Anyone else heard the rumours that the Town Centre store is closing and able to confirm? Hearing a new Foodhall will open on the Peel Retail park to replace the loss of the town centre store. Could all be hearsay, and I certainly don’t know for sure, but I’ve heard from a few different sources and it does make sense based on the M&S store closure announcements earlier this year. I’m also aware that a national retailer has recently taken a lease on the two empty units down at that retail park.
Sounds very plausible. They are exiting lots of older town centre stores, and focusing on smaller footprint food only shops.
They’re wanting to condense “full range’ stores, heavily reduce the number of stores that sell clothing, and open more Foodhalls. The Barnsley store doesn’t have a cafe but does have quite a large area for clothing. I’m not sure they could fill that space with just food and a cafe, so it wouldn’t surprise me if it’s in the plans to close. They closed Huddersfield and Rotherham in the last round of closures and I’d imagine the Barnsley store performs similarly to those.
If true, a shame. I suppose the question is, how does a town centre compete with out of town shopping area? Knock down everything that's just been built and put a card park through the middle?
They can’t. I think it’s why a lot of Town and City Centres are changing to include more leisure schemes and city living. The trend was to build out of town multiplex cinemas in the 80’s and 90’s, but now they’re coming back into town centres to anchor leisure schemes and revive the places that once thrived with retail.
Talking of M&S takes me back a long, long way ! I'm right in thinking there were the main doors opposite Burtons and others down Market Street? Is that still the case?
Yes. Complete with Salvation Army man outside collecting in December. As it's not changed much, if at all in my lifetime - which is why it's such a shame were it to change.
Yes , although obviously it’s summat else than Burtons , there’s doors on Albert Sttreet but not sure if they’re for customers or just deliveries .
Yes the back door on Albert Street was still operational a while ago; good for scapering without paying.
When I worked on an M&S contract I seem to recall hearing the Barnsley store performed relatively well, probably because there was never a Debenhams or John Lewis etc to compete with.
The clothing stock in the Barnsley store is pathetic, and the foodhall is a shadow of that at Meadowhall. But full circle, the clothing offering at Meadowhall looks like a store that is considering where it's future lies in this internet age. The Barnsley store can't logically continue much longer. As said above, it's a small store and it must struggle to provide a desirable rate of return for M & S. But going wider than this, we had a walk in the town centre yesterday and the range of shops and goods on offer is underwhelming, to say the least. Cap that with the fact that you have to pay for parking on weekdays. I don't want to be all negative Nancy on this, but internet shopping holds sway so far as we are concerned.
Not sure if you've seen it but they've revamped the meadowhall store to increase the size of the foodhall and reduce the size of the clothing section. As for the town centre, I agree to an extent but the glassworks and the stores coming to it should really help there. What they need then is to come up with some way to encourage more independent shops to join them. I wonder if that's something the alhambra could do in the long run. Split their units up and get small independents in.
Well yes - I was referencing the (much improved) Meadowhall food outlet to contrast the sparse Barnsley one. Smaller independents in the Alhambra would be a good idea, but parking in town will always place Barnsley behind Meadowhall in terms of convenience.
Parking is much better now out of the usual 9-5 Monday to Friday. In fact Ive told people at work about the glassworks last week and they were all shocked to hear it's free parking at weekends and promised to give it a go (they're from Rotherham mainly). I get why they don't do free parking during the week because the spaces would be full of workers using the town for commuting but surely they could just do 3 hours free parking which would stop most commuters from being able to take advantage
The parking costs seem reasonable to me. Free after 5pm and for 3 hours on weekends probably works for the majority of people that work traditional Mon-Fri jobs.
Not in Barnsley, but I’m really struggling with places to buy work clothes from. With Debenhams and the Arcadia Group both closing stores I really don’t know where to look. There’s Next but there’s not much choice there. I went into Leeds City Centre the other week, as I’ve not bought any new clothes in 2 years, and I really didn’t have a clue where to look. I even ended up in bloody House of Fraser and almost died when I saw the prices - and I hardly liked anything in there anyway. I refuse to buy online as I always hate everything and end up with money tied up in refunds. I eventually bought a top in the sale in House of Fraser - which was still £35! It is a really nice top but whoever came up with the £139 rrp price must have been off their head. I’ve not paid for clothes in about 6 years, I used to do surveys for Debenhams and Arcadia vouchers (maybe that’s why they shut!) and save them up for some good quality things in the sale. Now, not only have the places I like closed, but I have to spend actual money, too.
