This could be you (4 May 2011)

There’s nothing like glorious weather to bring a British seaside resort to life, and Redcar, on the Tees Valley coast, had a really great buzz about it when I visited yesterday.

The streets were packed with shoppers, and there were entertainers in both the High Street and the Regent Walk shopping centre. Even Wetherspoon’s was playing host to some impromptu guitar playing from one of its customers.

Redcar High Street (4 May 2011)

I’d only been to Redcar once before, back in September 2009, but I took an immediate liking to the place. The wide, pedestrianised High Street is a pleasing public space, with coordinated street furniture and a lack of clutter (market stalls, delivery vehicles, etc.) that puts Newcastle’s Northumberland Street to shame.

Espanade, Redcar (4 May 2011)

Shopping centres by the sea are nearly always appealing, and Redcar’s Espanade runs directly behind the High Street. As I noted last time, this means that the town’s former Woolworths building (still occupied by the Yorkshire Trading Company) has a wonderful sea view from its back door, a feature that it must share with very few other ex-Woolies sites – Whitby, just a short way down the coast, of course being one of them.

Esplanade entrance to former Woolworths (now Yorkshire Trading Company) (4 May 2011)

Of course, the town centre isn’t without its problems. In the last few years, the number of empty shops in Redcar High Street has become a key issue, repeatedly flagged up in the local and national media. Since I was there last, this has prompted the local authority to create a series of ‘virtual shops’ to fill the voids, as part of its ‘Uplifting Our Town Centres’ initiative – a solution very similar to Shopjacket, but not executed with quite the same panache.

One of Redcar's virtual shops (4 May 2011)

Interestingly, there’s also a virtual café, a virtual restaurant, and even (on the Esplanade) a virtual house.

Virtual café, Redcar (4 May 2011)

Virtual restaurant, Redcar (4 May 2011)

Virtual house, Redcar (4 May 2011)

Clearly, as I’ve said before, such an approach is no substitute for bringing properties back into active – and non-virtual – use. However, as a way of ensuring that such buildings don’t become a short-term visual blight on those businesses that are trading, it’s an incredibly effective solution. Walking around Redcar, my eyes were drawn to the occupied buildings instead of the vacant ones, which is surely the whole point of the exercise.

Of all the virtual shops, however, my favourite has to be the virtual fashion store at 28 High Street, below, housed in what I believe used to be a branch of the collapsed DIY retailer Leveys.

Virtual fashion store, Redcar (4 May 2011)

The ‘Store Closing – Everything Must Go!’ posters – left over, one imagines, from the previous tenant – certainly add a touch of credit crunch-era authenticity to the virtual shop. It’s not really the kind of message you want to communicate to prospective future occupants, though…

Shopjacket in Howard Street, North Shields (18 Jun 2010)

While checking out North Shield’s Wooly Minded, I also paid a visit to the North East’s third Shopjacket, in nearby Howard Street, following on from those in Whitley Bay and Barnard Castle. However, with future Shopjacket projects in the pipeline for London and overseas, this might be the last one that I capture for a while!

North Shields Shopjacket (18 Jun 2010)

Taking the form of a hairdressers, the concept in North Shields is the same as before, with high-quality graphic design giving the illusion of a real shop. In a slight change from previously, however, the North Shields Shopjacket was installed in the space of a couple of hours, with observers – including a camera crew from the Russian TV channel RTR – invited to go along and watch the whole process.

Handily, you can watch a timelapse of the installation on YouTube.

Meanwhile, my innocent remark that “it might not be long before Barnard Castle’s fake bakers is replaced by a proper one” seems to have been eerily prescient. I understand that a North East-based bakers is due to sign for the unit any time now, suggesting that the Shopjacket concept can indeed play a part in inspiring real businesses to take over the empty units that it showcases.

Shopjacket in Barnard Castle... but maybe not for much longer (5 June 2010)

Finally, just a quick word to mark the fact that my earlier post about Card Factory coming to Newcastle was my 100th blog post since Soult’s Retail View launched almost a year ago. In that time the blog has logged 47,812 views, with the highest number – 945 – coming on Tuesday 16 February, the opening day of Eldon Square’s extension.

Needless to say, I’d like to thank all of you who have read, commented on, talked about, contributed to, and given feedback on this blog to date. It’s greatly appreciated, and I’m looking forward to the next 100 posts and beyond!

Teesdale Mercury article

One of the things I love about retail is the way that you can always find obscure links between apparently unrelated places, people and shops – such as me innocently blogging about Newcastle’s old Zavvi store without initially realising the Woolworths connection.

The latest example of the phenomenon links two of my previous posts about completely different topics – the one from a couple of weeks ago about my visit to Barnard Castle, and February’s post about the now-famous Shopjacket in Whitley Bay.

The connection was made in last week’s Teesdale Mercury newspaper, where a nice story by the Mercury’s editor about my Barnard Castle blog post – under the heading ‘Retail expert praises town’ – sat next to a piece about Shopjacket’s latest project… in Barnard Castle.

