"How a cathedral city became the capital of boarded-up Britain"

[dutchman]

A ghost town is haunting Rachel Reeves’s attempts to revive UK high streets



Kathy Coolican has spent her entire adult life in Coventry, after moving there with her husband in the early 1960s. It was where they bought their home together after “years and years and years” of saving up.

It was later where she raised her family. “It was a good city, a thriving city,” says Coolican, now in her 80s. The city centre was filled with “lots of lovely stores” and on the outskirts were friendly neighbourhoods.

But recently, Coolican and her husband have started to think they need to leave. “We’re considering moving up north to Chester, where my son lives,” Coolican says. “Now that is a beautiful city.”

Coventry has become “poor and dirty”, she says. Lots of her favourite stores have been closed. Those that are left “are all pound shops and card shops and charity shops”.

While she would be sad to leave, a move north may be inevitable. “It’s just my opinion, but Coventry isn’t the same city any more,” Coolican laments.

It is easy to see why she feels this way. In the past 10 years alone, the city has undergone dramatic changes. Where once the city centre was thriving, now large areas have been boarded up.

Crime, meanwhile, has been on the rise. Official police data shows that there were 96 cases of shoplifting in Coventry in July. Meanwhile other cities with similar-sized populations, such as Leicester and Reading, are dealing with fewer cases. In those two cities, 77 and 70 shoplifting incidents were reported respectively during July.

Across England, Wales and Northern Ireland as a whole, Coventry is ranked among the top 20 most dangerous cities.

It means the city is at the forefront of the new Labour Government’s battle to “breathe life” into Britain’s high streets, with a two-pronged plan to lure retailers back and to clamp down on city centre crime.

“The country is in crisis,” says Richard Walker, the managing director of Iceland. “These places are the backbone of our communities and are quite distinctly British.”

In Coventry, locals say the problems with decline are linked. The boarded-up shops have led to a rise in the number of rough sleepers in the area and higher levels of crime.

The number of empty shops in the city has gone from fewer than one in 10 a decade ago to almost four in 10 this year, according to JDM Retail Consulting. Coventry now takes the dubious crown of the city with the most boarded-up shops.

The council insists that its rates are artificially high as a result of a long-term redevelopment scheme in which 150 shops moved from the south side of the city to free up space for a new large housing scheme. The scheme, they say, is the single biggest regeneration project in Coventry since the city was rebuilt after the war.

Still, it is causing frustration for locals. One elderly shopper says she has seen people “defecating on empty entry ways”. “Safety is a big factor for me. As you get older, you feel more vulnerable.”

Richard Moon, director of property services and development at the council, admits the drive to overhaul the city centre has caused some upheaval, but he says it has been necessary.

“The reality is, I can’t sit here and tell retailers to come back. We’ve got to work with the best of the city centre that we’ve got.”

In Coventry, that means the high street will ultimately be getting smaller. Instead, more of the city will be given over to homes in a bid to tempt students from nearby universities to settle down.

Yet the proposals have raised eyebrows in cities such as Coventry. There, officials have come to the conclusion that it is not simply a case of matching retailers with properties; council chiefs say the city centre needs a total rethink. Coventry has been working to bring in more coffee shops, pubs and bars.

The wider revamp of the centre – to swap out shops for homes – has been in the works for 14 years. It is expected to be another 15 years until the housing is fully complete, although the blocks of flats will come in phases.

“In and around the city centre, there are a lot of retail warehouse parks,” says Jonathan De Mello, the founder of JDM Retail Consulting. “You can’t change that now that they’re there.”

There are other geographical issues that put Coventry at a particular disadvantage. Since it was rebuilt after the Second World War, Coventry has had to compete with nearby towns and cities including Birmingham and Solihull, where councils have spent heavily to attract big stores such as John Lewis.

Andrew Goodacre, who heads up the British Independent Retailers Association, lives near to Coventry and says other cities hold bigger draws.

“It’s got that big brother of Birmingham nearby which people can easily get to on the train. They think, ‘If I’m going out, I’ll be able to go to Birmingham.’ It’s got the indoor market, it’s got a busy high street, there’s a German market at Christmas. I’d rather go there than Coventry.”

Ultimately, Goodacre believes it is only local leaders who can revive places like Coventry rather than central government.

“What you don’t want is to end up with every high street looking the same, which is what happened in the 80s,” he says.

For locals like Coolican, anything would be better than the current situation. Today she rarely goes into town and, when she does, it is a frustrating experience.

“It’s the poor quality of shops that gets me. I’m disappointed, that’s the word.”

[dutchman]

It’s the poor quality of shops that gets me. I’m disappointed, that’s the word.”

When the city DID have higher quality shops people preferred to travel to Birmingham and Leamington and spend more on the exact same products!