They’re in your face, aren’t they, the boarded-up shop fronts and the ‘for sale’ signs that litter our ‘High Street’. Doorways once a busy entry and exit point now where the sadly homeless can doss down. A sign of urban decay if ever there was one; and in the back of my mind the images of Detroit, once home to the United States’ automotive industry and now just one of many rusting and run-down areas. So, what’s the new normal?
Living in Brighton & Hove we have examples of every sort of commercial enterprise, and some are not surviving. It doesn’t require a degree in economics to understand that the financial pressures of high Business Rates, levied by the local council, and unstainable increases in rent from absent landlords are just two of the factors. Many retailers argue that the current rates systems unfairly penalise physical stores compared with online retailers. Another factor will simply be the rising costs of running a business, like those of energy, rents, and minimum wage hikes.
But the change in the way we buy goods, from going into a physical store to logging onto a website, ordering what we want and having it delivered home or to the office, is irreversible. Those who clamour for the authorities to ‘Bring back the High Street’ have to realise it will not have the same ‘pre-internet shopping’ look.
Five minutes from where I live, out of choice in a town rather than in the countryside where the whole issue is completely different, I found:
The Flower Stall’s tucked into an outside corner of a deconsecrated church, itself another change to the urban look. You can buy flowers on-line, for instance from Freddie’s Flowers, but particularly for the impulse purchase, this is great.
Our dentist’s practice is across the road; you cannot have a dental checkup online! They are around the corner from Ben, an acupuncturist we use; he charges 50% more for an online session.
Along Church Road we find a traditional butcher, Canham & Sons, which does a roaring trade, both for its meat and poultry products, and at lunchtime for its pies, pasties and sausage rolls. For vegans the all-invasive smell of meat means giving it a wide berth.
A private doctors’ practice (The Hove Practice) is popular with those finding getting a GP’s appointment difficult and wanting medical advice in a day or so.
It sits opposite the Osbon Pharmacy, so those needing a prescription can simply walked across Church Road.
Delicate discussions about the choice of a coffin, flowers and other funeral arrangements just cannot be conducted online, so Attree & Kent, part of CPJ Field, is an essential part of our High Street. This company was established in 1690 and has been run by the Field family for 10 generations. There is no shortage of customers!
Another generational story is Timpson where you talk to Adam, get another set of keys cut, impossible online: a new sole for your favourite shoes or a passport photo needed in a hurry. Online? Nah!
When the family’s been to stay, a laundry service is essential and Essame’s Bubbles provides just that, although it would benefit from a ‘u’ and a ‘r’!
But the new-look High Street is personified by pedestrianised, 200m long, George Street.
Gail’s sits at the bottom, the first of many bakery and coffee shops – a sign of what the public want, if they can afford the cost of a Mocha or Latte.
And if you don’t want something or need some cash to tide you over until payday, go to the pawnbrokers.
Yes! Yes! I know, you can read an e-book, or you can order books from many online stores, but isn’t there something very grounding, just browsing in a bookshop like Waterstones, picking up a paperback, attracted enough by its cover to read a review??
I don’t get my nails ‘done’, well, not yet, but understand the current fashion ….. and here’s another service you can’t do online. But do we need so many? In George Street alone there are eight!
Whilst you can buy non-prescription glasses online, as I did through ThinOptics for some standard, extremely lightweight, reading glasses, you need to see a real optician to have your eyes regularly checked.
My love/hate with individual tattoos continues. When I was in the Army there was a snobbery about tattoos, officers never dreaming of having one, seeing them as very working class. Often if a senior Non-commissioned Officer was elevated to some commissioned rank, they invariably tried to remove any visible tattoos they had; removing tattoos has apparently got easier. I sense some people get them when drunk or under peer pressure and years later wish they hadn’t. In 2026 Brighton & Hove the rapid increase in their popularity is evident, although some I find repulsive and not in the least attractive; the black ‘sleeve’ tattoo is one.
I used to smoke, even when I knew that there was a causal link between cigarettes and lung cancer. My last cigarette was in March 1994 and whilst I still remember the delight of that first ‘drag’, I remain repulsed by someone else’s cigarette smoke and the reek of it on clothes, curtains and carpets. Vaping seems another world, 95% less harmful than smoking tobacco;100 puffs a day is the equivalent of smoking 7-10 cigarettes a day. Even so not healthy! George Street has three vape shops, most are empty of customers; one wonders if they are simply set up to launder the proceeds of criminal activity.
In addition to the three vape stores and eight nail bars, George Street has 5 charity outlets, for example Barnardo’s and the RSCPA, 8 phone shops and 14 cafes ….. and there are only 88 shopfronts in the whole street! The new High Street? Well, there is a bank branch!
Richard 17th April 2026
Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
PS Regular readers please note next week’s postcard will not be in the post-box until late Saturday afternoon – assuming there’s a collection!
postcards 