Shadowing Practice: British High Streets Were Perfect... Until We Let This Happen - Learn English Speaking with YouTube
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It's Saturday morning.
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190 sentences
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It's Saturday morning.
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You can smell the bakery before you turn the corner.
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The butcher's door is propped open and he's already slicing bacon for Mrs. Chambers because he knows she comes in at half nine every week.
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The green grocer is stacking apples outside and if you ask him which ones are good this week, he'll tell you straight.
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There's a queue in the grocer's.
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Not a long one, just four or five women with baskets talking.
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The bell above the door jingles every time someone walks in or out.
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A boy is pressing his nose against the Woolworths' window, staring at something he'll ask for at Christmas.
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His mother is two shops down, picking up a piece of fish she ordered on Tuesday.
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It gets wrapped in paper and passed across the counter with a smile.
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Outside the newsagents, an old man's terrier sits tied to a railing, watching the street go by, because it does this every Saturday and it knows the routine as well as anyone.
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On one small high street in Windsor in the early 1960s, there are seven butchers, seven greengrocers and nine grocers, including International Stores, Lipton's, Home and Colonial Stores and David Greig's.
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If you leave your order at International Stores on Tuesday, it gets delivered to your door on Thursday.
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Every one of those shops has a person behind the counter who knows your name, knows what you like, knows your children.
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The high street isn't where you go to buy things, it's where you go to be part of something.
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Elderly people have a reason to leave the house, children learn how to behave in public, mothers catch up with neighbours they haven't seen all week,
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going shopping is an occasion, you get dressed for it, you plan it, and when you come home you feel like you've been somewhere.
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The department store sits at the top of the street like a small palace, You can get a cup of tea and a toasted tea cake brought to your table by a waitress in a black dress.
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Real cups and saucers for ordinary people on an ordinary Saturday.
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That matters.
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Your nan can spend an hour in there looking at fabrics, trying on a hat, and nobody rushes her.
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She's got all day and so has the shop.
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Woolworth's has a smell, a mix of sweets and plastic and something warm from the back.
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The pick-and-mix counter stops every child on the street, all those little compartments of chocolate limes and cola bottles and sherbet lemons.
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You press your face against the glass and you don't move until someone pulls you away.
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Further down the high street, the ironmonger has drawers full of screws and nails sorted by size, and he counts out exactly what you need into a brown paper bag.
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The chemist has coloured bottles in the window.
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The cobbler has a machine in the back that whirs and smells of leather and glue.
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You know the people.
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The people know you.
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And every Saturday, the whole town shows up and walks the same stretch of pavement, in and out of the same doors.
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That's just how it is.
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Around 50 supermarkets existed in all of Britain in 1950.
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By 1961, there were 572.
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By 1969, five years after resale price maintenance was abolished, there were 3,400.
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Things were already changing, but the high street was still standing, still the centre of town life, still the place where people came together without anyone having to arrange it.
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But that was about to end, and what came next was not an accident.
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On the 2nd of March 1976, in North London, Brent Cross Shopping Centre opened its doors, Britain's first American-style out-of-town indoor shopping centre.
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It cost £20 million and took 19 years to plan and build.
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The Prince of Wales cut the ribbon.
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One journalist called it a futuristic concept, another called it hideous and soulless.
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Both turned out to be right.
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Brent Cross had 75 shops under one roof, with air conditioning, late opening and free parking.
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Everything the high street offered except the street, except the neighbour you bumped into outside the butchers.
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What it offered instead was convenience, and that it turned out was enough.
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Here is what matters about that first day.
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Brent Cross didn't create 120,000 new shoppers.
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Those were 120,000 journeys that would have gone to town centres.
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From the very first morning, the model pulled spending away from high streets.
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It didn't grow anything, it just moved it.
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Away from the butcher who knew your name, away from the greengrocer who told you which apples were good.
