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Cambridge flunks on diversity of stores
Source: Agencies |
September 16, 2010, Thursday
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CAMBRIDGE, famous for its brilliant students, college towers and grassy meadows, is bottom of the class in Britain when it comes to the diversity of its high street stores, a think tank said yesterday.
The ancient university city is the worst "clone town" in Britain, with its historic streets dominated by national chain stores, said the New Economics Foundation, which promotes sustainable development.
Its researchers found that the city, in the east of England, had only nine varieties of shop along its main high street, the lowest of the 117 city and town centers surveyed.
"A bland homogeneity and encroaching vacant premises characterise the city's shopping center," the NEF said in a report.
The city scored just 11.6 out of 100 in the survey's high street diversity index. Whitstable, a seaside town in southeast England, had the greatest variety of shops and independent stores, with a score of 92.1.
The NEF said Cambridge was the worst example of the trend for British high streets to look identical.
It blamed the colleges of Cambridge University, as the city's most important landlords, for pushing up rents and driving out smaller, independent stores.
"Cambridge is a small historic city with narrow medieval lanes and great chunks of it have been turned into shopping malls," said Vanessa Burkitt, who runs a family jewelers in the city and is chair of a pressure group of 100 independent shops.
City authorities said the survey was flawed since researchers only focused on high street stores.
"Cambridge simply doesn't have one main high street," said the city council's tourist chief, Emma Thornton.
"What makes Cambridge unique is that we have over 21 individual shopping areas."
The ancient university city is the worst "clone town" in Britain, with its historic streets dominated by national chain stores, said the New Economics Foundation, which promotes sustainable development.
Its researchers found that the city, in the east of England, had only nine varieties of shop along its main high street, the lowest of the 117 city and town centers surveyed.
"A bland homogeneity and encroaching vacant premises characterise the city's shopping center," the NEF said in a report.
The city scored just 11.6 out of 100 in the survey's high street diversity index. Whitstable, a seaside town in southeast England, had the greatest variety of shops and independent stores, with a score of 92.1.
The NEF said Cambridge was the worst example of the trend for British high streets to look identical.
It blamed the colleges of Cambridge University, as the city's most important landlords, for pushing up rents and driving out smaller, independent stores.
"Cambridge is a small historic city with narrow medieval lanes and great chunks of it have been turned into shopping malls," said Vanessa Burkitt, who runs a family jewelers in the city and is chair of a pressure group of 100 independent shops.
City authorities said the survey was flawed since researchers only focused on high street stores.
"Cambridge simply doesn't have one main high street," said the city council's tourist chief, Emma Thornton.
"What makes Cambridge unique is that we have over 21 individual shopping areas."
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