Being in business for myself, I do a lot of reading about local high streets and regeneration. I’ve come across an article in this month’s ‘first’ magazine from the federation of small businesses, an article about regeneration. An interesting extract which goes entirely against what Rochford District Council are planning to do with moving the council offices to the freight house.
Many times when we speak to retailers and shoppers there are complaints about parking charges and cash-strapped council’s using car parks as cash cows. Usually we hear the same rhetoric from Councils about how the reasons for the High Street’s demise is due to online shopping. So it’s interesting that in Northampton the figures are shown what devastating effects car parking charges can have on the High Street.
Perhaps Rochford District Council instead of as spending hundreds of thousands of pounds on consultants, should have engaged with the federation of small businesses in their plans to move the council offices out of the town centre and stop ignoring the evidence that these plans are ill-conceived? They seem hell bent on serving their own needs and not those in the wider community.
