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Daily Mail
6 days ago
- Business
- Daily Mail
Locals living in dead end ghost town say their high street is now a cruel joke with shuttered up shops and THREE bakeries
When a new shopping centre was built to 'put a heart into Swindon' more than 50 years ago, it seemed fitting to name it after the famous railway engineer who put the town on the map - Isambard Kingdom Brunel. Half a century on, the landmark building in the centre of the Witlshire town looks to have run out of steam. Almost half of the stores and units inside The Brunel Centre have closed and those that remain struggle to attract shoppers as they increasingly switch to online purchases and out-of-town retail parks. The next-door multi-storey car park is virtually empty and appears run-down and unmanned. Despite the frontages of several former showpiece Brunel Centre stores like House of Fraser and Marks & Spencer, which closed in 2021 and 2023 respectively, being emblazoned with trendy-looking '#The Best of Swindon' signage, the site is now more notable for having three Greggs outlets within a 100-metre radius. One of the Greggs premises is so popular it has a 40-seat eating area and all three footsteps had lengthy queues for most of the day. As one local, 69-year-old Jeff Barton put it: 'Swindon has become Greggs Central now. The town is fast filling up with their rubbish bakeries. I wouldn't go near them.' A retired Swindon council groundsman, Mr Barton remembered fondly his days spent working to enhance the town's sense of civic pride. He said: 'One of my responsibilities was to make the town centre look nice. There were plants and flowers everywhere back in my day - we had 84 hanging baskets full of them around The Brunel Centre and it looked wonderful. 'You go there now and everything's closing and it looks a mess outside. It is so sad.' His wife, Denise, 68, now also retired from her job working in admin, agreed. She said: 'It used to be such a pleasure coming into town, but nowadays we avoid it when we can because it's so depressing. 'I hate to say it, but I think it's all over for Swindon. The place we knew and loved has gone and it's not coming back. 'Shopping habits have changed because of the internet and that's partly to blame, but how can people buy clothes without trying them on first and having a feel of the fabric? 'All we'll have left in town soon will be streets full of coffee shops - mostly Greggs by the look of things.' With many areas of Swindon experiencing high levels of poverty - 10 per cent of its neighbourhoods are among the worst in England and it ranks 157th out of 326 local authorities in the Index of Multiple Deprivation - it was no surprise when pound shops moved into the town centre. But today, two of the three that set up have recently closed, prompting Mrs Barton to say: 'Even the pound shops are leaving Swindon now. That tells you everything about how the town is dying.' When Brunel and his plans for the Great Western Railway arrived in 1843, Swindon was little more than a sleepy market town on top of a hill. Brunel identified it as a site for GWR's locomotive repair and maintenance works because of its strategic location between London and Bristol, it quickly grew into a thriving railway hub that would become one of the largest railway engineering complexes in the world at its peak. Even the town's Poundland's store on the corner of Regent Street and Havelock Square shut last month, with the company unable to agree on lease terms to keep them trading at the site Architect Douglas Stephen, who designed The Brunel Centre, was an admirer of Brunel and included many railway-themed features in his creation, including a roof built to echo Paddington Station. But in recent years, shoppers have abandoned the once-thriving centre and the streets around it are near-deserted. A market hall next door ceased trading eight years ago and many adjacent shops are boarded up. James Steward, who runs a jewellery and watch-making shop set up by his father next to the now-derelict market hall, says Swindon's decline was 'accelerated' by the Covid lockdown. Mr Steward, 49, said: 'People's shopping habits changed dramatically during the pandemic and many of them haven't really come back. 'There are other factors too and I think the decline here is part of a global trend that we are seeing all over the world. 'A lot of people work from home now. Their offices in town have since closed so there's no reason for them to come here any more. 'They used to pop in at lunchtime and buy a watch or jewellery but I guess they're buying it online now, if at all. As a result, shops here are closing all the time. 'I've noticed a lot of my older, more affluent customers are now going to Bath or Cirencester and making a day of it, rather than coming here. 'I'm proud to be a Swindonian and I hate talking the town down, but in all honesty, it's difficult to defend it nowadays. 'If I've got a day off now, I won't come here either. I'll get the family in the car and we'll have a day out somewhere else instead. 'The council need to think harder about how to get people back into Swindon. I'd start by abolishing, or at least significantly reducing, car park charges. They've gone through the roof, and it puts people off coming because they can be a tenner down before they've even parked up. 'And they need to work with the police to crack down on the muggers and gangs who gather here at night so people feel safe in Swindon again.' Finance worker Ana Banca, 51, said she has 'had enough' of living in Swindon and wants to move. 'It's not safe walking around the town centre, especially at night. There's no way I'd be in the town centre in the evenings now. There have been loads of stabbings and robberies in the past year or two, and drugs are a massive problem. 'And during the day, it just feels dead. The decent shops have closed down and it's all Greggs and coffee shops. 'The town feels dirty and very sad.' In The Brunel Centre itself, we find retired NHS nurse Susan O'Neill, 76, who remembers the site's heyday with pride. 'I used to love coming here,' she said. 'The place was buzzing with people and there were some marvellous shops. But you look around now and half the shops have closed down and the other half are empty. 'It saddens me to say it but I think the town centre as we know it is finished. 'Not just here, mind - it's the same everywhere. 'I think it's time to reinvent town centres and do things differently. For Swindon, I'd love to see the town centre become a hub for the arts. We could accept that town centre shopping has had its day and replace retail with theatres, art galleries, music events and lovely places to eat and meet people.' Her friend, Martin Collison, 82 and a retired project manager, said: 'I agree with her. We need to find a way of bringing the vibrancy back to Swindon so people want to come into town again.' Retired fire and rescue service chaplain the Rev John Maxwell, 79, blames ever-rising rents and business rates for Swindon's economic decline, saying: 'It's no wonder all the shops are closing down - they just can't afford to be here any longer. 'The only brand that seems to be doing well is Greggs. Personally, I can't stand their food or coffee, but many people around here must like what they're doing because they've got three shops here and they're always busy.'
