Order of the Bath

As promised I have continued my survey of the businesses on Gloucester Road which I started last June.

Over the course of the year 55 of the 421 commercial properties have undergone significant changes, either by the businesses closing, opening or moving. I think this is a very high turnover, though I have nothing to compare it against.

Occupancy

An improvement has been a reduction in the number of empty shops down from 38 to 30 over the year. That is partly due to the demolition of the unsightly block between 148 and 156 – new apartments are being built there which is a loss of trading but will be a big improvement to the appearance. The empty block by the Baptist Church is still there but looking much tidier and other renovation work is underway so the future looks good.

Variety

The mix of types of business is largely unchanged with still over half being Retail (A1). The proportions of types of trade has remained much the same, just moving about a bit. Restaurants & Cafés are up a bit from 45 to 50 but a lot of the increase has been at the upper end of the road where they were not so concentrated already. As far as I can tell (as the applications are not as visible as for planing) the numbers and types of alcohol licences have remained the same. The numbers of branches of National chain stores is higher but that may be partly accounted for by my recognising more of them. This year I have also marked shops from local and regional chains where I have been able to identify them.

Again I have attached a PDF of the full survey and I have highlighted all the significant changes from last year.

There is now an informal local history group under the leadership of Chris Wallace who has created a web site devoted to the history of Gloucester Road. I have contributed my data and in June, when the weather was better, I completed a photographic survey of every commercial building which I still need to edit and submit.

This entry was posted on 7 Jul 2012 at 13:19 by Rick and is filed under Miscellaneous. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.