Popped down earlier. Another batch of shops shutting, it's an embarrassment and becoming a bigger White Elephant than the Reynolds arena.
The Bairn popped into Claire's during the week and they were clearing the place out. It's shut for good now.
The towns foooked. What a mess!

you can walk from heron foods right to the end near the lift and every shop on that side is shut.

there is talk of woolies being a big bhs like.

It's not just our town though. Most are like that now - a combination of the recession and online shopping.

I was in the town centre yesterday for the first time in ages and found out that ther isn't a single shop there where you can buy a brand new CD or DVD.

dont smiths do dvds still?

No, which surprised me. Now you have to go to the supermarket if you want a DVD (apart from the internet).

There was nobody in our local Anne Summers shop today when i popped in ..

did you get your lad anything a but plug perhaps

There are plenty of tat shops though where for £1 or under you can purchase a childs toy which will break in under 2 hours or choke your loved ones, a garden implement that lasts under 1 hour and yes the above have happened to moi!

I know you get what you pay for but come on, the food I know is cheaper than big name but non food is cack.

They always busy though, wonder what they do to compensate for increase in VAT, squeeze the supplier or take the hit on profit?

bought some golden wonder crisps from the £1 shop then went in home bargains same crisps 89p

What was the book shop on York Road way back, opposite Frank Wright's?

was'nt whittakers was it,i know they were at the top of the rampbut they could have moved from there

It's nackered down here for jobs chip..

Plenty of jobs in Nottingham. Seriously.

Chip, if you want to come down and spend a week looking around, you're welcome to my spare room.

Hartlepool as a town is backwards thinking, from its Councillors to the majority of its people.
The notable exceptions who have clear thinking tend to be the kind of folk who post on here. The less intelligent of the townsfolk tend to be pantomime premier league supporters. These things are often inextricably linked.
This manifests itself in the ambitions of the people, which don't amount to much.
I'm lucky enough to have had a good job in the area for a long time, so am able to continue living in the town.
I would not hesitate to move away for work, even at my age.

Is'nt the single female ratio to men quite high as well ?..

Indeed, and much less orange coloured women than in the North East too.

I have said for a long time that the town centre wants knocking down and rebuilding, its a disgrace and a tired shite hole of a place. At least stockton council saw sense and are rebuilding billingham town centre.

Well Chip, Newcastle-Sunderland-Boro. Shouldnt you be supporting your local shopping centre. I can see comparisons here with one of our favourite moans about people spending their cash to watch other towns clubs. Peoples jobs at stake here.

Everyone of my group of mates (myself included) that went to University have left the town to Newcastle, Leeds, Cambridge, London and Sunderland. The only mates that remain are the ones in trades. This shows to me that there is a clear "brain drain" with the towns young people as there are no jobs. I love coming back home but after about a week or two (like at Christmas) I realise why I have left.

would agree was back over a couple yrs ago there was plenty of shops closed then,was very depressing..
think that must have been why i drank myself daft for two weeks lol.

The whole area is in the doldrums, and it's hard to see a way out of it at the minute. Once the heavy industry left the area, its only replacement was the very flimsy 'services' sector which was based in the most part on Call Centres which were thinly-veiled fronts for lowering the true extent of unemployment.
It will always be home, but i've no regrets about moving over here at the back end of last year. The old place seems to be on its knees, and it's only likely to get a whole lot worse.

"At least stockton council saw sense and are rebuilding billingham town centre."
SBC sold Billingham T.C. to Stockland. They have yet to start "rebuilding" Superdrug is closing in March. Most smaller businesses closing...

Snap!!

I honestly could of wrote this myself, word for word

Not true with my mates and I.

The few who live out of town are within about a 20 mile radius and most still living in town and have good, well paid jobs. Some, like myself, don't work in town but still live here and travel to work each day though.

I'll go along with that Mr Compo..........I left in 1978 and if it wasn't for Pools and visiting family and friends, I wouldn't go near the place.
In order to reverse the brain drain the town needs to attract graduates and high fliers back, which means an attractive place to live, visit, shop and socialise. Decent transport links to allow residents to work anywhere in the north east and to encourage more visitors.
The town is on a downward, ever decreasing spiral which will eventually cause it to disappear up its own arsehole.
Just before Christmas we arrived early for a match and decided to go for a walk round Middleton Grange. It made me sad, really it did.
Because my daughter is at Newcastle Uni we visit the place regularly and the difference is alarming. Newcastle is a vibrant place and we always look forward to going there.
Seaton Carew is a sad looking place in desperate need of a facelift and the road towards the historic headland is akin to Beirut.
I hate to be saying this about the place I was brought up but moving away opens your eyes.
Something needs to be done and quick.

Moving away does open your eyes the only place I would move back to in the North-east is Newcastle, the only reason is due to family being in Hartlepool. It makes me laugh here when people talk about the "rough" areas in Huntingdon, St Ives and Cambridge and when I actually realise where they are talking about its an area that I could best describe as the Fens area of the town and far from rough.

I think that says it all and having lived in Toxteth and Gresham Road, Middlesbrough (I say live basically I did at Uni as was my mates house and stayed in Spare room) the places down here are paradise.

As long as people walk away from the town instead of staying nd trying to improve it the downward spiral will continue. Everyone seems to expect someone else to make things better. To me its as bad as going out of town to watch a so called big club instead of sticking with what we have and trying to improve what we have. POOLIE AND PROUD.

How can a graduate who is looking for a job in that area possibly stay in the town. I used to work in the forensic field and there is nothing in the north-east for that I now work in the Biotechnology area and apart from Seal Sands, mainly chemical industry and a few Pharma companies there is nothing unless you want to be a lecturer at the Universities.

