UKC

On a walk down a local High Street recently, I noted the high ratio of Charity shops and pawn brokers to "new" outlets.

It got me wondering will charity shops face a supply issue in future. 

What is this 'High Street' you speak of?

Seriously though, a lot of people buy online now....the ratio of charity shop to retailers is more about business rates than anything else.

For the average small town high street, if you take away the charity shops, hairdressers/barbers, nail shops, fast food places, vape shops and tattoo parlours there won't be much left except tumbleweeds and beggars.

T.

Don’t forget American sweet shops, turkish shave places and desert shops 🤔

Can you buy deserts?  I could fancy one of those.  Are camels extra?

T.

If you took away the Pawnbrokers, Bookies, Charity Shops, Fast Food Outlets, Barbers, Mobile Phone Accessory Shops and Estate Agents from my local high street there would literally be nothing apart from Primark and Iceland.

By far the most over represented of these is bookies.  There's four Paddy Powers alone...

Just to add a positive note. There are also long standing quality Independent Shops too. Art Shops, Picture Framers, niche clothes shops, family butchers, jewellers, etc, etc. Many are family businesses that have weathered all the storms and are still going...and long may they live!

No tanning salons? 

I doubt it, all those people who would have died 10 or 12 years ago, cannot go on forever, so there will be houses full of stuff.

Also people are addicted to buying shite, and the stuff they already have has to go somewhere.

I always try to buy in Charity shops, I generally reckon 3 trips tops to get exactly what I want, though my current quest for a Salt Pig is proving difficult.

I try and use local charities and top tip, Settle has great charity shop, and Cafe's and Attermire, the Kalymnos of Yorkshire.

We're addicted to buying shite with very short useful lifespan though.

No, none.

Most people in my area aren’t white, so I guess that really affects the demand for tanning salons?

It likely does.

Betting shops though... a cancer hiding in plain sight. I just don't understand why society hasn't woken up to these and online gambling. 

Absolutely. I enjoy a flutter from time to time, but the old image of betting shops of a few old timers having a flutter on the horses and being on first name terms with everyone in there isn’t what’s going on in them round our way…

Literally all the action is on the fixed odds betting terminals, groups of mostly younger men shovelling notes in one after the other…

It’s disturbing that an area with high unemployment & low income, where literally half the children grow up below the poverty line has more ways to fleece its inhabitants out of cash on the high street than any area I’ve ever lived in my life. 

Something is wrong here.

Dunno why I got a dislike for this. I’m very proud of the diversity of my area.

Not in the way the way I thought, according to my MP.

he had “grave concerns about calls by some anti-gambling campaigners that limits should be placed on how much individuals should be allowed to bet”

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2021/nov/10/tory-mps-wrote-sponsored-c...

On the high street, dog grooming services are on the rise here. 

I love charity shops.  The majority of my clothing and paperback junk reads come from our towns excellent selection of charity shops.

Was delighted when the council turned down a planning application for a bookies on the grounds that it was to have fixed odds betting machines on the premises.  They are a total scourge.

Lucky you to have some decent ones. I used to be a keen frequenter of charity shops and some of my favourite posh frocks are secondhand, including a couple of gorgeous silk dresses. Unfortunately nowadays I find they're all just full of Primark and supermarket own brands. I'm not a clothing snob by any means (I'm wearing Primark PJ bottoms and a vest right now) but I'm not going to buy it used for 80% of its new price. I'm sure there is some decent stuff in there occasionally but it's hard to make the effort to rifle through racks of Primarni, George, F&F etc to find it.

Whilst everyone targets the Queen on the other thread, the uk's richest women is Denise Coats owner of bet365, making £300m plus annually. That's money taken from the pockets of those most in need. 

I love charity shops. I only wish I'd realised when I was younger. I started buying second hand goods only when I had children and from then on I've been addicted to a bargain. I still give my children £3 and free choice to buy what they want from the second hand toys. Which is why I had to carry a giant toy kangaroo home on the bus once.

"In 2020, she earned a salary of £422 million and dividends of £48 million"

How much money must her organisation be making in order for her to be able to pay herself that level of salary?

And what do they do for the communities where they've made that money?

Check out this, from my area:

"Newham council..., says that in 2013/14 there were 9,308 “customer incidents related to gambling activity in betting shops (which) required police assistance, with an average call out of 179 times per week to bookmakers”. It added: “In Newham, police officers are called to an incident of crime or anti-social behaviour related to a betting shop every day."

For the community, they hoover up any spare income that could otherwise be spent in normal shops selling goods and services.  It's the perfect business model from their perspective, cheap to run, staff, easy to find premises in deprived areas, sell hope, get them addicted. 

Replace them with threading salons

Admirable sentiment, but be careful how you phrase it in case you accidentally sound like it's from Royston Vasey

I’m working with someone at the moment (a consultant) who lives in Hadfield (Royston Vasey) and her consultancy business is called “Local”.

Wasn't it Royston Vasey that had the charity shop where "we can take the bags of dogshit but we can't do anything with VHS tapes"

though my current quest for a Salt Pig is proving difficult.

Mr Crossley think of your blood pressure 🩺

She also happens to be the uks highest tax payer as she pays herself a salary. HMRC received £something like £470 million from her last year.

Her success if you call it that is based on online betting not shops. 

I am against gambling.Time it was taxed. But the downside is that would just encourage more illegal gambling. And with offshore online gambling it becomes impossible to control. But like cigs. 

the cost to society is unreal. Best thing they could do is ban advertising and stop them adverts at sports stadiums. 
 

Not so easy when they own Stoke! It's all just bizarre to me, how people thought it acceptable for a payday loans company like wonga that charges people 1000%+Apr to sponsor Newcastle! 

Better maths education in schools, it can't be hard to grasp that generally no one wins but the bookies, they can teach about tax, mortgages, savings, pensions too.