Retail park needs 'considering'

The effect of a proposed new retail park on town centre shops should be considered by the States, a Guernsey deputy has said.
Deputy Mary Lowe claimed there were already more than 40 empty shops in Guernsey's capital, St Peter Port.
She wants them to be taken into account when the Leale's Yard development, in St Sampsons, is debated.
There are plans for 170 new homes, 15,000 sq-ft of retail space and more than 800 parking spaces on the site.

Deputy Lowe said: "In my opinion we've got St Peter Port as the jewel in the crown.
"Does
this mean that in years to come we would have the front of the port
looking great but the main shopping town would be St Sampsons? Do we
really want that?
"It's very sad when you actually look at the numbers of empty shops and take time to walk through the town."

David
Ingrouille, from Alpha Estates in St Peter Port, said: "The issue most
people would like resolved is to see some sort of legal obligation to
ensure vacant properties are adequately maintained.


"Properties that are not maintained drag down the image of the entire area."





Take from BBC NEWS.









What do you think ?

Its very simple, the properties that are empty in St Peter Port are in poor locations or the rents are extortionate,

St Peter Port will survive if the rents become reasonable.

The problem of so many absentee landlords in St Peter Port charging such high rental has to be addressed - and another point is that apart from the very rich (who probably shop in more elite areas than Guernsey) - there is a finite amount of money to be spent on 'shopping' I am guessing here that it is not food shops that Mary Lowe has in mind.....

Whenever a new developement like this goes ahead there are always businesses willing to move in as the know it will be popular to start off and if the products are any good it may well be profitable long term.

They have been talking about this project for years so if there were any objections they should have been raised then not now.

Last time I took a walk through town I was astounded at the amount of closed shops.
But I was told a well established premise was paying 118k per month. That is lot of retail sales.
Perhaps there lies one root of the problem the other being convenience shopping, par next to where you buy the goods.