Unless you are in a trade what is there in Hartlepool for people leaving college or school in the professional arena?

Here we go again, another thread which turns into exiles slagging off Hartlepool and saying how wonderful everywhere else is.

I've lived and worked all around England and wouldn't swap many of those places for Hartlepool.

Speaking as someone that spends a lot of time away in other places, I can absolutely guarantee that there are much worse places to live than Hartlepool.

The place is nowhere near as bad as some are making out.

I agree the town centre is appalling, but that wont change, as like others have said, there are no music shops etc etc.

But why would anyone go the town centre and pay ridiculous parking charges when you can go the metro centre, teesside park etc and park for nowt. And have numerous and various shops.

The town is a nice place to live, the shopping centre is bobbins.

I love Hartlepool and wish I could live back in the northeast due to family, but as i said I would live in Newcastle. I didnt mean for my comments to slag the town off just giving the reason why I left due to work.

The comment I made about knowing why I left is becasue when I am home I settle into the same routine that I used to have when lived in the town, Tuesday / Thursday night go to Warrior with mates, Friday night town (king johns, idols, Jax) Saturday match and then a few in town, Sunday hangover. Unfortunatly I would say this is more about me than the town itself but there is less going on than in places like Newcastle or other towns. Thats the only point I was making.

The area of Hartlepool, Marina and living by the sea is brilliant and thats what I miss the most, oh and the fish and chips. The fact that the town has a beach and then about 30 mins away from the town you have the Yorshire dales, North Yorkshire moors and brilliant towns with character like Whitby etc is a blessing. Its a shame that the town needs major investment, but I cannot live back there without work its as simple as that.

Appoligies if my words come across wrong.

Here here Mr Ripper.

Well as long as you are happy with what the town offers, Mr R , then that's all that matters. You're the one living there.
It just seems to me that the general consensus of the other people who live there is that they're not happy with the way things are going.
Even you have opted to go out of town to take the bairn swimming.
All I ever seem to read on here is the locals slagging the place off.
Can anyone show me a few threads where the townsfolk actually praise the place
What do you expect us exiles to say when the locals haven't a good word to say about the town.
There are some nice areas in the town and always were but places like Seaton and the road to the historic headland need some TLC.
But if you are happy who am I to argue.

Hartlepool Utd is a microcosm of the town, a small part of the town who believe in the place but hampered by an indifferent majority. It's a town of donkeys led by donkeys .... a town destined to stumble along getting the tail end sweepings of any period of success because of the political naivety of it's inhabitants.
Darlington's inhabitants are in the Premiership of political astuteness and benefit accordingly. It's a marginal constituency that changes hands regularly and as a consequence the political parties will 'come a courting' and give it government jobs, decent jobs to try and win the local voters over. Hartlepool is a Sunday Morning outfit by comparison when it comes to playing politics, the election comes, everyone votes Labour and that's it ... Labour don't have to care because they know they'll get voted in regardless, votes in the pocket, the other parties know they're wasting their time so why bother even chasing something that doesn't want to know.

Peterlee has 10.2% unemployment, hardly something to shout about, but it looks prosperous driving down the A19.

It has about a dozen call centres within 10 minutes of the town centre.
I'd imagine half of Garlands ended up on Bracken Hill.
The politicians up yakkerland aren't doing too bad, they put our incompetent lot to shame.

But don't all Mcdonalds, Gregg and KFC look them same everywhere?

Lowestoft is similar, except empty shops are soon reopened as QD type pound stretcher/land shops or charity shops or bookies or hairdressers.

Lots of places are; Stoke, Blackburn, Oldham, Rochdale, Grantham, Boston, Grimsby, Carlisle and a load more old towns.

Its the shittiest of holes.

I work for a company who supplies stock control/till systems to retailers. Lots of empty units are now the norm in shopping centres all over the UK, even fancy ones in That London.

The main problem with getting a shop open in an empty unit is trying to get a good deal out of greedy landlords, and obstinate local councils, some of who have to rubber-stamp everything, particularly if a unit is in a conservation area or listed building.

Unfortunately Hartlepool and similar towns are well off the 'A' list of locations a retailer would want to open a store. It could be made more desirable if there were cheap rents, easy terms of occupation etc, but I don't know the situation in the town to make a comment on this.

There is a balance to be struck for landlords between rent and the out-of-place look of an empty unit. A lot of the former Virgin Megastores (Zavvi) have been given on very good terms to some of our customers because they were such big units, usually in prime locations, and they looked embarrassing standing empty.

It seems like the other way round in Hartlepool now!

...What we really need is some of the successfull entrepreneurs (who have left the town to seek their fortunes) to return and hopefully provide some employment.......as well as producing some internally also. Our town centre is not the worst I've been in by a long way, I reckon a lot of people shop outside of town because they like to "potter" unnoticed, and the funky shops follow the bigger crowds, which is why you need to support the "Marks and Sparks" of your town centre as once they go the others soon follow.

They should never have got rid of Princess Anne's wall !! I started several fledling teenage romances there. On another note; once Woolies went, the town centre lost its centrepiece. That should have been replaced by something equally prominant, even at a zero rent.

The 10.2 is for Easington District which also covers Seaham, saying tha,t even Seaham has had all those units erected south of town in the new industrial estate, which makes Queens Meadow look a bit 'local' even though they're both the same distance from the A19.
Like I said Chip. we're a tame pussycat of a town politically whose residents have a talent for shrugging shoulders and putting up with things, their apathy to their local football team is symptomatic of a general malaise abroad in the town and politicians whio are either silent nodding dogs or comfortable maintaining the status quo, a disinterested electorate is a politicians delight.