Daily Mail
26-06-2025
- General
- Daily Mail
TOM UTLEY: Please don't ask me to rate my Airbnb hostess whose house was full of anti-Tory cartoons and even a Rishi 'Dope on a Rope' soap
Aren't you heartily fed up with those constant demands to 'rate and review your experience' every time you buy anything on the internet, book tickets for a theatre, read a book on Kindle, call a plumber or pay your Vehicle Excise Duty through the DVLA website? Why should we have to act as unpaid critics of all the goods and services we receive? Indeed, my instinct is generally to ignore these impertinent requests, remembering the wise words often attributed to that great 18th century sage, Dr Johnson: 'No man but a blockhead ever wrote except for money.' Worst of all are those pleas to give up 'just five minutes of your time' to complete a questionnaire – and 10 minutes later, you're still barely half way through the list of fatuous questions. Sorry, but I have better things to do with my precious time, such as staring out of the window at the sorry state of our lawn under Mrs U's self-imposed hosepipe ban, and wondering when it's ever going to rain again. True, I make an occasional exception to my vow of silence, when I feel a duty to warn others against crooked dealers or shoddy goods. But when I'm quietly satisfied with something I've bought, or the service I've received, I tend to remain… well, quiet. Take the other day, when I placed an order on the internet for yet another six bouncy balls for our dog, Minnie, who makes a point of losing at least two balls every month on our daily walks. The order duly arrived the following day, as it usually does with Amazon Prime. (Yes, I know, I'm an appalling hypocrite, publicly mourning the slow death of the High Street, while hastening it by patronising the American giant; but I'm far from alone in that respect, as a certain lavish wedding in Venice this week tends to testify.) As for the balls themselves, what can I say except that they were spherical and bouncy, just as you'd expect bouncy balls to be? I'd have had a bit more to say about them, to be sure, if they'd turned out to be triangular, or made of lead. But then the inevitable message arrived, asking me to rate the seller according to three specified criteria, from five stars for 'excellent' to one star for 'awful', and write a review of my purchases, complete with a headline and a photograph or a video. Well, even for a hack like me, who has made a living from writing for 50-odd years, I reckon there's only so much that can usefully be written about six bouncy balls for a dog, before the wells of inspiration run dry. So Amazon's plea went straight into my delete file, along with most of the others. I say 'most' and not 'all' of the others, because, when I've ridden in an Uber, or stayed in an Airbnb, I generally make a point of rating my driver, or writing something nice about my hosts and the accommodation they provide. This is partly because it seems rude to be driven in someone else's car, or to stay in a stranger's house, without having the courtesy to register my appreciation. But if truth be told, it is also because, in the case of Uber and Airbnb, it's not only the passenger or guest who is invited to review the service provider. Drivers and hosts are also asked to rate or review their customers. Now, the last thing I want is to have a low passenger rating on Uber, since this could mean that, in future, drivers might prefer not to pick me up. For that reason, I'm always careful to be civil to my driver, commiserating with him when we're stuck in traffic, thanking him profusely for the ride and never failing to tip at the end of it, whatever I may actually think of my experience. Indeed, it slightly rankles with me that my current rating is a mere 4.92. I'd be interested to know how on earth I dropped that 0.08 of a point, when I'm so determined to behave impeccably. Similarly, I go out of my way to be charming to Airbnb hosts, while Mrs U always ensures that we leave a host's property in immaculate order, with everything washed up, dusted and hoovered within an inch of its life. As for my reason for writing those appreciative reviews, I fear that these can be read by other potential hosts, and I don't want to earn a reputation for myself as the sort of guest who is likely to write something disparaging or rude. Just recently, however, I've found myself impaled on the horns of a dilemma. A few weeks ago we stayed in an Airbnb in Somerset – where we were attending a joint birthday party for our youngest grandson and his mum – and ever since then, I've been pestered with 'reminders' that I've yet to review our experience. My problem is that I found almost everything about our stay entirely satisfactory, but with one glaring exception. Our hostess and her husband were charming to us. The little self-contained flat where we stayed in their house was immaculately clean. The bed was comfortable. The fridge had been generously stocked with all sorts of snacks and all the basics we could possibly need. We also had the run of their beautifully kept garden. To cap it all, they've now written me a flattering review. The only thing wrong, from my point of view, was that our hostess clearly harboured a visceral hatred of Tories, coupled with contempt for anyone who backed Brexit. Whisper it softly, but these are two categories into which I myself fall. It's not because we discussed politics that I know her views. We didn't. No, it's because she had adorned the walls with anti-Tory drawings, and left out a book of her own crude cartoons, viciously attacking the party. It was full of scenes such as Boris Johnson slapping a nurse in the face while others banged saucepans for the NHS. Meanwhile, a bar of soap in the bathroom bore a picture of Rishi Sunak, under the legend 'Dope on a Rope'. Even the marmalade she provided came with an angry political message. It bore a label, mocked up to look like those on the jam produced by Wilkin & Sons Ltd, emblazoned with the following words: 'By appointment to the highest bidder. Tories. Spreading bittersweet smarmalade. 