Surviving to Thriving? The High Street
Money Box
BBC
4.2 • 825 Ratings
🗓️ 23 September 2023
⏱️ 29 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
High streets have a double challenge; they need to cope with their own rising costs and keeping hard pressed customers spending. We hear how Barnsley’s sellers are adapting to tricky times. Is anyone able to see a path through to a thriving business?
Felicity Hannah meets traders in The Glassworks, home to the town’s new redeveloped undercover market. Here she’s made a special coffee by Dave in his new café which is thriving; Katy, who’s side hustle is making candle melts to sell at the young traders monthly market & David, a butcher who’s been selling meat here for over 30 years.
The programme also talks to Dr Jackie Mulligan founder & CEO, ShopAppy.com & a member of High Streets Task Force, who explains how high street businesses are fairing across the UK.
Series Producer Smita Patel Editor Clare Fordham Studio Engineer by Rod Farquhar
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | On a winter's night in 1974, a crime took place that would obsess the nation. |
| 0:07.0 | It was an extraordinary news story. |
| 0:09.0 | The story of an aristocrat, Lord Lucan, who's said to have killed the family Nanny, |
| 0:14.0 | mistaking her for his wife, then somehow just disappeared. |
| 0:18.0 | One of the great mysteries in English criminal history. We're still looking for Lucan. |
| 0:22.1 | It's honestly one of the most powerful stories of my lifetime. |
| 0:26.0 | I'm Alex Fontunzelman. |
| 0:27.4 | This is The Lucan Obsession. |
| 0:29.2 | Listen on BBC Sounds. |
| 0:32.8 | BBC Sounds, music, radio, podcasts. |
| 0:45.1 | I'm not a farm shop, I'm not a supermarket, I'm something in the middle which sells quality meat. |
| 0:49.7 | And quality meat, unfortunately, costs an absolute fortune to buy. |
| 0:53.5 | It's getting busy every day, the queuing round the corner. |
| 0:57.5 | We're setting more staff on just to keep up with demand and the future's bright. |
| 1:04.6 | Our local shops don't need an algorithm to tell them about the state of health of their community and the income. |
| 1:08.7 | They see it every single day and they adapt accordingly. The survivors do. |
| 1:13.2 | The cost of living crisis has been the sting in the tale of a very tough few years. Just as the country began to slowly and optimistically come out |
| 1:19.1 | of COVID, we saw first one price and then another begin to spiral upwards. And soon those |
| 1:24.9 | spiraling costs meant that inflation was at a 41-year high. |
| 1:29.1 | That had an impact on almost everyone. |
| 1:31.6 | We've already taken a look at what that's meant for the finances, dreams and spending power of households, farms and schools. |
| 1:38.7 | But what does it mean for the High Street, where small businesses are desperate for us to get back through their doors and spending. |
... |
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