There is more shopping in three streets in London than in Birmingham and Manchester combined

In2minds

“There is more shopping in three streets in London than in Birmingham and Manchester combined” - Thanks for the warning, I shall be be avoiding all of them!

General Zod

I have a feeling that analogous figures for Paris versus Lyon and Marseille would produce a similar disparity. Not that the comparison mitigates.

Germany has a much healthier spread with Hamburg, Frankfurt, Duesseldorf, Munich, Cologne to name just the bigger cities, but with plenty of smaller cities, such as Karlsruhe and Hannover all having very healthy retail centres.

Moraymint

General Zod

Germany's an all round better place to live and work too. I know because I trade with Germany every day. How sad is that when you think about it.

steve

Well that is a no-brainer isn't it.

All the MP's are in London.

Holly ......

...and I bet our local papershop/mini mart has made more profit than any of them with the bloody prices they charge.....
soddin heck.

Frank P

"On one level, this is testament to the importance of clusters"

Yeerrrs! And these days you can always find an Ann Summers Shop to buy knacker lacquer to add lustre to your cluster!

WTF? I know it's a slow news day, Jummy, but ....?

David Alexander

"something that is not particularly healthy for the country as a whole"

Shock-Horror! Foreign tourists want to visit London rather than The Bullring in Birmingham.

Listen James, having a blog does not mean that you have to say something when silence would be better.

TomTom

Retailing is awful. Try Leeds, Harrogate, Bradford and see how limited the choice really is. It makes sense to fly to Germany to shop with far bigger ranges and choice. London has lots of retailing - for tourists probably - and the Northern cities are dire. Without the Internet life would be impossible

Peter From Maidstone

Why is this surprising? The population of Birmingham and Manchester is about 1.4 million combined whereas the population of London and the area including those likely to travel to London for shopping must be about 12 million people.

Sam ARMSTRONG

London is an alpha world city. We are very lucky to have London in our country. God knows what we would be without it.

So what do you want? Six alpha world cities on this small island, or to dismantle our amazing capital city and 'redistribute' it to the other areas.

Doesn't London pay for Scots' free prescriptions or something?

Dirty Euro

The difference in wealth between the regions is insane. Only devolution can solve this.
Only the most right wing trolls can justify such regional inequality.

General Zod

Moraymint,

I've lived and worked in Germany twice. I speak the language fluently, have a half German wife, love the wine and the life outside work, but hate working there.

General Zod

I gave a speech in German in Germany last week to senior business people on working with Brits and Americans and I think I have a god understanding of the place.

Yow Min Lye

Peter from Maidstone

The combined populations of the West Midlands (in other words, Greater Birmingham) and Greater Manchester are over five million - not including those people in Warwickshire, Worcestershire, Staffordshire, Cheshire and Lancashire who live within easy travelling distance of these two great cities.

EC

James Forsyth @5:14pm, Nov 19.
"My money is on Balkenende"

Only window shopping then!

Cuffleyburgers

Why are you talking about shipping when the AGW case has been blown out of the water by yesterday's data leak?

Read Devil's Kitchen and break open the champeurs

Nigel T Packer

James,

This is a fascinating factoid and I am glad that you have brought it to the attention of those who might not have seen it. £5.5 billion spent in three streets in London in one year. This is a phenomenal amount of money that makes these streets a cherished part of the economy.

The others commentators above have not looked beyond the political diversity between the North and South east of the country and are walking blindly into the demise of all high streets around the UK.

The current recession has increased the speed that high streets will diminish over the next few years. It will only be the tourist areas and destination shopping centres that will survive because people will travel for social inclusion, history and culture, if the three streets in London can survive because of international tourism then all well and good.

For those outside the tourist and destination shopping centres they should look closely at their customers, the way they are now doing their spending and making purchases.

The £5.5 billion spend in Oxford, Regents and Bond streets only represents about six weeks retail spend in one high street that everyone has access to with out leaving their homes, the Internet.

Our own research indicates that the demise of the High street will continue, what we see as the high street today will change beyond all recognition.

Local authorities have been the cause of this from as far back as the 1980’s when a programme of pedestrianisation of town centres started. Today the High Street of one town looks like the high street of any other town with only the big stores able to afford the rates and local taxes. It is only in the tourist and shopping destination centres a difference can be seen.

Good luck to London. Keep bringing the tourists in.

For those outside London open a shop in the biggest High Street of them all The Internet.

Nigel T Packer

Peter From Maidstone

Yow Min Lye, I would imagine the population living within travelling distance of London who might choose to go to central London for shopping is probably 20 million and includes much of the population of Birmimngham, so the comparison stands.

Rhoda Klapp

When I go to those streets, a large proportion of the other people seem to be foreign tourists. Maybe they don't go to Brum. My impression is that not all that many Londoners shop in the three streets in question. Suburban South Easterners go to Bluewater, Lakeside and the Westfield, or their local high street.

To Nigel T Packer, you are correct, the high street as we know it is on borrowed time. Any retail shop which sells discretely indentifiable goods (something with a model number or ISBN) is merely acting as a showroom for the cheapest supplier on the net. You'd have to be a fool to pay before googling the item. Rents and rates have not adjusted to meet the situation, and there will be many more gaps on the high street before long.

TomTom

Local authorities have been the cause of this from as far back as the 1980’s when a programme of pedestrianisation of town centres started.

Local Authorities have destroyed local shops in Northern cities in favour of grand projects with national chains; some like Bradford have even destroyed their 1960s retail folly in favour of an updated one with Westfield and have a large East Berlin type wasteland in the city centre as a result.

Shops are better on the Internet well away from local councils and their vandalism

Fred White

Absolutely true....but in Manchester we dont't have as many Russian spivs and dodgy Arabs

Fergus Pickering

I seem to do very well shopping in Canterbury and, every Friday, Whitstable, which has a bank, a post office, a library, a place for odds and ends called George's and an excellent second hand bookshop. Going to London is a bit of a chore and I certainly wouldn't do it just to go to the shops. Shopping is essentiallyb a female activity, don't you think? My daughters do it a lot. They say Brighton is excellent, probably something to do with the large gay population to my mind. London's too bloody full of foreigners for my liking.

Cait

I've recently joined this location based serviced called Rummble (http://www.rummble.com).. Basically, it is all about sharing reviews and ratings of places nearby. As an avid shopper, I've found that this service is perfect for finding good shopping points wherever I am in the UK. Not only does it have over half a million reviews posted in its service, it also personalises different ratings of places based on my own interests.. Pretty cool way to find your next shopping stop eh? It is feeding my addiction! ;-)