'Conservatives. Preserving their wealth on our daily bread since 2010. Brexit. Slease [sic]. Liars.' Now, I'm a tolerant fellow, myself, and I don't mind at all about the political views of my Airbnb hosts, just so long as their accommodation is comfortable and they are courteous to me. Nor have I any wish to jeopardise my hostess's chances of attracting future guests – or my own of finding future places to stay – by writing a disparaging view of her decor on the app. After all, I know how hard it can be to make ends meet – even, dare I say it, under Labour. But then again, do I perhaps have a duty to warn other Tories, and members of the majority who backed Brexit, that they may feel a little unwelcome, surrounded by all that ranting Lefty propaganda? If my recent hostess will take advice from this evil Tory, I reckon she would be wise to replace the marmalade and the soap, and perhaps move some of that artwork to her own part of the house. After all, future guests may be less inclined than I to keep silent. But how do readers rate the quality of my suggestion, on a scale of five stars for 'excellent', to one star for 'awful'? On second thoughts, don't feel you have to answer that!
Daily Mail
06-06-2025
- Business
- Daily Mail
Shopper Rhi ordered the perfect side tables online. What arrived left her gobsmacked
A shopper who thought she'd found the perfect side tables for her bedroom was left red-faced after realising she'd made a major shopping mistake. Rhi Howard, from NSW, stumbled across a vintage-style wooden stool for $15 each on the affordable Chinese shopping site Temu. Without thinking twice, she initially assumed they were designed to be bedside tables so she added them to her online shopping cart. But when her order finally arrived at her home, she couldn't help but laugh - the true size of the 'tables' told a very different story. As she laughed hysterically, Rhi realised the item was far smaller than expected - no larger than a small potted plant or a kitchen kettle. When placed in her bedroom next to her existing bedside tables, the stools looked miniature and was barely large enough to fit her iPhone on top. 'I ordered these off Temu because in the picture they were bedside tables. That's not a f***ing bedside table is it,' she said a now-viral video, laughing. In the comments, Rhi admitted she didn't check the product measurements or read reviews before hitting 'add to cart'. Now she's aware of her mistake and will always double check before purchasing. The amusing short clip has since been viewed more than 116,000 times in 48 hours and received a mixture of comments from hundreds of people. 'Cute plant stands though,' one suggested. 'I cannot tell you how many times I've done this. You'd think I'd learn to check and yet, I don't,' another confessed. 'I love that you still put them next to the bed,' a third said. Many saw the funny side - but some were far less sympathetic. 'They have the dimensions on the product, I don't understand how people get fooled,' one pointed out. 'The spiders in Australia are bigger than those tables,' another joked. 'Always only buy after reading reviews with pictures,' one warned. Last year Temu changed its name just one year after bulldozing into the Australian retail landscape. A company spokesperson confirmed they had changed the pronunciation of the brand to 'Teh-mu' despite hard-launching the original pronunciation 'Tee-mu' with a US$7million (AUD$10.59million) ad during the 2023 Super Bowl. 'As Temu continues to expand into new markets globally, we want to ensure our brand name has a consistent and memorable presentation across different regions and languages,' the spokesperson told FEMAIL. 'After careful consideration, we determined that the new pronunciation achieves this goal better.' The original Super Bowl ad featured a woman spinning around, showing off her Temu purchases to the tune of 'I like it, it's mine, the prices blow my mind'. The new advertisement, which is animated, features a catchy song about 'shopping like a billionaire' and the new pronunciation of the brand name. Fans of the online retailer, which launched in North America in 2022 before heading to Australia and New Zealand and later Europe, were quick to notice the change. Many of them commented on the old video after heading back to 'see if they were right'. 'I KNEW the pronunciation of tee-moo was changed!!! Now it's teh-moo, and it doesn't sound so fun anymore,' one woman said. 'Watching both commercials back to back is like traveling to a different alternate universe,' laughed another. 'So I'm not the only one who searched for this! Good. We're not crazy,' a third added. Others dismissed the new pronunciation.
