Erith: ‘I want to know why all the shops are gone’ – BBC News

It’s a Thursday afternoon on the high street of Erith, south-east London, and it’s eerily quiet.

The man who runs a fruit and vegetable stall outside the shopping center tells me that every day is as quiet as today: footfall is falling, more and more shops are closing and “we are stuck in a vicious circle,” he explains out.

Nearly half of the units in the shopping center are boarded up and vacant, the rest are virtually empty.

“All we have left is a Farmfoods, Iceland and Greggs,” a man tells me as I walk through the shopping centre. ‘Is that all Erith is allowed? I want to know why all the shops are gone.’

The high street of Erith, located in the London borough of Bexley, has not always been so deserted.

Elaine Brew has lived in the area all her life and was born here in the 1950s.

“There used to be some nice shops here, big department stores where people came from all over, but now it’s not the same anymore,” she says.

“It’s so sad to see the decline in stores, but also the number of people who are struggling and out of work has really gone up.”

Elaine works in a charity shop in the shopping center and says that recently “the amount of stuff we sell has increased, which is a reflection of the fact that people can’t afford to buy things new”.

She has always voted, but has now “lost faith in politicians” and does not know what to do in the upcoming general election on July 4.

Further up in Woolwich, not everyone is happy with the high streets, but there is certainly a more optimistic feeling.

This is partly due to £25 million of funding received by Greenwich Council from the Future High Street Fund to regenerate and improve the high streets and town centre.

Aaron Soto tells me that the regeneration has helped improve the community spirit in the area and that “it’s a lot nicer and cleaner” than it used to be.

However, the 22-year-old says that despite the investment, “not many businesses survive here and every year they close and new ones open”.

He would also like to see more investment across the area as the specific funding put into improving the town hall means “the other parts around it are suffering”.

But not everyone is happy with the progress of the regeneration project.

One man who has lived in the area all his life is Ahmet, who says the council is taking much longer to complete the project than promised and that parts of the main street, including an area that was once a bustling market, are still is always a lively market. construction site.