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And the high street had no answer because it was built around walking, around being local, around being part of your town.
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The shopping center was built around the car, and once you're in a car, you can go anywhere.
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The high street could only be somewhere, and somewhere wasn't enough anymore.
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But that was just the first crack.
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What came after was a series of decisions made by people in government that destroyed something it had taken centuries to build.
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In 1979, a new government arrived convinced that the market should decide.
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Planning rules were seen as obstacles to business, not protections for communities.
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Across the early 1980s, enterprise zones were created in post-industrial areas offering relaxed planning rules and a 10-year exemption from business rates.
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They were supposed to bring back jobs, they brought back shopping centres instead.
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On the 29th of October 1980, Chancellor Geoffrey Howe announced that the Dudley Enterprise Zone near Briley Hill had been approved.
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It was meant to regenerate a patch of the Black Country scarred by the closure of the Roundoak Steelworks.
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New industry, new jobs, a fresh start.
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What it got instead was a shopping centre, Merrihill, built between 1985 and 1990 on the Enterprise Zone, with 10 years of free rates, no land taxes and relaxed planning.
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The big retailers saw the numbers and made their choice.
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Why pay full rates on a high street in Dudley when you could pay nothing two miles down the road?
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But it wasn't just Merrihill.
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The Metro Centre opened in Gateshead on the 28th of April 1986, built on a former industrial site, and it was financed by the Church Commissioners of England.
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The body responsible for looking after the spiritual life of England's communities put money into a shopping centre that helped pull those communities apart.
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You could not write it.
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And it kept going.
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Meadowhall in Sheffield followed in September 1990, built on the site of the old Hadfield steelworks.
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One after another, the same story played out across the country.
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And at the centre of all this sat a document that should have been the High Street Shield.
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Planning Policy Guidance Note 6, published in 1988.
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Most people have never heard of it, but it changed everything.
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Instead of protecting town centres, it told councils they could not stand in the way of out-of-town development.
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The document stated that local authorities should not use the planning system to inhibit competition.
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In plain English, if a developer wanted to build a retail park on a field outside your town, your council could not say no on the grounds that it would kill your high street.
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That single document gave developers a green light that burned for nearly a decade.
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Dudley's own planning officials warned exactly what would happen.
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Neighboring councils tried to stop Merry Hills expansion.
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They were overruled.
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The people who knew their town best were told their concerns did not matter.
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Only in 1996, after roughly a decade of destruction, did revised planning guidance finally introduce the sequential test, requiring developers to consider town center sites first.
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By then, nearly a thousand superstores had already been approved.
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the damage was done.
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And there was more.
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In August 1994, the Sunday Trading Act came into force.
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Large stores could now open on Sundays.
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For independent shopkeepers who had built their week around six days of trade, this was another blow.
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One small retailer reported that Sunday business dropped by 30% in the first year.
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The big stores could absorb it.
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The family shop on the corner could not.
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Other countries saw this coming.
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France and Germany restricted out-of-town retail far more strictly.
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Their town centers are more alive today.
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Britain didn't have to go down this road, but it did.
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If you really want to understand what that cost, look at Dudley.
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In 1984, Dudley Town Centre was alive.
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A large Marks and Spencer, a BHS on the opposite side of the road, Woolworth's a few doors up,
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a three-floor Littlewoods with a popular restaurant, Beatty's department store round the corner, Cook's department store at the top of the high street.
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It was a proper town with a proper centre.
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Then Merry Hill arrived.
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Two miles away with free rates, free parking and 10,000 spaces.
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The big names packed up and moved.
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Marks and Spencer closed its Dudley store in August 1990.
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VHS followed.
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Sainsbury's, Littlewood's.
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One by one, the big shops left.
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They didn't go bust.
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They just walked down the road to somewhere that charged them nothing.
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Within five years, an independent study found that the number of visitors to Dudley Town Centre had fallen by 70%.
