducing offices, studies, cafes, pubs, theaters, libraries, colleges and civic centres.  The real win would be for one of the favoured pilot towns to move its offices from the ring road, back into the town centre.

 

This makes me mad!

I have decided to include a selection of outrages, rather like Architectural review used to do.  And for my first victim I have chosen HSBC bank for their cranky new interiors.
Why does a bank need to look like a disco?  Spangly lights and low levels, a dance floor and carpeted areas.  When you enter all you see is an array of machines that remind me of the soulless slot machines of Vegas. The human tellers are tucked inconspicuously around the corner. I know what they were thinking. Get rid of expensive staff and get the feel of the street - a most overused world in interior design.  The only place for a streetscene is in Disney Land or in a REAL STREET!  Interestingly when I went in and sneaked this photo all the people at the machines were bank staff, trying to make the machines work. Please send me your outrages and I will give them blogspace.

This is what HSBC's 2006 annual report says "HSBC Bank plc aligns its strategy closely to the HSBC Group’s strategic vision to be the world’s
leading financial services company, where leading means the HSBC brand is preferred to others. In working towards delivery of the vision, the bank has developed strategic initiatives for each of its customer groups. The bank’s priorities are to improve the customer experience, (continuing to develop the FSA principles of ‘Treating Customers Fairly’), to invest in developing HSBC’s brand and
encourage all staff to live HSBC’s brand values in their day-to-day activities, and to improve staff
engagement. The bank also focuses on investing in delivery platforms and technology, improving the customer experience, enhancing work practices and taking advantage of HSBC’s global reach."

Westminster's Folly

Parking in central London can be expensive and a drag.  But I have nothing against small green cars and even these need somewhere to park.  So underground car parks like the one in Cavendish Square just behind John Lewis and Oxford Street should provide a model for other developments.  This was rather miraculously built after the war, managing to maintain the fine Plain trees which now sit on top of the spiral car park.  (There is a similar car park in Russel Square which is one of the oldest squares in London - but that is a double spiral!).  Even on a gloomy day like today Cavendish Square provided a green respite from central London's hustle and bustle.

However the car park itself is gloomy and needs sprucing.  And the square, which is potentially beautiful, is cut off for pedestrians by roads on all sides.  I think that Westminster councillors must hate pedestrians.  They certainly have a fear of pedestrianisation and here the roads and footways have been configured so that there is NO WAY to access the gardens except by taking your life in your hands across traffic lanes.  There are no pedestrian crossing or lights. 
Yet the roads around here are only local distributor roads.  There is no need for traffic around here to go fast!
The New West End Company have obviously recognised the problem and in 2005 they conjured up a scheme with adjoining landowners Marchday Group PLC who are the freeholders of the square.  But since what is reported to have been a positive consultation nothing more has been heard.
It is simple schemes and partnerships like this could progressively improve central London, but Westminster, one of the richest of London Boroughs drags its feet.
What New West End Company realises, and what Westminster Councillors should understand is that Oxford Street is losing out to the dead - but admittedly convenient - hand  of places like Bluewater.  Central London has no God-given right to remain central.  The website gives no credits to the designers of the proposals.  (They probably were not paid anything!)

I'm sending this article to New West End Company and to my councillor - I am a Westminster ratepayer.  So we'll see what response we get.  (If any)

M&S see the light

Finally M&S seem to have seen the light in green retailing.  Every business must by now be aware that taxes for landfill of rubbish, high emissions and energy costs will hit them sooner or later.  Also its great PR to be green.  Just think of the "out of town" Sainsbury on the Greenwhich peninsular which assuages its guilt at being located in the middle of a giant car park by hoisting a couple of windmills!
So will M&S be any different?  Well they have had Jonathon Porritt  helping them set it up and a read of today's press release seems to offer some cause for optimism.  However will this mean that M&S starts to abandon their out of town locations, will they be importing less by air, will they be using renewable resources in their clothing lines?  At the moment its fleece from recycled plastic bottles - is that all there is?
A major cost of energy in their stores must be the lack of natural ventilation and natural light even though a lot of stores are only two storey.  It would be interesting if just as John Lewis start filling in their atria (designed in the 40's to bring in natural light and ventilation) M&S start adding atria to their stores. 

Download ms_press_release_070115.pdf