HIGH STREET ‘Work in Progress’
Brian Steptoe
HIGH STREET ‘Work in Progress’
Brian Steptoe
“SMALL TOWNS Stores outside views front views inside views goods on shelves people buying people coming out of store with purchases” … Roy Stryker, excerpt from shooting script for US Farm Security Administration, 1935-1944.
Front cover - Market Place, 1 December 2012
© Brian Steptoe 2013, text, photographs and book design, except where printed quotes are included. .
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‘Said to originate from two Anglo-Saxon words meaning ‘the home of the Woccingas tribe’, mentioned in a charter dated 1146. The right to hold a weekly market was first granted in 1219. In 1813 it was famous for sales of fatted fowls; later that century recorded as trading cattle, sheep and pigs. The current Victorian Town Hall was opened in 1860. As well as civic rooms, it housed the police station with three cells and a savings bank, which opened once a week on Monday mornings’ … Historical Notes on Wokingham, A.T.Heelas
‘In the 14th century Wokingham High Street was where Broad Street and The Terrace are today. Professional and middle classes lived in Broad Street’ … Wokingham Society website and An account of early Victorian Wokingham, ISBN 0 951 0874 01. Peach Street was known as Le Peche Street in 1451 and Peach Street in Victorian times. Le Don Strete, later Down Street and now Denmark Street, was renamed in honour of the Princess of Denmark. In Victorian times this was a poorer area of the town centre compared to Market Place, Broad Street and Peach Street. ‘Typically, only 6% of Denmark Street residents had a domestic servant, compared to 47% in Broad Street’ … 1851 census. .
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High Street Although the conventional response to the problems of village and town high streets is to place the blame on out-of-town supermarkets, this ignores the fact that people vote with their feet, or rather their cars. The pattern of purchasing has changed in major ways, not just with single port of call weekly shopping, but also with wide use of the internet for all forms of purchases. High streets need to adapt to reflect these changes; wishing for a return to the individual butchers, grocers, fruit & veg shops is a past utopia which is doomed to fail. Wide-ranging effects from these changes are nevertheless often not reflected in local opinions expressed, for example, in letters in the press, where responses are often dominated by resistance to any change. The Mary Portas Review, commissioned by the government, was published in December 2011. It was followed up by a number of pilot schemes aimed at testing out the proposals in the report. A large number of towns bid to be selected as one of the pilots, including Wokingham. The bid by our town did not succeed, probably because the situation in our own ‘high street’ was much better compared to many other towns. 27 ‘Portas Pilot’ towns selected range from Liskeard in Cornwall to Berwick-onTweed in Northumberland have been given £100,000 each of government money to test out the proposals, although it is recognised that this sum is a ‘drop in the ocean’. Wokingham’s own ‘high street’ is made up by a combination of Peach Street, Denmark Street and Broad Street, radiating from Market Place and the Victorian Town Hall. Several of the main recommendations of the Portas Report are not directly susceptible to interpretation in visual terms. but other aspects from her Report are: • establishing a town team with representatives from councils, landlords, shop tenants and local inhabitants • opportunities for low cost shopkeeper ‘start-ups’ • provision of controlled free parking schemes • making high streets accessible, attractive and safe • supporting imaginative community use of empty properties In these times of general recession with tightening of belts, it is not easy to distinguish between shop closures from this and closures from longer term changes in purchasing patterns. Nevertheless it is reasonable to look to efforts that give rise to increase in footfall in our high streets as a step in the right direction.
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‘In the first year of the reign of Charles I, severe edicts applied against foreigners or strangers from other places, presuming to engage in any business, keeping a shop or stall, or pursueing any trade or mystery, no one but a freeman being allowed to trade in the town, under heavy penalties’ ‌ Lecture by the Rector of Barkham, reprinted in Historical Notices of Wokingham, undated.
