Stories rarely remain unchanged. The context in which they’re told matters just as much as the context referred to by the story. I wrote this sequence of 21 stories about 15 months ago. You may have read some or all of them in their earlier form. Reading it now, we perhaps see something different, especially as we consider the impact of the lockdown on retail and the economy.
As I republish these stories, I’ll revise and polish them. Some need little change, for others the changes are more extensive. At the end of each story, I add reflections based on where my thinking has moved onto, especially in the context of the Lockdown.
Story 3: Merry Hell!
Gowers and Burgens, the first supermarket arrived at Hunters Bar in Sheffield in the early sixties. There is still a supermarket on the same site today. I remember our first visit, me with my mother and sister, and the excitement moving around the shop and picking things off the shelves and placing them in a wire basket we picked up by the door. As we left I reminded my mother she had forgotten to pick up the basket to take it home!
Did this experience disconnect me from the local economy? Not at all! Come on, it was the sixties and everyone believed in progress. This was a step towards a glorious future, where the customer had greater autonomy or at any rate more choice.
Meadowhall …
I spent most of the 80s in the North East and returned to Sheffield in 1989. Soon after my return Meadowhall, or Merry Hell as some locals call it, opened. This enormous shopping centre is next to the M1. I forget how many millions live within a 20 mile radius, it has its own railway and bus stations too.
At first I was proud to boast I’d never set foot in the place. I saw the impact it had on the centre of Sheffield, its increasing shabbiness. I’d left in the early 70s when Sheffield was the greatest shopping centre outside London with Oyl Int Ruwad* as its centrepiece. Nearly 30 years on, the impact on the city centre is still obvious and on other shopping centres across the region. To be fair the big chains and online shopping have also taken their toll.
During the nineties, I worked for Industrial Mission, mostly economic regeneration in Attercliffe, across the valley from Meadowhall. Once a year IM put on a course for ordination students, where they experienced the work of Industrial Chaplains. We thought it would be interesting to show them work in retail. Meadowhall welcomed us with delight. A rep showed us around and it was fascinating. (The students hated it!)
… a Leisure Destination!
This was in the 90s and so things may have changed but they seem to be much the same today. First, Meadowhall is not a shopping centre. It is a leisure destination, benchmarked against EuroDisney in Paris and Tivoli Gardens in Copenhagen. The average customer (or tourist) spent £76 per visit in the 90s. Still seems a lot today!
The main entrances are at first floor level because people are more likely to explore downstairs than upstairs. The malls are hard marble and gently slope, while the shops are level and carpeted. People feel more comfortable in the shops.
There are many similar details. The research and planning that went into the place is impressive. And by any measure it works!
Impressive Planning
I admire Meadowhall now. There I said it! Even though it disconnects me from my beliefs in the local economy. The planning that went into it is impressive – I even know of the bit they got wrong and corrected when they built another one in the Ruhr.
I showed a plan of Meadowhall to a friend who is a town planner. He spotted something the chaplains, the students and I had not noticed. This is a Cathedral, he said. There is a long central mall with a shorter crossing that has a dome over it. The Oasis eating area is in one corner of the crossing – it is circular – that’s the chapter house, he said! What does it say about our values, if we see it as a place of almost religious significance?
The values it embodies are in stark contrast to the statue of crucible steel men outside the building. Meadowhall is on the site of Hadfield’s steel works. Someone remarked that in 100 years’ time, when Meadowhall is long gone, will they erect a statue to a cashier?
Some Questions
Contemplating places like Meadowhall shows us what we’re up against, if we want to see genuine regeneration in our neighbourhoods. Do you see similar changes in your place? Are you attracted or repelled? Do you know of valiant attempts for regrowth in your neighbourhood?
* Alright, since you asked: The Hole in the Road – happy now? If not, watch the Lego version! (And cheer up!)
LOCKDOWN POSTSCRIPT
Let’s consider the three examples of retail I refer to in this story. We welcomed Gowers and Burgens. I remember the over the counter shops at Hunters Bar and the queues. It’s easy to be censorious but let’s not get carried away. The fundamental innovation behind the modern supermarket chains is the nationwide or worldwide wholesale network. This was the innovation behind the Co-operative Wholesale Society. The first wholesale network in the world belonged to its customers! Private enterprises copied the Co-op. It’s hard to imagine what the lockdown would have been like with solely over the counter shops.
The problem is the lockdown makes provision for the larger supermarkets and does not favour small traders. Yes, there are innovative ideas happening around the country, eg market traders developing an online joint click and collect, which is likely to continue after lockdown. But why are garden centres closed while the big DIY stores open with their own garden centres?
My second example was The Hole in the Road. At the time it was built, Sheffield was the biggest shopping centre outside of London. You could walk from the Castle Market to the foot of the Moor without crossing a road. The song says it all, we never got bored. We were proud of our city. I suspect the problems began with the steel works closures in the mid-1980s. People had less money to spend and retail went into decline.
Loss of Civic Space
Meadowhall delivered the coup de grace to the city centre. And not only to Sheffield but many other small town centres in the region. Together with the big chains and online trading, the city centre has little chance of thriving. And these centres are important. The thing I miss the most in the lockdown is going into town! Retail creates the spaces where we encounter each other, where we meet and socialise. Coffee is expensive because you buy the ambiance, the meeting space. A place to work and be amongst people.
Spaces like Meadowhall are not civic spaces. We are there as guests of the owners and not by right. No-one is going to build places of worship, libraries and all the other things we find in town centres. Meadowhall is purely commercial and as such it lacks the character that makes a place somewhere we feel we belong to.
The lockdown is an opportunity to reflect on what sort of world we want for the years to come. We’ll still have wholesale networks but we need to belong and so we must ask ourselves how to support the small-scale innovations that make this place our place.
This was story 3/21. Last Story: Success: A Little Mester Next story: Community: Incense to the Gods!