A Tangled Web

Bland Uniformity



What is happening to Britain's high streets? It doesn't seem to matter where you go to shop, each and every town has the same shops and the same geographical layout. Don't get me wrong, I'm all for the trappings of capitalism, but I'm most definitely not in favour of architectural and retail indistinction the length and breadth of the UK.



At one time you could visit a chosen town because it had an outlet you couldn't find anywhere else. In Bradford, for example, we had Brown and Muff's - a small version of Allders or John Lewis's. That store has long since disappeared and has been replaced with a Virgin Megastore, a KFC, Boots and one of those horrible charity shops where you can buy 5,000 paperback books for £1.



Bradford is no the only casualty of this high street elementarity. These days not only are the shops identical, but so is the appearance of our town centres. Whether it be Manchester, Bradford, Hull, Nottingham or Coventry, out towns invariably contain a number of tacky mock-Victorian lampposts, wrought iron rubbish bins with the date embossed on the side in cheap gold lettering, a pedestrianised walkway (replete with terraxo-style paving stones), and cheap statue dedicated to some historical non-entity covered with a blanket of verdigris.



Napoleon once remarked we British were a 'nation of shopkeepers.' If he is looking down on our town centres today, G-d knows what he is thinking!!