Stockton town centre

Is it as bad as Redcar?
It's a shame the way town centres even small ones like Stockton have declined over the decades. The internet, unemployment, low wages and general poverty are the main reasons. It would help if parking was free and plentiful. Maybe free or very cheap buses from the centres outlying estates would help. It won't happen though.
There's a lot of out of town shopping as well with a proliferation of B&Ms etc.
 


Not sure if it still is but Stockton used to be a dumping ground for drug addled crims and misfits from all over the north east. So no wonder it would have gone to the dogs.

The high street itself is quite nice really. Or could be.
 
I walked though Stockton on the way to a wedding in the mid eighties and seem to remember a canny little red brick pedestrian centre.

IIRC my late Ma used to think so too, also Yarm? She wondered back then how come these ‘smaller’ towns seemed able to support a canny shopping area while ours was going to the dogs. Can’t remeber if this was before or after the Bridges.

I also remember Steve Wright on Radio One around that same time, saying how he’d been doing the Radio One Road Show (remember that pop pickers?) and how every town centre he visited looked exactly the same. Corporate logos had taken over from what they call in America ‘MoM and Pop’ shops, to the point that you could be in Anytown UK and they would all be the same.

The poverty and e-commerce comments noted above also have played a part like, but last time I was in Newcastle (yeah I said it!) they’d built a whole new wing on the Newgate Street side of Eldon Square so someone must be shopping.

As much as we hated having to pay for the Metro twenty (thirty?) years before we got it, and how it should have ran behind the Barnes and up the colliery line to Silksworth, if it had gone then maybe it would have accelerated the town’s decline as people in Doxy could hop on the metro, bypass Sunderland and be in Newcastle in 45 minutes.
 
Spebt an hour there today with some children from my school, taking part in a Xmas carol service. Not been there for many years but was really surprised by its decline, very few shoppers even at this time of year, very few notible high street stores and several undesirables. Genuinely a sad state of affairs.

Decline? it's always been like that
 
Durham Uni opened queens campus there. I suspect they never saw the place first. They've since withdrawn and moved back to Durham (after convincing Teesside and tje gov to pay for the new bridge). What a waste of time. :oops:
 
Served my time at place on Portrack Lane in the seventies, had some good nights in The Castle and Anchor and The Talbot. Had a night there a few years later when that old boat nightclub was on the river went home with black eyes.
 
Spebt an hour there today with some children from my school, taking part in a Xmas carol service. Not been there for many years but was really surprised by its decline, very few shoppers even at this time of year, very few notible high street stores and several undesirables. Genuinely a sad state of affairs.
I hope you're not a teacher...
 
To be fair to them although the shops have taken a dive they do well in attracting people into the town centre with events they put on. The fountain area is always busy with people in the summer and the food & coffee shops around it pick up plenty of trade from having a focal point in the centre
 
There’s been a lot of money spent on the High Street and it’s been in the news a lot lately as good example of a High Street which is holding up well.
 
There’s been a lot of money spent on the High Street and it’s been in the news a lot lately as good example of a High Street which
There’s been a lot of money spent on the High Street and it’s been in the news a lot lately as good example of a High Street which is holding up well.
Hilton Hotel opening soon,a stones throw from the high street near the Police Station according to my copper mate.
 

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