Evesham is currently suffering a very hard Winter as many shops continue to shut down in its town centre.
Despite a population of over 23,000 in the town, many famous shops have had to choose the hard way and leave; mostly this year as lockdown and recessions have impacted other towns like Evesham.
This comes as the EWM group entered Administration and announced the closure of their Bonmarché & Edinburgh Woollen Mill in the town.
Before the closure of Edinburgh Woollen Mill, one of the employees showed her views on what was going on with the store.
“The council needs a rethink” says one of the people working at the store as she sorts out the clothes.
A day later, Edinburgh Woollen Mill closed its doors in High Street without any closing down sale. Bonmarché also shut during the summer also on the same street.
The shoe shop Clarks is one of the luckiest. Despite closing down in June, it reopened two months later as a franchised company under the Clarks name.
“We were closed until we were franchised” says an employee, “The actual company that bought the store is called Solezone”.
In 2020, Evesham has lost Pep & Co, Bonmarché, EWM, Frankie & Benny’s, TUI, Hay’s Travel and Homebase. There is a question mark over the future of Sports Direct, mostly due to its payment of rent.
As many stores leave, it has caused many people to call Evesham a ‘Ghost Town’ and a ‘Wasteland’. This can be seen with the town’s local shopping centre, the Riverside.
The Riverside shopping centre was open in 1989, as the Abbey Centre.
Many years ago, it was home to such famous stores like Woolworths, JD, Game, Burton, Next, Carphone Warehouse, Pilot, Clinton Cards and (recently) H Samuel.
Now, there is only a few small independent stores and New Look.
New Look is one of the luckiest stores to still be open and Helen, one of its employees, is the most relieved.
“We have not heard from the Headquarters” says Helen, “We are glad that we are still running in the shopping centre, only if they do not keep on raising the rent”.
New Look in Evesham has survived to restructuring plans that saw many stores shut down, especially in Droitwich in 2019.
One of the major factors of the Riverside’s downfall in foot traffic is the rent. Out of over 30 spaces, only around 12 spaces are currently being used with mostly all of them run by local companies based on the town.
When it comes to the small & local stores, Sports Traider currently trades in the centre as a charity-based sports shop that is helps to raise money for disadvantaged people who want to take part in sports.
However, this store may not last.
“We came to Evesham because it is a historic town” says an employee, “You need shops to stay alive or else they demolish it all”.
It was 2 years ago when Chase Retail, owners of the shopping centre, announced plans to demolish the Riverside and turn into a new residential area and mostly restaurants.
However, the new plans have not started. The Riverside currently still stands as an example of a shopping centre in ruins and Evesham’s high street is still in turmoil.
Despite this, the town has the river Avon streams through the town with some geese and swans hanging out and a park that is very popular for exercise or to get the kids out to play.
Even Evesham has also seen new faces not just on its two main streets but also around the outskirts.
Waitrose opened in 2018 to acclaim, T.K. Maxx opened earlier this year, the Job Centre is locating from the Police Station to the town centre, the Range opened where Homebase used to be and Pure-Gym is opening next year.
Rumours also circulated about the opening of Tenpin Bowling near the local garden centre when the company replied to a person’s tweet about discussing new locations.
But, for Evesham’s high street, there is a lot of work to
restore the town’s faith and prosper in the High street.
Photo from Evesham Journal
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