00:00Vacant shop fronts, dog-eared to let signs and more closures on the cards.
00:05It's little wonder Medway has some of the weakest high streets in the entire country
00:10with just 33 shops per 10,000 people, far below the national average of 41.
00:17High streets have got this added burden of having a building, we've got certain issues
00:22like increased parking prices, anti-social behaviour, increasing business rates.
00:29Between 2024 and 2025, 40 retail units closed across the five towns.
00:37Businesses here in Struthsay, they're still struggling.
00:41Footfall is down, especially through the alleyway here.
00:45People are just not spending money or people are just going to the bigger retail parks
00:51where things are cheaper and they can save money.
00:54The difficulties here are part of a wider national trend.
00:58Nearly 3,000 local retail units were lost across England and Wales between 2024 and 2025.
01:06I think definitely we've talked about downsizing the size of the high street presence
01:13just because of the expense, you know, you've got to staff it and you have to have the right
01:20amount of staff just because of the stealing and all of that aspect.
01:25So if you had a smaller premises, it would be easier to support.
01:29And I think the online, as I say, is so much stronger than the shop premises.
01:35There are local issues at play.
01:37Parking charges have risen across the five towns for the last two years.
01:42But Medway Council says car park upkeep is needed
01:45and that there needs to be an authority wide approach to regeneration.
01:50Added to that, we've got general inflation because of the war in Iran and wars in Russia,
01:56fuel increases.
01:57These are all feeding through into energy prices.
02:00That's really affecting businesses and it's affecting not just businesses,
02:05but also public bodies like Medway Council ourselves.
02:08It's not all doom and gloom.
02:10The little shop opened on Rochester High Street three months ago and is still going strong.
02:16Something they attribute to keeping costs low and finding a gap in the market.
02:22I think people want to come out.
02:24There's a need for it still.
02:26It's all well and good buying stuff online, but you can't get all these little local bits
02:30and you don't get the experience of having to look around a shop like this.
02:34A miniature success then.
02:36But with slumping footfall and increasing costs, there's no sign things are set to get any easier
02:43or that closures will let up.
02:45Only leader in Medway.
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