Naturally, another visit to Barnard Castle was required last weekend, not only to pick up my own copy of the paper (the story about my blog is not, unfortunately, available from the Teesdale Mercury website, but you can see a PDF here), but also to check out the Shopjacket team’s latest handiwork. [UPDATE, 18 June 2010: The article is now online, and can be viewed here]

As you’ll recall, Whitley Bay’s so-called ‘shoptical illusion’ caused something of a media frenzy when it was installed earlier this year, taking the horrible looking former Select store and giving it the appearance of an upmarket delicatessen.

Shopjacket in Whitley Bay (29 May 2010)

Commisioned by the town’s regeneration partnership, Barnard Castle Vision, Barney’s version follows the same formula – this time masquerading as a baker’s – but has the advantage of being attached to a much nicer building to start with (the former Harmoni home gift shop at 22 Horsemarket). Again, it’s pretty realistic, and effective at transforming the empty property into something that contributes positively to the street scene.

Shopjacket in Barnard Castle (5 June 2010)

It also complements and supports the efforts that Barnard Castle Vision is making – mentioned in my previous post – to bring real independent retailers into the town, with recent arrivals including a vintage retro shop, a ladies’ fashion store, a hairdressers and a cycle shop. Bigger names have also been attracted, with Scotmid’s health and beauty chain, Semichem, opening its eleventh north of England store^{[broken link removed]} in the Market Place’s former Blockbuster Video premises. 

Who knows, at this rate it might not be long before Barnard Castle’s fake bakers is replaced by a proper one.

The former Select store in Whitley Bay, following its 'Shopjacketting'

Given the challenges that Whitley Bay town centre has faced over the last year – with a number of high-profile retail departures – it’s been great to see it at the centre of a good news story today. Sources as diverse as The Sun, the Daily Telegraph, Sky News and NewsLite have seized upon the ‘fake shopfront’ that now adorns the former Select store, intended by North Tyneside Council to replace the depressing sight of an empty unit with the impression of a thriving delicatessen.

...and how it looked before

By coincidence, the first property to receive the ‘Shopjacket’ treatment is one that I’d flagged up back in December as particularly ‘horrible-looking’. Consequently, when I had the pleasure a week ago of meeting up with the Tyneside-based team responsible for Shopjacket – among them property consultant Paul Murphy, and creative consultants Neil Wilson and Hayley Rodgers – I was thrilled to see the subject of their first transformation.

My own photo of the former Select shop and its surroundings, back in December

Instead of being blighted by the depressing appearance of the vacated Select shop, with its grimy fascia and droopy ‘Sale’ posters, Whitley Road now enjoys a much more pleasing scene – an attractive and tasteful frontage that gives an impression of how the unit could once again make a positive contribution to the high street. Who would have thought that a fake deli scene – and a much-needed coat of paint for the drab shutters – could make such a significant visual difference?

It’s not the be-all and end-all, of course. The property’s unattractive upper floors are still in need of work, and behind the fake frontage, there’s still a vacant unit that Whitley Bay could well do without. The value of the transformation, however, is that it brings a bit of hope, and some aspiration, back to Whitley Bay town centre – attributes that are essential if high streets like this are to have any hope of bouncing back from recent decline.

Former M&S Simply Food, Whitley Bay - subsequently taken over by Sainsbury's

Crucially, these positive vibes have already extended beyond the former Select shop, with Paul and Neil telling me how some of the nearby retailers in Whitley Bay have drawn inspiration from the fake deli to think about how they could enhance their own shopfronts – often for little more effort than a pot of paint and taking on board some expert design advice.

The enhancements to the former Select store are the latest in a string of recent efforts that Whitley Bay has made to tackle the problem of empty shop units, not all of which have worked so well. You may recall that in a previous post I expressed some incredulity about the plans to paint the hoardings of the nearby former Co-op supermarket in Whitley Bay, amid the claim from the town’s Chamber of Trade that “an initiative like this can only help attract more visitors and increase trade for businesses in the town”.

As I remarked then – and still maintain now, having visited the old Co-op for myself back in December – “it’s clearly nonsense to suggest that shoppers will be attracted to visit Whitley Bay because a particular empty shop unit looks more attractive than it did before”.

Former Co-op, Whitley Bay, featuring painted hoardings by Keith Barrett (16 Dec 2009)

True, no-one would dispute that the painted hoardings do look nicer than the previous grey ones, and the same would apply to the Whitley Bay FC themed paint job of the former T&G Allan shop.

Former T&G Allan, Whitley Bay (16 Dec 2009)

For me though, the danger of such interventions is that they merely emphasise the emptiness of the shops that they are trying to enhance. In this respect, Shopjacket’s approach – creating the illusion that a unit is occupied, rather than merely covering up the fact that it isn’t – is surely more successful.

With industry journal Retail Week having recently launched its “Manifesto for the High Street” – a 10-point plan to “breathe life into Britain’s high streets” – Whitley Bay’s efforts to turn the tide of decline are timely indeed. In a couple of weeks, I’m very much looking forward to attending the associated ‘Saving Britain’s High Streets’ summit in Birmingham, where representatives of retailers, trade associations, local authorities and national government are set to come together to address the regeneration of Britain’s high streets and town centres (if any readers of this blog happen to be going along, do track me down and say hi!).

After all the negative publicity of its town centre over the last year or so, I’ll certainly take pleasure in flagging up Whitley Bay as one place that, in a small but significant way, is employing some welcome creativity and inventiveness as it strives to turn the corner.