Romsey and District Society

SHOPFRONTS and COMMERCIAL BUILDINGS in ROMSEY TOWN CENTRE ASSESSMENTS 2004/5

5. Illuminated and hanging signs
It is natural for a retailer to want to make his shop as prominent as possible so as to capture the attention of passing trade, but it something that has to be controlled if the town is not to take on the appearance of a circus. For example, the recent planning application by Aldi for illuminated signs to the front and the rear of the building were twice the size of the present ones and were refused on Appeal. The council has some control in this area and its policy is that illuminated signs should only be allowed where a business operates beyond normal shop hours.

6. Some broader issues
Of the 153 buildings assessed, about 65 were retail outlets of the type which buys and sells finished goods. The remainder were concerned with services such as banks and building societies (7), estate agents (10), hairdressers (13), restaurants (15) and charity shops (6). In the course of this study, the team became aware that two types of shops, charity shops and chain stores, need special attention. Both types tend to produce unattractive shopfronts but for other reasons their numbers should not be allowed to become excessive in a town. This is not a matter that can be dealt with locally.

6.1 Charity shops
In June 2005 the Wessex Cancer Trust took over two adjacent shops in The Hundred bringing the number of charity shops in the town to six (or seven if Wessex Trust is counted as two). There will shortly be yet another charity shop in Market Place which means they make up about 10 per cent of retail outlets (shops which buy and sell finished goods) in the town. Whilst no one will dispute the good work that many of the shops do, they are not noted for having attractive shopfronts and too many of them give the impression that a town is in a poor state of health.


Charity shops get an 80% discount on business rates. This is a statutory obligation placed on local councils by government. They sometimes offer better rents and longer leases than other shops, their staff are often salaried and many sell new goods in competition with local shopkeepers. At the time of writing, the Society is finding out what other organisations are doing nationally about the situation.


6.2 Chain stores
Shops and businesses that are part of a larger group are generally more concerned with presenting their corporate image than in making their shopfronts sympathetic to the streetscape. There are exceptions of course; we thought the building in The Hundred that Waitrose used to occupy was a good example of a modern shopfront that had been designed to blend in with its immediate neighbours. Locally based estate agents have, on balance, more attractive shopfronts than the rest. On the other hand, we have Boots the Chemist (section 2.1 on page 2) whose almost studied ugliness occupies a prime position in the town.

A danger of having too many such stores is that a town begins to lose its identity and look much the same as any other town. The New Economics Foundation, an independent think-tank, has carried out a survey of over 100 British towns and released its findings in June 2005. In its report, ‘Clone Town Britain’ it concludes that, by its measure, 41% of the towns surveyed can be classified as ‘cloned’ and a further 26% are on the borderline. The rate of loss of independent outlets is alarmingly high. Exeter is the worst town surveyed and Winchester comes sixth.

Some local councils in America have adopted powers which enable them to limit the number of ‘formula’ shops and restaurants in towns in order to prevent the cloning effect. This is a situation that should be watched carefully.

Conclusion
Much of the damage to listed buildings, some of which is noted above, is long-standing and one would need to be very optimistic to think that it might be corrected. However, there is scope to prevent further deterioration and possibly to effect some improvement. The Society will start carrying out audits of shopfronts in the town in 2006 and reports will be made to the council. These should reveal whether the council has sufficient powers to maintain or improve the existing appearance of the town centre and whether planning documentation is adequate. If it is not, the Society will work with them to effect change.