Forum topic: New report on measures relevant to revitalizing Palmers Green

One thing to add to the comments above. GLBA could to a lot worse than commission a good quality website to promote businesses in Palmers Green and and improve its profile - unlikely make a huge difference, but enough to make the effort worthwhile. There isn't even a bad one yet.

Costas has still not fully woken up to the internet.

It’s positive that there is a great deal underlying intent to improve the core heart of this community. The visual appearance does seem to be a common bug bear, be it absence of vegetation, street furniture proliferation or its location, pavement quality, cleanliness, shop fronts or some other and that in turn apparently affects the willingness of many to shop. What does seem to be the case is that the Cycle Enfield driven, promised PG centre regeneration, other than an impression of a slightly different Triangle, is showing no signs of tackling such issues (at all perhaps and certainly not holistically). With implementation of the A105 project apparently due for completion in roughly six months we are left to assume we will all be “done to” rather than engaged with. And if it is the case then that’s a real shame. Let me explore one reason why that’s bad for local shopkeepers.


The last major independent study (I’m aware of) looking at PG centre approached 1000 households, surveyed 1000 visitors, postal surveyed commercial occupiers and postal surveyed national and regional multiples.


It found that visitors to PG high street were almost exactly split, with one third coming by car, one third on public transport and one third on foot. Of those coming by car, the majority (56%) parked in Lodge Drive. The remainder presumably park either on Green Lanes itself, nearby residential streets, Morrison's or some other. It means 40% of them parking on Green Lanes is going to be absolute tops and most likely significantly less than that.


Taking an acceptable degree of approximation, we can say that parking bays on Green Lanes are heavily utilised, essentially full all of the time: getting in more cars to the existing space can’t be done. Vehicle “churn” could be increased by a pricing formula but less time parked up may well mean fewer purchases per car; effectively a zero sum game.


So car shoppers can’t be increased by much. (Yes, put more people in the same car and such, but real world.)


Public transport (mostly bus but also train) certainly has spare capacity. Buses coming to PG have a good range of pick up points and so offer the opportunity of new shoppers. But it’s unlikely, other than the occasional marketing blitz highlighting the attractiveness (?) of PG centre, that shopkeepers can do other than research the opportunity, provide the required product and provide it well. Then cross fingers and trust word of mouth and the like will do the rest.


Walking has a significant opportunity. Already covering one third of all visitors (4 out of 5 of whom don’t come as frequently as once a month), there is a small town within relatively easy walking reach of PG centre. Call it 10,000 homes, roughly 25,000 people. That’s the size of Hertford.


So if you were a trader, or responsible for the financial health of PG centre, where would you focus your efforts and investment to generate more trade: car parking, bus passengers or local residents? What does your chosen target market seek and what is Cycle Enfield doing to help deliver it?


As an aside, following the above line, assuming 20% of the Green Lanes parking spaces are lost due to Cycle Enfield and those displaced shoppers don’t park in eg Lodge Drive, Morrison's or a residential street, nor change their mode of travel, but instead go somewhere else entirely, then the figures would suggest a loss of 20% of 40% of one third of PG centre visitors. That’s between 2 and 3%. Not ideal, is a worst case as explained, is going to be worse for some outlets than others, but well within the realms of margin changes seen through eg rent increases, business rate increases, supplier price increases, wage increase and so forth. A 2-3% impact is why I never (remotely) believed the “hundreds of businesses will close”, “Armageddon” and the like being forecast due to the cycle lanes.

And how much did all that angst take the focus away from the real strategic issues, some of which I would argue sit in the preceding, as well as the more mundane, such as will we be rain sheltered under the new bus stop designs and what would Kenneth Grange do about that?

On your aside point. I would ask who would drive miles to a place and not stop because they cannot park right outside the shop they are going to? Presumably people set off and try to park near to the shop but the places are always taken so almost everyone will park off the high street or or just go to a car park - they wont drive miles home. As there always seem to be spaces at Lodge Drive and Morrisons does not control its carpark, it suggests that parking in PG is not under pressure. So Karl your 2-3% has got to be overestimate and we are left with those opportunist who, as Helen O suggested, see a parking space and realise they need to pick up some fags or something - so not many at all. I wonder if that number matches those people, like me, who have been alienated by the Save Our Green Lanes campaign and avoid those shops that don't welcome us? So was it all worth it?

Has Brexit brought Peak Coffee to PG?

Chancellor Osborne brought significant change to parts of PG’s high street with his “March of the Coffee Makers” strategy. Morrison's even went as far as installing a take away coffee unit for drinkers to use while on the way to their in–house cafe. Other supermarkets - Waitrose and Londis – had already installed similar in-house coffee units, as had our Turner Prize contending Post Office where you could sip coffee while waiting the standard 20 minutes in the queue to buy stamps; contemplating if it would be the secured counter, the unsecured counter, the one you can’t see over the cards rack and then round the corner, or perhaps the counter in the photo booth, to which you would finally be called.

His “Northern Coffee House” strategy was less successful, with no change to the extant Bookcafe, Café Cristo and Aroma coming to PG’s northern coffee reaches.

Now with his removal and related uncertainty over Brexit, its actual meaning, implementation implications, as well as the undeniable fact that many still prefer a standard cuppa with their full English Brexit, evidence suggests we may be seeing the first cracks appearing: Bon Appetite, long time stalwart of the near-Triangle coffee and chips scene, looks to have closed its doors. The shutters have also been down on the nearby - and not long opened - Palmers Caffe for far too many days to suggest they’ve merely locked themselves out.

New Chancellor Hammond seems to have his work cut out. Will the imminent revealing of the new offer from the long closed near-Fox, Picnic Kebab House give an early hint of his plans?

(On the earlier web site for the high street idea - the previous site which now appears defunct, www.palmersgreenshops.com , which ran for quite a few years and would highlight certain shops at intervals in time honoured fashion didn't seem to have cut it. Maybe other social media would be more suitable. But as always, ideally start with a What and Why rather than a How.)