Empty shop units show signs of the times in the King's Mile area of Canterbury. Picture: Paul Dennis.

by Alex Claridge

The recession is biting for shops in the King's Mile area of Canterbury.

Almost four years ago, city council leader John Gilbey stood in Guildhall Street and cut a purple ribbon to mark the official opening.

The Palace Street and Northgate area had just been given a £600,000 makeover by the council which it was hoped would invigorate this corner of Canterbury. The aim was to encourage independent and curious shops to come to Canterbury and flourish.

However, the reality might not have been quite how the council or traders in the area had hoped. Tough trading conditions brought on by the national economic downturn have brought closures and empty shop units.

This year has seen the closure of King’s English, a toy shop which occupied the leaning house at the bottom of Palace Street.

Westgate Games, which has had a presence in the city for more than 25 years, has closed its shop in The Borough and has a bailiff’s notice in the window. Mad4Mobiles is also shut and there are more empty shops as one ventures further away from the city centre into Northgate.

There are other empty shops in Palace Street with one of them being Conquest House, the antiques shop which had been based in the 1,000-year-old building and closed in 2009 to become an internet business.

But Dawn Hudd, the city council’s deputy head of culture and enterprise, is upbeat. She said: “We have businesses preparing to move into some of the empty properties. The beauty salon in Orange Street, for example, is going to expand into the closing Winnie the Pooh shop next to it.

“We also have people moving into other shops in the King’s Mile area and it’s normal in a retail environment that there is a turnover of businesses.”

Read more reaction in our special report in this week's Kentish Gazette.

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