Village Raw - ISSUE 6

COMMUNITY
THE STATE OF
OUR HIGH STREETS
While a 2018 report revealed our high streets are thriving,
recent closures suggest otherwise. Peter Cox met with a couple
of local cafe owners to get their perspectives.
Words by Peter Cox. Photos by Kate Kuzminova.
As a former retailer I give talks on the state of our high streets,
and I’ve been alarmed at how rapidly they’ve altered in the last
five years, under the onslaught of online shopping. Unchecked by
the rise of unscrupulous online gambling sites, betting shops all
over the country are still encouraging people to lose their money
– there are 86 in Hackney alone. Banks have become coffee
shops or payday lender outlets. Where I live in East Finchley, there
is no mainstream bank left, though you can get cash from outside
the new local Sainsbury’s or the UOE, which now provides postal
services because the old Post Office has gone. RIP.
I’ve been working with friends from North London U3A, a group
that encourages retired people to pursue their interests, to analyse
changes in some of our local high streets. I have looked at
Muswell Hill, East Finchley, Church End and North Finchley, starting
from before the Second World War through to today. Soon after
I began last November, out came a report – Running on Empty
– from the Royal Society for Public Health (RSPH) doing just that
for all 146 substantial shopping centres in London, and 70 of the
largest in the country. It ranked them, using a method that scored
libraries and health services at the top, down to payday lenders
and betting shops at the bottom, assessing them on four measures
of “benefit to the community”. Not surprisingly, nationally,
Edinburgh came first and Grimsby last.
The results for London were striking. Top came Muswell Hill
and bottom West Green Road/Seven Sisters, the rich and poor
ends of Haringey. Does that do any more than identify where the
rich and poor residents are? Does it mean Muswell Hillites can relax?
(Spoiler – NO.) Our other local centres came in clustered between
10th and 20th: East Finchley at 12, Crouch End 14, Chipping
Barnet 15, Church End 16 and North Finchley 17. But there’s a margin
of error, so next year they might easily be reversed. Near us
in the top ten were Temple Fortune, Hampstead and Whetstone,
ranked from five to eight respectively.
While the results for Muswell Hill and neighbouring Crouch
End are positive, two small business owners in these areas are
not necessarily feeling the benefit: Greg Vukasovic, who owns
The Haberdashery in Crouch End, and Claire Jury at La Dinette in
Muswell Hill. Both establishments are distinctive and give the appearance
of thriving but, as Claire points out, running a cafe is
tough. It’s a very physical job, she tells me, and the hours are long,
with margins that are very slim.
Both Greg and Claire point to the huge change since they
started. Greg opened The Haberdashery 10 years ago, just after
the 2008 crash. He says there was far less competition and lower
costs, which made starting up easier than today. Greg points out
that any new business is now thrown right in the deep end. He
says many have closed and the area has been flooded with lookalikes:
cafes, hair and beauty salons, and estate agents.
Claire, who opened in November 2015, feels as if La Dinette
has relocated to an area she no longer recognises – 10 other
coffee shops have opened and three established chains have
expanded too. Both Greg and Claire agree that they have to
be nimble and constantly adapt – standing still means going
backwards.
Recently, Greg has increased his vegan offering, and Claire is
trialling opening for dinner. She has other plans but they all mean
more investment and, with no profit coming in, it must come from
elsewhere. Battling with the bigger chains, who have lower costs,
is really hard, and both feel that in the next few years cafe chains
will expand while independents increasingly go under.
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