Cousins

Published on Thu 27th Mar 2008

Many longstanding Twickenham residents - I include myself - have shopped at Cousins the greengrocer for decades. With the butchers next door (now Wishbone), the bakers and the fish shop it has created a traditional shopping centre with fresh food and varied outlets. Yet both the greengrocer and the butcher are now threatened with eviction - within days - by their landlord.

The threat to popular shops is not unique to Twickenham. Whitton has worrying number of empty shops. Well supported shops in Teddington High Street have been driven out by escalating business rents and rates. All over London there are 'save our shops' campaigns as local shopping centres are decimated by closures.

I have written to Cousins' landlord appealing for at least a stay of execution and preferably a rethink. I also want to meet the landlord, a property company with little connection to the area. But the commercial logic is brutally clear: the shops are on very short leases since they cannot afford the rent on a full repairing, long term, lease. The shops that can afford the rent are the big national chains, and even they find Twickenham's long shopping centre a challenge: hence the spread of empty shops, charity shops, pub chains and banks.

Town centres everywhere face an uphill struggle against the superstores with their acres of free parking. Can anything be done to help them? Planning rules should assist town centres to compete with the superstores, not hamper them. Business rates should be a local, not as now, a national tax, giving local councils a stake in the success of local business. Town centre managers are certainly important in our borough. But the future of our town centres is ultimately down to us, as residents, if we shop locally the shops have a better chance to survive.