A new shopping centre is not the answer to Newport's problems

Let me make a personal statement before I continue...

I am an unashamed protectionist. I want Newport to thrive and I put this above any consideration for the success of anywhere else in the world. Newport comes first in my mind. It's a bit of an American way of thinking (they are arch-protectionists over there), and is a surprisingly right-wing stance for somebody like me to hold. But it's an important point I need to make as it underlines my belief in why Newport is once again getting its strategy wrong and why Friar's Walk will actually help to take Newport even further on its downward spiral.

Newport has had some glorious times. You only need to look back to the 1980s when the town was thriving both in the day and night to see how Newport was very much a place to be. Commercial Street was busy, the Kingway Centre mall was busy. Times were good.

Commercial Street and Kingsway Centre still exist today, they haven't changed, so its undeniable that Newport already has the commercial infrastructure in place - AKA shops - to service the people of the city and anyone who cares to visit. It's not like we don't have enough shops. We currently have too many in fact, and an increasing number of them are boarded up.

Putting retail into context
I've heard many people echo the Council's mantra that Friar's Walk will 'regenerate' the City, as if a load of new shops will somehow magically deliver prosperity. But that is to fundamentally misunderstand retail.

Newport as a successful retail centre grew BECAUSE of a wider prosperity. Retail didn't predate and create prosperity. It was a natural reaction to prosperity that was already there. The shops arrived to service a town that was highly successful thanks to its position as a gateway port in a region that was helping to fuel and drive the industrial growth of the Western World. The South Wales coal mines, steel works and manufacturers were in overdrive and a lot of what they produced was channelled through Newport. By 1830 Newport was South Wales' leading coal port and when Alexandra South Dock was opened in 1892 it was the largest masonry dock in the world. Newport was that important for international trade that eight consuls and 14 vice-consuls were based in the town.

It was on the back of this success that the retail centre grew and thrived. To reduce it to a simple statement; the area had money and the people needed shops to buy things.

Sadly, the boom times ended. South Wales is no longer an industrial powerhouse. Our coal mines are gone and manufacturing is a pale shadow of what it was. As a result, the entire region, and especially Newport, is now economically poorer and as a result does not need, and indeed cannot support more shops. It is clearly not able to support the number of shops it already has, hence the number of empty properties in prime retail locations.

Empty retail units in Newport's most prime retail spot opposite the Westgate Hotel

So why does the Council believe a load of new shops will work? And why do they consider this to be 'progress' and 'regeneration'? Do they really believe that with the building of new shops money will will magically appear in people's wallets to make the Friar's Walk a success? The same amount of money will be available to be spent by the people of Newport. If anything, all Friar's Walk will do is temporarily shift the spending centre away from Commercial Street, where we will see even more empty retail units.

Of course the council will argue that Friar's Walk will bring people INTO Newport. This is also clearly nonsense. The retailers who will open in the shiny new centre will be the same as you will find in any retail centre anywhere in the country. Indeed, some may even be retailers who have already abandoned Commercial Street. So what is there to convince people to come to Friar's Walk instead of Cardiff, Cwmbran or Bristol? Certainly Cardiff and Bristol have a lot more to offer as well as retail, and their shopping centres aren't tacked on to slowly decaying areas - as Friar's Walk will be.

I will make, and stand by a prediction that Friar's Walk will open to an initial excitement, but will decay in the same way as Commercial Street, Kingsway Centre and the Cambrian Centre. Retailers will not meet their targets, and we will see an inevitable influx of charity and cheap shops to replace retailers who once again pull out of the area. I hope they have enough 'Newport Open For Business' signs to stick on the empty shops in Friar's Walk.

The Ultimate Folly
At the start of this post I said that Friar's Walk will help to take Newport even further on its downward spiral. That's a strong statement that needs qualification.

Looking back to the glory days of Newport's retail landscape, many of the businesses were local. Even through the 1980s, local businesses made up a healthy percentage of retailers in the town. From record shops, to clothing shops, to restaurants and pubs, independence was thriving and it helped give Newport a flavour which DID attract people from outside.

However, the last 20 years have seen Newport transformed into the epitome of a 'Clone Town'. Commercial Street has become dominated by multinational retail brands, and the town (and latterly city) has been surrounded by out-of-town retail parks, also the domain of multinational retailers. These retailers have no loyalty to the area, and as we have seen, they will pull out without conscience as soon as footfall drops below a pre-determined figure.

But more damaging for the area, these multinationals are all businesses which exist to take money OUT of Newport. The profit they make doesn't stay in the area, it is inexorably sucked out to be given to shareholders in other parts of the world. The presence of these businesses serve ultimately only to make Newport even poorer. And that in turn leaves us with less money to spend in them. The irony is horrific.

But Newport has always been enamored with multinationals and big brands. The council has historically done all it can to make Newport as welcoming as possible for the Tesco, Next, Starbucks posse. It really is a 'turkeys-voting-for-Christmas' mentality that does the city no favours.

Will Friar's Walk be any different? Will it have any local independent retailers? I very much doubt it.

So I am a proud protectionist. I believe in Newport, and I believe the Council is wrong to be embarking on Friar's Walk. The city cannot afford it on any level. Money should remain IN the area. Local business needs to be nurtured and supported, not pushed out of the way for multinational business.

That Newport Council should see fit to destroy our proud heritage to make way for Friar's Walk is obscene. But that's for another post - one in which I will hold back no punches...