High streets across the country are really struggling
Shops are boarded up along the street(Image: Jonathan Buckmaster)
A stroll down Chatham High Street at noon and the decline it faces is so stark and inescapable that it feels less like a town centre and more like a warning. This is the harsh reality of what happens when budgets shrink, businesses falter, and streets become deserted, leaving only those trades still managing to turn a profit in plain sight of passing shoppers.
Just a five-minute walk from the railway station, which ferries commuters to central London in just over half an hour, the High Street reveals itself almost immediately. Graffiti is slapped across walls and shops are boarded up, vagrancy is rife, and daytime drinking is on full display.
During a recent visit by reporters from the Express, two men were spotted drinking cider from cans and discarding their empties in the middle of the pavement just a stone’s throw from the station. Then, they said, there was a sight no prosperous town should ever consider normal: two sex workers, stationed on the busiest stretch of pavement, brazenly soliciting business.
They were not lurking in alleyways or near taxi ranks, but right there on the High Street, amidst families going about their shopping. A local woman bluntly told the Express that they were “always there”.
The picture is bleak, and yet it takes only a few minutes to understand why. Shops have shut down and foot traffic has plummeted.
Rates have soared while customers’ income has dwindled, leaving less to be spent at the till. It’s a scenario playing out nationwide, but perhaps nowhere quite as vividly, or as starkly, as in Chatham.
Once a thriving town with a vibrant commercial heart, its High Street now feels like a place gradually slipping out of the national conversation. Local businesses speak of mere survival rather than expansion.
They whisper about reduced workforces and disappearing custom, and they despair about a town on the edge. And in nearly every establishment you enter, the narrative is identical.
Midway along the High Street, beyond the first of the shuttered storefronts, stands TV World Ltd. Trading here for more than three decades, its owner, David Frais, 61, has manned the till through nine Prime Ministers, a recession, a pandemic, and multiple rounds of high-street “regeneration” initiatives that pledged transformation but delivered little.
His shop, once busy enough to employ a team of 11 staff, now feels like a survivor, reports the Express. A single customer browses through a collection of the latest TV sets, and behind his counter boxes of appliances sit neatly stacked.
But behind the careful presentation is a devastating truth. “In the first six months of this year, we dropped £60,000 in turnover,” he told the Express.
“The high street, well, what’s left of it, took a huge kicking in the last Budget. Reeves putting up National Insurance and the minimum wage just led us to shed jobs. I used to have 11 staff here, now I have four.”
There’s no hesitation in his voice, just disappointment. “Labour basically doubled business rates when they came in,” he said.
“Reeves has been sleepwalking into spending. She is running the country like an amateur. Labour are embarrassing.”
A few doors along is Pet Aqua, owned by Simon Ball, 53, another business that has endured more than three decades on this increasingly vulnerable street. “Labour promised to cut business rates when they came into power,” he told the Express.
“But they doubled them. We have suffered because of tax hikes,” he explains.
He listed the culprits: National Insurance changes, higher costs and Income Tax-squeezed customers. “There’s shops going under on the high street because of the increase in National Insurance,” he said.
He paused when asked about his view of politicians. “Politicians? They’re all as bad as each other.”
His words didn’t carry anger, but rather the tone of someone worn down by years of seeing one set of promises supplanted by another. Back outside, the atmosphere teeters between tense and tired.
As the Express reporters continued their stroll down the High Street, a ruckus erupted between two women and a man. The man flung an empty can towards them, bellowing a tirade of expletives unfit for publication.
The women shouted back in a similar vein. They later told the reporters he did not “agree to pay”.
It was mid-afternoon during their visit now. Mums were pushing prams down the road, one appeared to be masterfully navigating a pram, two dogs and a child battling with a balloon.
She steered her family away from the scene by stepping across the road. This is the new reality of Chatham.
The only trade that appears to be growing is one most towns would prefer to pretend does not exist, reports the Express. And if the sex workers don’t shock the regulars, the casual street drinking, the shouting, the aggressive begging and the boarded-up shops certainly do.
Local residents speak of steering clear of the High Street once schools finish for the day. An elderly couple revealed they “leave before the schools kick out” as conditions “get worse” in the afternoon.
The sense is sadly unmistakable, this is a town buckling under the weight of too many problems at once. At the furthest end of the High Street, almost like a guardian of the street’s remaining hope, stands Cleopatra’s Hair Salon.
Inside, owner Desiree Nurse, 51, welcomes clients with a warmth that feels almost surprising after walking down the street. Her shop is beautifully kept and it doubles as a small community hub, providing hair services, mastectomy support for cancer patients and free health checks.
In a street hollowed out by closures, Cleopatra’s feels like something of a sanctuary. Yet Ms Nurse harbours no misconceptions about the situation beyond her premises.
“For us, what we need is more support for the high street,” told the Express. “Money for safety on the high street, like more police.”
She is measured in her comments, and does not dismiss higher taxation. “Taxes pay for everything,” she said. “But they must be proportional to your earnings.
“It would help, though, if small business rates were kept down.” Her view on employment costs is blunt. “High employers NICs is really hurting.”
Her shop remains one of the handful still trading, and she witnesses the deterioration unfolding before her eyes. The more you walk, the more Chatham reveals itself not as a place in sudden crisis but a place worn down by years of slow decline.
The boarded-up frontages are not temporary, and even the “To Let” signs have faded. Sadly, the daytime drinkers have become fixtures of the scene, as have the sex workers.
The commotion, the disruptions, the sporadic confrontations; these are no longer exceptions, they are simply part of daily life. This is what happens when a High Street loses its heart.
Perhaps the most devastating aspect of Chatham’s deterioration is its sense of inevitability. People here do not expect rescue, all they expect is more pressure.
“Chatham does not need to be hit even more,” Mr Frais states. “[Labour] do not have a clue how to run the country.”
His words carry the weight of someone who has witnessed their street decline year after year whilst persevering nonetheless. This is a town that many residents recall as a destination that drew shoppers from right across the county for day trips.
Today, its High Street has become a catalogue of shuttered shops, deprivation, and an ever-present sense of despair. What remains are the people stoically holding on, the shopkeepers who open every morning out of a sheer love of what they do, and a desire to keep on going.
The independent businesses continue to provide assistance, care and service despite their own expenses spiralling out of control. These are the people keeping things afloat.
Yet even they question how much longer they can sustain it. Every person we encounter echoes the same sentiment: ‘everyone is hurting’.
And if Chatham is any indication of Britain’s future, the question is no longer whether the High Street will decline, but how much further it can fall.