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Imagine your town losing 7 out of every 10 people who used to walk through it.
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That happened in 5 years.
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Alan Caswell ran the arcade toy shop in the Fountain Arcade for half a century.
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Within 2 years of Merry Hill opening, he had to close one of his shops and let 3 staff go.
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His neighbour had it worse.
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Laurie Fearns kept to the Castle Sports Shop in the same arcade.
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As trade dried up, he fell behind on his rates.
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Bailiffs came to seize his stock.
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He painted a message on his windows as he left for the last time.
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I paid my rates for 30 years and Dudley Council shut me down.
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Merryhill paid no rates for 10 years.
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The old Marks and Spencer in Dudley became a seller of cheap lampshades and shop soiled furniture.
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The Littlewoods became a row of clearance stores with next to nothing in them.
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That is what the government called regeneration.
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And then came the moment when the whole country felt it at once.
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On the 26th of November 2008, Woolworths entered administration.
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Between the 27th of December and the 6th of January, all 807 stores closed, 27,000 people lost their jobs, and every high street in Britain lost something familiar on the same day.
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For anyone over 50, Woolworths was everywhere.
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The pick and mix counter with its little plastic scoops, the record racks where you flicked through albums on a Saturday afternoon,
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the cheap toys that filled stockings at Christmas, the school stationery every September, the photo booth by the door where you sat with your best friend and pulled faces for four shots for 50 pence.
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You could buy dress patterns, saucepans, garden bulbs and a birthday card all in the same trip.
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Woolies always had what you needed even when you didn't know what that was, and suddenly all 807 of them were gone.
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The closing down sales in those final weeks were grim.
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Staff stood by empty shelves knowing their jobs were measured in hours.
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Some stores sold their fixtures, their shelving units, their till rolls.
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Everything went.
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Prime Minister Gordon Brown considered saving Woolworths, but decided it couldn't be saved.
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The same government, in the same year, bailed out the banks.
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807 high street shops and 27,000 jobs weren't worth the same effort.
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By August 2010, more than 300 of those 807 stores were still empty, 40% just sitting dark.
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The largest group of new occupants were discount retailers.
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Where the pick-and-mix counter used to be, there was now a poundland.
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But the high street wasn't just killed by policy and planning, it was stripped apart by specific people and they did very well out of it.
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Philip Green bought BHS in 2000.
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While the company still had money in its pension fund, Green extracted hundreds of millions of pounds, leaving the business weakened beyond repair.
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In 2015, he sold it for £1 to Dominic Chappelle, a man who had been bankrupt three times and had no experience in retail.
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11,000 jobs lost, 20,000 people's pensions put at risk, a pension deficit of £571 million.
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A parliamentary committee said Green's behaviour was the unacceptable face of capitalism.
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When BHS collapsed, photographs appeared of Green on his yacht.
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Parliament asked him to contribute to the pension fund.
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He eventually paid £363 million.
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The yacht stayed where it was.
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Green wasn't some rogue operator, he was doing what the system allowed.
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In 2020, his Arcadia group followed BHS into collapse.
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Topshop, Burton, Dorothy Perkins, 300 stores closed and 2500 more jobs gone.
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The brands were bought by online retailers who wanted the names but not the shops.
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Debenhams was founded in 1778 and traded for 243 years.
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By the time it closed its last 124 stores in May 2021, it had been through two administrations, a pandemic and a sale to Boohoo for £55 million.
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Boohoo wanted the website, not the buildings, not the people.
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12,000 jobs were lost.
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A company older than the railways, gone.
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And behind all of this was Amazon, launched in Britain in October 1998, selling books, then everything.
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By 2018, over 18 pence of every pound spent by British shoppers went online.
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Amazon pays minimal business rates on warehouse space outside cities, while a high street shop pays full rates in the centre of town.
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The system actively rewards them for replacing the places we used to gather.
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In 2024, over 12,800 chain stores closed across Britain, roughly 35 a day.
