The future of Stourbridge Town Centre hangs in the balance
The future of Stourbridge Town Centre hangs in the balance. Action needed. Chris Bramall writes:
June Collins and I are fully committed to the future of Stourbridge Town Centre. The new Tesco development may in the long run benefit the Town Centre, and provide more customers for Town Centre businesses, but in the mean time the situation for all Town Centre businesses will be critical. Dudley Council needs to do far more to overcome the problems caused by blighting, demolition, rebuilding, the temporary loss of parking spaces, and the advent of new competition.
When Merry Hill traders complained of problems caused by the recession, Dudley Council let them off the hook and withdrew their obligation to introduce car parking charges. But shoppers in Stourbridge are still faced with car parking charges. This is unfair - there is no level playing field for retail businesses. And the present disruption makes the case for abandoning car parking charges in Stourbridge unanswerable.
Furthermore, the unnecessary one-hour limit for on-street parking should be abandoned, and a two-hour limit made the rule. And why not abandon some of the double yellow lines too? Give shops and shoppers a boost. And let's keep the extremely popular shuttle buses going up the high street - not just for a week or two more, but permanently.
But there are other problems that need attending to. There needs to be more housing in the town centre, to provide additional custom for Town Centre businesses. There needs to be proper plan for redevelopment of the bottom end of the Lower High Street. And the Council needs to adopt a much tougher line with Town Centre landlords, who insist on keeping shop rents unrealistically high right through the recession, thus putting some tenants out of business, and further damaging those that remain.
The Council needs to work a lot harder to restore a flourishing town centre for our town of Stourbridge. (And the fact that Dudley may be having it even worse does not provide an alibi.)