Planning application P23/V0469/LB involves alterations and change of use to create a mixed development comprising a retail unit and 9 flats.
This involves 22 Stert Street, part of which is a listed building. Previously, this was used for retail on the ground floor and residential on the upper floors. The retail area, which is declining, would get a revamp as a consequence.
It also involves 20 Queen Street, previously used by a butcher on the ground floor, and a fitness studio upstairs. So this is the change of use. The undercroft used by the butcher for their vans would be parking for the shop. But the rest of the accommodation would be car-free and bike only.
Reinstate the on street parking on Stert Street…and you’ll soon reverse that “retail decline”.
Can’t do that though…..there’s an anti car policy bandwagon to jump on…
Once they’ve destroyed ‘charm’ it can’t be bought back at any price.
‘the rest of the accommodation would be car-free and bike only’ … Is thare a secret place where the occupants of these flats will park their cars?
I live in a town centre flat and don’t need or want a car, so no need for parking. I prefer to live in a walkable town centre within easy walking distance of public transport and shops, and I am sure there are others like me who would love to live in these flats. I’m glad to see more accommodation being built in Abingdon; it should contribute to a more lively and neighbourly town centre.
We live in an age of internet shopping and the reality is that there is no place for the butcher, the baker and the candlestick maker any more. The High Street needs to provide something different to survive. The application is clearly being made as there is no viable shop that can open in the unit and so alternatives need to be considered. It is unrealistic to have more shops when people are unlikely to visit them as they don’t have the money to spend in them or they sell something people don’t want. I don’t want a town centre full of vape shops, nail bars and coffee outlets but nothing else is realistically surviving at present.
I disagree… I think that there are plenty of high-streets “bucking the trend”; it isn’t as inevitable and foregone conclusion as we are all led to believe – in fact…not that Abingdon ever would, but there is a resurgence in “use of the high-street”; fashionably so. There is a lag between the running down of highstreets and its reporting everywhere now….but that lag applies to the fact the uptake is not “making the news” as yet… It is almost as if “highstreets are all domed…so Abingdon’s may as well be too”.
Bring back on street parking and “the pop-in-ability factor…” and you’d see the high-street re-emerge as a go-to destination.
Of course, that will never happen…as it is too fashionable to be “anti-car”. That’s why the high-street is failing. High-streets had their main stream of footfall throttled…and people wonder why the high-street choked. It isn’t the internet. And it isn’t supermarkets. It is – was….will be – poor decision making by those that are in charge of making decisions.