How many cafés do you think there are in Park Parade, two or three maybe? Well with a new café opening next to the Cops ‘N Coffee shop, it brings up the total to five. Then there’s a baguette shop, bakery, chip shop, two Chinese takeaways, an Indian takeaway, two kebab shops (with one about to open) and a coffee and snack bar in the tattooist/hairdresser. Oh and not forgetting the bingo hall serves food, too!
Now choice is a good thing, as is the commercial regeneration of a previously dying shopping area. But there’s no diversity and that worries me a little, because shopping areas need to branch out and come up with new ideas in this age of internet shopping. Filling the area with food premises might seem like a good idea in the short term, but I’m worried that we might be creating the perfect conditions for a ghost town in four or five years, when people are forced to tighten the purse strings even further in this world of growing prices and shrinking wages.