There’s a thoughtful article in the Echo about the future of Rayleigh here – with a good comment from “Temple Way Resident”:
I used to live in a similar market town in East Yorkshire which went through a bad period in the 90’s when every other shop seemed to be a charity shop or was boarded up and a supermarket was built which seemed to suck the life out of local shops but this town has recently, in the last 5 years or so, under gone a fantastic transformation and I think this was down to Marks & Spencer opening a small M&S food shop on an old supermarket site similar in size to Woolworths. Other reputable brands followed their lead and local businesses also benefited and grew.
I recently went back there for a visit and it was truly delightful to walk around the pedestrianised high street full of local and high-street branded shops (not one boarded up) and enjoyed an al-fresco drink in a cafe in a small market square. The old butchers shop that I used to visit with my Grandma was still there and was thriving. Other shops had changed but for the better. The local heritage attractions were also being fully maximised. Overall a really attractive mixture of old and new that worked.
How many Waitrose delivery vans do you see in Rayleigh? Lots! Rayleigh has a relatively wealthy population who must spend most of their money outside of the town. To turn Rayleigh around you need to attract these shoppers back in. An M&S or a Waitrose with a few other high street names such as Monsoon will soon get the shoppers coming back and other existing businesses will also benefit. Please no more Barbers shops! No more cheap and cheerful teenage clothes shops. We’ve got enough Charity Shops Thank You and not enough decent restaurants or bars. A book shop wouldn’t go amiss either! Billericay, Leigh and even Epping seem to be getting it right why can’t Rayleigh drag itself into the 21st century too? I’m sure East Yorkshire County Council would be more than happy to share a few trade secrets!
Anything that reminds of me of Yorkshire will do for me!!! (Homesick-Yorkshireman, speaking!!)….. Seriously, though, high streets do need to reinvent themselves along these lines. (At least, for the next decade or so…after that, I suspect the supermarket business-model will start to crack under the strain and high streets will have to alter once again! Evolution, eh?!?)…
With all due respect to the cabinet member for planning, I do not think he has a clue about what the residents of Rayleigh want. He talks about patchwork solutions, has he no imagination as to how we can regenerate Rayleigh, maybe not. Retailers will come into this community because it is what we need but the council have to make it attractive to them to build their business here. Really, all we hear about as far as RDC is concerned is ‘large scale building developments’ which, of course would benefit the whole of RDC but not necessarily the people of Rayleigh!
Why do we have to take the brunt of all this housing anyway. ADMIN can we actually evidence that any money coming into RDC for building in Rayleigh goes to the benefit of Rayleigh, or is this something we should demand from RDC?
TWR’s comment in the Echo is now highlighted on the chamber of trade’s website at
http://www.rayleighbusiness.co.uk/article.asp?id=150
I’m humbled for getting so much “coverage” but what I had to say, seems to me to be very basic common sense and business acumen.
Mike is right it is the responsibility of the RDC and the Town Councillors or even the Chamber of Trade to do their research and some foot work and approach some major retail brands and invite them into Rayleigh High Street and make it attractive for them to trade here.
I’m also in favour of pedestrianising the High Street from Crown Hill up to the Church. Oooh! Controversial I know but Planners need to have some vision and imagination not just making do with what they have been used to over the last 40 years and which is clearly no longer working!
And before the usual argument’s start, Bus stops and Taxi ranks are easily incorporated into a new pedestrianised street layout and traffic flows redirected. Some of the zebra crossings further up the High Street could be removed to help keep traffic moving etc… It really wouldn’t be a difficult transformation to make.
From what I have read in the past the land on Rawreth Lane which is ear-marked for the new housing is owned by a close relative of a Conservative member of RDC. Draw your own conclusions about where the developers money will be going…
Perhaps that is why these proposals are getting so much local Conservative support despite it being a Conservative policy to scrap all the local development plans for green belt land. How can the Tories possibly justify this blatant hypocrisy? This undoubtedly will be part of the Francois manifesto so this could be interesting! Is he prepared to go up against his local Tory colleagues?
As for accusing Chris of NIMBYISM – I wish the Tories would make their minds up, in the CC elections the Tories ran a smear campaign based on the fact that Chris does not live in Rayleigh North (an imaginative campaigning point? Sound familiar ?) Difficult to be a Nimby if that’s the case!
Chris is simply doing his job, that is why he is elected – to voice the concerns of the people he represents!
