.. save and support our shopkeepers ..
As the debate about how we should better live our lives and Chiswick traffic experiments continues to boil over - and with me finding myself on the side of the few barking mad local visionary-dreamers, I can't help but notice that some of the louder voices against bikes and pedestrianisation are increasingly tangling-up the relationship between shopping and driving cars. As if the two are intrinsically married. As if only two can tango. As if one can't even be imagined without the other.Supermarket shopping doesn't need to have anything to do with cars, stuffing car boots - or even weightlifting. Nobody in Acton or Chiswick need ever do the “heavy shopping”. Weighty essentials. Boring stuff. Tins, jars, bottles, boxes. Everything from a steak to a banana. You don't need a car to buy all this. It can all be delivered to your door free of charge. That's what supermarkets do.Heaven for those who hate shops and shopping or haven't got a car. And very convenient for the vast majority who, like me, get the boring stuff delivered by the supermarket but look elsewhere for the really important stuff. The fun stuff. The different stuff. The stuff that going up the High Road should all be about!The inescapable conclusion (to me) is that the life and soul of our High Road (inc TGT and Devonshire Road) has little or nothing to do with supermarket shopping.The real future is in the hands of our wonderful entrepreneurs to make a success of their independent shop. Creating variety and excitement. Stimulating interest. Setting new trends. Serving great coffee!But (govt health warning) this visionary future is currently stuck fast in the sweaty hands of local councils and landlords. And is dependent upon radical change in their sticky-fingered financial expectations. The changes we desperately need may well have to be forced!For several years now Chiswick shopping has been witnessing the quickening national swing back to artisan values. Fabulous bread shops, craft beer, cheeses to die for, great coffee houses and wine bars, orgasmic chocolate shops, classic pubs, niche clothing, existing independent fish shops and butchers, delicatessens like Hack and Veld, stuffed with delicious food and drink that's a million miles from the supermarket experience and on and on. Already, nobody needs a car to be a modern shopper. All we need is a climate change that sees our High Road reclaim it's position in the centre of our community. The seeds have already already been sown. Now we have to cultivate the landscape.Critically, independent shopkeepers need to be allowed to earn far more money. Already they're facing the huge challenge of the internet. Now our typical shopkeeper needs to be recognised and treasured as a hard-working, creative pillar of our community. He needs and deserves to reap far bigger rewards. Which means councils raking-in much less in business rates and landlords far less rent.Let our High Roads breathe! Let the crowds come and wander about. Fill the shopping experience with fun and magic. Make use of the pavements. Push out into the road itself. Seriously restrict motor cars. Think far more of a crowded Borough Market or a buzzing Brick Lane/Portabello Road - than a noisy dangerous unfriendly image of traffic whizzing about or aggressively shoving its way straight through the middle of flustered pedestrian shoppers..Big change will come soon. Sniff the rewards....
Stuart Kerr ● 2287d54 Comments ● 2282d