Frank wrote:You walk into Merry Hill past row after row after row of empty stores. It's a total ghost town, yet they're planning on building *more* stores (well, more restaurants, despite the place already having a massive food hall) and another cinema, not filling the ones that stand empty or redeveloping what's already there. They've done nothing good with Merry Hill so far, just empty promises of millions of pounds of investment with nothing to show for it.
I was actually pleasantly surprised with our recent visit to Merry Hill.
The last time I visited was around 2010, loads of closed shops and drab interior. Now most of the units are filled and the ones that aren't actually had active work going on rather than just a facade, the food court appears to have been completely upheaved, there's a new Next just outside along with an improved retail park, and the whole place appears to have had a refurb.
It reflects my recent visit to Intu Derby which, along with Merry Hill, is drastically better than it was during the recession.
The main issue is the high street really, in Stoke we're fairly happy with the Intu Potteries mall and the Festival Park retail park, but the surrounding towns and the high street are either half empty or occupied with tat like Gregg, Primark, B&M, vape shops and betting shops.
It's almost like they serve a purpose to people too poor/dumb to shop online.