IS your once-bustling high street now a parade of empty shops and broken dreams? These ideas will bring life back to your city centre:
Turn it into a paintball arena
Wild horses wouldn’t drag internet-savvy consumers to shop in some dull town centre, but the promise of giving their mates a nasty bruise with a paintball gun might. You could turn Clarks Shoes into a bunker and even have a special offer where stag dos get 25 per cent off at Bonmarché.
Release wild animals in the old Debenhams
Efforts to rewild the UK should begin in our now lifeless town centres and all those huge ex-Debenhams buildings could hold an ark’s worth of animals each. Wouldn’t it be thrilling to see a monkey manning the perfume counter? Or a badger snuffling around the lingerie section? Way more exciting than shopping there ever was.
Allow drug dealers to set up shop
Most drug dealers suffer from a major lack of work-life balance, their home or car usually acting as their office. That could all change if they are given their own shop with opening hours of 8pm – 6am, Monday to Saturday. Even drug dealers need to have a rest on Sunday.
Start fracking
If no one’s visiting your local high street anymore, you don’t even necessarily have to maintain it as a part of the city. With correct planning permission, you could turn Wolverhampton’s failing retail spaces into lucrative oil and gas fields. It would be a vast improvement on how it currently looks.
Turn it into a Mega Greggs
Everyone loves a Greggs – it might be the only reason people still go into town these days. Consider the draw you’d be if you had the world’s first Mega Greggs, stretching the length of an entire street, with massive sausage rolls to match.
