Fourteen shops in York’s premier shopping street have now closed or are set to shut and experts believe this isn’t just a blip and Coney Street won’t be booming anytime soon.
The Swarovski site is one of the several empty stores in Coney Street. Curry’s has also closed, York’s shopping treasure Burgin’s Perfumery closed in July after 137 years. The year-old signs on the former Wallis and BHS site, promising new shops in 2018 are looking not very optimistic.
Andrew Sharp Head of business at the destination management organisation Make it York, said: “High street should be seen as a civic, not a private space. A shared resource in which people come together to create value and shared experience” but “As one of York’s principal shopping street it is disappointing to see the current level of empty shops along Coney Street.”
Owner of Pylones, a shop brimming with unusual and jaunty objects, San Froid, said: “Coney Street just isn’t working anymore, it needs to be more of a social place with a vibrant evening economy and to offer something that neither shopping centres nor the internet can match.”
But shopper Georgia Leeson said: “York’s problem was no different to those found in any other major city up and down the UK, and blamed internet shopping for the closure.”
Local government association has stated: “Our vision for the future of high street is of multifunctional and social places which offer a clear and compelling purpose and experience that’s not available elsewhere, and which meets the interests and needs of the local people.”
The latest official retail figures from the Office for Nation Statistics showed sales volumes were down 1.2% in March
But there has been no official explanation to what is keeping the consumers away from the shops.
Though, internet shopping is making the cost of maintaining a high street presence unviable. The internet is considered to be fast becoming the destination of choice for shoppers.