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In some northern towns, nearly one in four shop units now stand empty.
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Since 2015, over 6,700 bank branches have closed, removing 68% of all branches that existed a decade ago.
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But what people actually feel is not the numbers, it's the empty space where something used to be.
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The high street was where you ran into people, different ages, different backgrounds, all using the same pavement.
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And when that space empties, something in the life of a town goes with it, quietly, gradually, and then all at once.
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Think about what the high street asked of you.
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Get dressed, leave the house, walk somewhere, talk to someone, be in public.
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The retail park asks nothing except a car and a card.
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The butcher who knew what your family liked, the greengrocer who put something aside for a regular,
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the shopkeeper who watched your children grow up, those people held town life together,
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the elderly woman who used to walk to the high street every morning for her bread now stays home,
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the teenager who would have got their first Saturday job behind a counter has nowhere to apply, The man who ran the shoe repair shop for 40 years locked the door and didn't open it again.
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Walk down many British high streets today and you'll see the same thing.
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A betting shop, a vape shop, a pound store, a charity shop, three empty units and sometimes a Greggs.
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Somewhere among them there is a shop front where something used to be.
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A place where your family had their Saturday.
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that blank fascia above the door is not just an empty sign.
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It is what happens when a hundred decisions go the wrong way, made by people who never had to live with the results.
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If you remember your Saturday on the high street, tell me in the comments.
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And if you know someone who grew up the same way, share this with them.
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Context & Background
The speaker describes a nostalgic view of British high streets during the 1960s, painting a picture of community and personal interactions in everyday shopping. The atmosphere evokes warmth and familiarity, where shopkeepers know their customers by name, and shopping is more than a transaction; it's a social event. The contrast is drawn between the charm of these local shops and the emergence of modern shopping centers, highlighting a shift towards convenience that affected the essence of community life.
Top 5 Phrases for Daily Communication
- "Do you have any recommendations?" - Useful for asking for opinions on products.
- "I'd like to place an order, please." - A polite way to request items or services.
- "Can you tell me what’s good this week?" - A great way to engage with vendors about fresh goods.
- "I’ll take that, thank you!" - A friendly expression to confirm your choice.
- "Could you wrap it up for me?" - A practical request when purchasing items.
Step-by-step Shadowing Guide
To enhance your English speaking skills, particularly for shadowing practice drawn from the rich dialogue in this video, follow these steps:
- Select a Shadowing App: Choose a reliable shadowing app that can offer you transcripts and playback options.
- Listen Carefully: Play a segment of the transcript, focusing on the intonation and pronunciation of the speaker.
- Repeat and Imitate: Pause after each sentence and mimic the speaker's tone, pacing, and emotional expression. This technique will aid in improving your English pronunciation.
- Practice Shadow Speech: Play the audio again while speaking along to enhance fluency. Ensure that your pronunciation becomes clearer with each repetition.
- Engage with Community: Join IELTS speaking practice groups where you can use the phrases learned and practice conversational skills with peers.
By utilizing these steps and focusing on community-centric phrases, you will not only improve your English pronunciation but also gain confidence in everyday communication. Whether you're ordering a coffee or engaging in small talk, mastering these skills will enrich your language experience and connect you more deeply with those around you.
What is the Shadowing Technique?
Shadowing is a science-backed language learning technique originally developed for professional interpreter training and popularized by polyglot Dr. Alexander Arguelles. The method is simple but powerful: you listen to native English audio and immediately repeat it out loud — like a shadow following the speaker with just a 1–2 second delay. Unlike passive listening or grammar drills, shadowing forces your brain and mouth muscles to simultaneously process and reproduce real speech patterns. Research shows it significantly improves pronunciation accuracy, intonation, rhythm, connected speech, listening comprehension, and speaking fluency — making it one of the most effective methods for IELTS Speaking preparation and real-world English communication.
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