And as for the no-shows from Hullbridge – I’m astounded that these people are actually voted for. just goes to show how ignorant some voters actually are when it comes to knowing who and what you are actually voting for, not just blindly putting a cross in the Conservative box :-/
What some decent shops for Rayleigh Town at long last, dont think that will happen, planners seem to think that we who live in Rayleigh want to visit it and all its hairdressing/barber shops and restaurant and coffee type bars, plenty of opticians as well. I know people like to eat out these days but has anyone gone along and counted all the eating places, by my reconing its every other shop. The supermarket is non existant since Robert Dyas took over most of it. I dont go to Rayleigh any more if I can help it, nothing there for me, now if Marks, Waitrose or some such shops were there then it would be a different matter, but then most of the other small shops would moan and grown about people taking away trade again. Rayleigh was a good town in the days of Tesco, Fine Fair and other such shops. I think the smaller shops must have had good trade as well.
Someone must surely think forward and into the future for the town, its a good size with lots of housing round it.
As it is I have to visit Basildon or SOS nowadays and get shopping on line,
for such a big town its not really good enough.
Betty, there certainly has been a wave of barbers opening recently – but that’s beyond council control, as (rather surprisingly) barbers are just considered as shops under the national planning regs, so that you can turn an ordinary retail shop into a barbers without getting planning permission.
Some of the eating places do very well (see how full Oldham’s fish restaurant is during the week), and having a range of good places to eat and drink coffee is one way the town centre can compete with the big stores and internet. The example I normally quote is if someone needs to buy some shower gel, they can go to Sainsbury’s , or they can go to Boots and get a really good latte in Costa Coffee. Now that’s not going to appeal to everyone – in fact it will only appeal to a minority – but it’s still one way to get people into the town.
Having got them to the High Street, they may then be willing to do some more shopping, maybe buy some clothes. But for that to work you need to have the type of shops they want to shop in (If I could personally pick 10 new businesses to come to the town that might conceivably come here, I’d pick Cafe Rouge, Pizza Express, Tomassis, Marks and Spencers Food, River Island, a bookshop, Lakeland , Pets at Home, Oddbins and a Greek bakery)
The council has only a limited influence on this, but is does have some. And there will be a consultative paper coming out soon from the District Council on what we should so to improve the town centre in the future, so look out for that Betty
I seem to remember that some years ago there were reports in the newspapers that Somerfields were looking to off-load the Rayleigh store, but were keeping it open until they found a buyer. Did this ever come to anything, I never saw a follow up report stating that they had decided to keep the store? I believe the Somerfields in Upminster was taken over by Waitrose, which seems to be a popular name when people talk about shops they’d like to see in the High Street.
I notice the number of empty units along the by the police station is starting to become quite significant.
I have heard that the Co-Op is to take over Somerfields. Not sure where I heard it though. Wonder if they will retain Robert Dyas as well?
Thanks for the reply Ron, yes we definitely need more shops for shopping in, AND I did have a leaflet pushed through my door this week 29th September about a new ladies hairdressers opening in an upstairs unit in Rayleigh. Rayleigh the place to go to get a hair cut!!!!
I also heard that Somerfield was now actually owned by the Co-op, heard that through a member of staff there and also another person and last week when I was in there there was almost a stampede to get some things on sale because as someone said Somerfield is being taken over by Co-op very shortly so thats the reason for some sale goods. We do need a good supermarket in the centre of town, not everyone can get to Sainsburys or other places easily.
Sorry to be so down on Rayleigh all the time but I do get upset by the lack of thought about what will work. I visit many towns large and small and think about Rayleigh what a terrible shame and a waste.
I have to agree with you Betty. There is so much that could be done with our High Street and so many local people willing to assist – but lots of things fall on deaf ears.
Empty shops to not look good but do we really need so many service shops – hairdressrs, opticians, Estate Agents etc?
Interesting note on the hairdressers though – this is actually above an existing “top price” chain salon and they are promoting value and express service. Only time will tell…..
Bit late in replying here but Somerfields is the Co-op and has been for six months so I have been told, but its only now that goods are being branded as co-ops goods and labels say the Co-op,
Must admit I missed any announcement about Somerfield changing but surely it must have been in one of the papers!!!
I was in Somerfields/Co-op today and was extremely surprised to see large empty spaces on the shelves as I went around the store. I can only presume that they were in the process of changing the products over to ones that bear the Co-op brand name as there were a lot more on the shelves than last week. Although I would have thought that it would have been better to do the changeover after the store had closed for the day so as to have a fully stocked store instead of what greeted shoppers this morning.