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Town Team An initial meeting to establish interest in forming a Town Team was held in the town hall on 27 November 2012. A speaker from the Association of Town Centre Management (ATCM) at the meeting covered topics including: • • • • •
enhancement of the streetscape getting the business mix right consumer marketing and events the evening and night time economy seeking funding by “crowd funding initiatives” rather than asking for increased budgets. more creative ways being needed; not all about retail, but also includeing town centre housing, offices, sports, social, commercial and cultural enterprises. sharing experiences between other towns.
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By January 2013 a Town Team was in place, with working groups established on four topics: Events & Markets, Visitor Experience, Funding & Partnerships and Media & Promotion. “If people really wanted High Streets to stay the same they would shop there” … Sunday Times, 20 January 2013. “Come in and spend some money in the existing shops rather than pine for a range of shops which are commercially nonviable” … letter to Wokingham Times, 12 December 2012. “High Streets need to offer something new and different that shopping centres and the internet can’t match” … Mary Portas .
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‘As online shopping has grown in popularity, planners, developers and retailers are going to have to work harder to bring people into town centres’ ‌ D.Telegraph, 24 January, 2013
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February 2013, former Peacocks store conversion to Lloyds TSB bank .
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January 2013, Burtons store closes due to company restructuring .
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‘During July and August 2012, retail chains were closing stores at the rate of 32 a day’ … Sunday Times, 2 December 2012 ‘2013’s threatened business rate increase can only make matters worse”’… D.Telegraph, 19 November 2012.
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®Give Wokingham its own identity, encouraging one-off locally run eateries and specialist shops’ … Nicola Joyce, Wokingham Watch, December 2012
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‘The former Woolworth store in Peach Street was built for extension, leaving one end in cheap brickwork’ … Wokingham, Its History and Buildings, Wellington College Printing, undated, but probably in the 1950s.
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Wokingham Decor hardware store
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January 2013, Blockbuster goes into administration .
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‘It is only recently that a plan has been produced to do anything about the town’s traffic situation. This seems to be a one-way system for all traffic. This may help for some years, but unless we all develop wings, something else will have to be done’ … Wokingham, Its History and Buildings, Wellington College Printing, undated, but probably in the 1950s. .
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Peach Place development, opening up pedestrian routes from Rose Street and Waitrose, will help secure a more vibrant town centre. .
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‘Amazon open a 700,000 sq ft site in Rugeley for toys, games and electronic equipment’ … D.Telegraph, 24 November 2012. .
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‘42% of Argos sales are by internet, with three-quarters of these as “click and collect” in the store. Modernisation will see its laminated catalogues replaced by touch screens’ … D.Telegraph, 18 January 2013 .
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‘To borrow from Mark Twain, reports of the death of the high street have been greatly exaggerated’ … Graham Ruddick, D.Telegraph, 1 February 2013 ‘It will all take good planning, and much more flexibility from planners. But it could just be that the high street crisis brings life, not death, to town centres’ … Geoffrey Lean, D.Telegraph, 19 January, 2013 ‘If my review of the British high street for the Government has taught me one thing, it’s that bricksand-mortar stores can compete with the internet if they adapt their retail offer and serve their customers with expertese’ … Mary Portas, Telegraph Magazine, February 2013
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‘Holes in the High Street could be filled by pop-up art galleries, space for local entrepreneurs and centres for community gathering and entertainment - and badly needed homes. High Streets could become places where people go to enjoy themselves, not just for shopping’ … D.Telegraph, 19 January 2013
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‘Work in Progress’
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the story continues .......
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The Mary Portas Review into the problems of our British High Streets identified many of the aspects relevant to Wokingham’s town centre. This photographic book illustrates the way Peach Street, Broad Street, Denmark Street and Market Place stand in relation to the topics in the Portas Review. Changes are frequently occurring to shop outlets and other facilities, mainly arising from the financial position of certain retail chains and more generally by the effects of increases in internet shopping. Hence the inclusion of ‘Work in Progress’ in the book title. Brian Steptoe is a local author, book designer and photographer. He has been awarded the Fenton Medal by the Royal Photographic Society and holds a Fellowship distinction from that Society. His most recent project, undertaken during 2010/11, was the study of the local Gray family’s Pick-Your-Own Fruit Farm.
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