And another one’s gone, another one bites the dust………

I wonder if John Deacon had the plight of Bedlington Front Street in mind when he penned the Queen hit "˜'Another One Bites The Dust''. Seems our retail outlets are failing faster than an EU solution to the Greek debt fiasco! The whole thing is like watching a car crash in slow motion. The impending 5½ % hike in business rates due in April is really going to help the situation! Nowadays anyone could take the Front Street with a water pistol on any given day but especially a Saturday afternoon, traditionally a busy time for shopping.

So what's gone wrong and can we recover the situation. The first part of that is easy to answer, ever increasing rents, rates, energy charges, water charges etc. in other words an exponential increase in costs at the same time as a squeeze on family finances and that aligned with not being able to compete with the great consumer cathedrals which have been designed at huge costs to extract the very last coins out of our pockets. The surge in internet shopping cannot be ignored now either as this opens up a world of choice to cash strapped consumers.

The second part of that question requires the processing power of "˜K', currently the most powerful computer in existence, to come anywhere near a solution. Of course the primary question to answer is do we want a solution? I think we should because what we are seeing is an erosion in a national culture and the evaporation of the very raison d'etre for our Market Towns in the first place. Even at a very basic level being able to interact socially with our contemporaries has to be a worthwhile endeavour and probably the only way we can build lasting friendships etc. or has that now been truly relegated to the vastness of cyber space?

It will be interesting to see how the 12 "˜Portas Pilots' develop but given the absolute need for everyone involved to become a committed partner in the undertaking I am just not too sure if it will be possible to roll out across the country up to and including Bedlington. Looks very much like a game we all used to play as toddlers"¦"¦..