I walked along Brighton Road for the first time in a while at the weekend and I noticed that Majestic Wines has shut down there.
This leaves Brighton Road looking quite sad now as that is a big shopfront combined with the empty Blockbuster right next door. There was already the RJ Boorer closure and the shop next to the Red Rose restaurant that has been empty for years on end.
I did think it strange that Majestic closed down as there has been a lot of fanfare in the press this week about how well they are doing and all of their new store openings. I suppose that they just struggled with the (very) local competition from Laithwaites and Ex-Cellar, or perhaps it was just a greedy landlord?
Comments
Why pick on Brighton road?
The whole of Surbiton looks pretty depressed to me.
I have to say Surbiton as a whole is looking a little sad. Maple Road is lovely and is definitely on the up if not already there. However, the collection of Charity Shops and betting shops in Surbiton really doesn't help the High Street.
There is definitely a steady decline to Surbiton's once vibrant High Street.
Perhaps you have been in the area longer than me, but I first came to Surbiton in 1995, and I can't remember it ever being much better than it is now, certainly not vibrant!
People always complain about the chains moving in, but both Zizzi and Pizza Express are better than the empty building and awful pub that were there before, Waitrose is a massive improvment on the tumble-down B&Q etc.
The pubs in the centre are better as well. The Surbiton Flyer was pretty much a no-go for normal people until about 5 years ago, now it is a nice pub, Corky's has turned into a wine bar and the Duke of York is better than the old Hogshead.
The charity/betting shop situation is bad, but this is always going to be a problem in a town like Surbiton which is affluent enough to have high rents, but where most of the affluence actually goes up to London on the train every morning!
Kingston is the other problem, because it is so close that most shops want to be there to benefit from it's massvie footfall rather than pay a good proportion of the rent and rates to be in Surbiton with local shoppers only.
I don't think that Victoria Road looks great by any means, but it is better than it has been for a while.
Brighton Road is the one that really risks having a big downturn. The Blockbuster, beauty salons, Majestic & RJ Boorer shops show no sign of occupancy and that is a long stretch to be empty. There have always been a lot of taekaways down there, but also a lot of restaurants. It is disappointing that Chicken Cottage has chosen to open up about two doors down from KFC as that has not done much ofr that part of the road either.
Apparently the management of The Red Rose bought the shop next door and couldn't get planning to knock through, so they keep it for storage. I agree the road is becoming a bit of an eyesore with too many takeaways on the other side, very messy.
I only picked on Brighton Road because it is all of the empty shopfronts that make an area look most depressed, in my opinion. Other parts of the town do not seem so badly affected, although admittedly this is often because of charity shops taking up the slack when businesse close down.
I actually think that the Maple Road area of the town centre is very nice, and the area around the station roundabout isn't at all bad. Things do get a lot worse as you go further down Victoria Road, though.