44 C O N T E X T 1 7 1 : M A R C H 2 0 2 2 Notes from the chair Hey Baby The title of these notes is not intended to be a cheap way of attracting the reader’s attention. It is the name of a shop that has recently opened on my local high street.The supplementary fascia signage informs the passer-by that the shop is a ‘4D baby scanning clinic’. At first glance this is very much a destination retail unit, rather than part of a day-to-day shopping experience. Across the road, there is another business that has recently opened in a retail unit.This one is ‘Mathnasium’, a maths-tutoring business. Is there a message here about changes in our high streets, rather than, as the more cynical might suggest, a reflection of the demographics of a relatively affluent suburb in north London? The reader might also ask what this has do with our historic buildings and places. The answer is obvious. Our high streets, town and village centres are not only hubs of the local community but are rich in individual listed buildings, historic areas and spaces. This is why we must be very aware of the changes that are taking place, and how they might be encouraged in some cases and mitigated against in others. It has certainly made me ponder on the threats to our high streets, which have been exacerbated by the pandemic and the huge growth of online retail. It does show that there is still interest in retail units from non-retail or quasi-retail uses on our high streets and that ground-floor units in public locations are still seen as being valuable to businesses. I am heartened that this is taking place, particularly as the number of highstreet closures has been increasing, and these have been made up not only by shops but also by the service sector, such as banks and building societies. The experience of my nearby high street also seems to reflect one of the consequences of the pandemic.With more people working at home and shopping locally, neighbourhood shopping centres are surviving better than those in city centres. This return to localism has also been reflected in my area by the number of cafes that seem to be thriving and making use of greater opportunities for outdoor eating. Another big issue for our high streets has been the loss of department stores. The demise of Debenhams and the continuing contraction of the House of Fraser and John Lewis pose their own particular problems. The Twentieth Century Society is alive to this threat and is campaigning to protect a number of examples by listing. Again, all is not lost. Many are finding new uses, from crazy golf to co-working, health centres and retirement flats or student accommodation. There are also some more dramatic proposals for our shopping centres, as described elsewhere in this issue of Context. Thomas Heatherwick’s reconfiguring of the Broadmarsh shopping centre in Nottingham (page 21) has been described as an example of biophilic design. This term, which became widely known in the 1970s, describes the belief that humans have an innate affinity with the natural world. Its design philosophy covers not only buildings and landscapes, but also furniture and products. In Stockton-on-Tees, the demolition Bromley town centre in the early 20th century (Photo: Wikimedia)
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