Firms quitting New Milton’s Station Road blame high rents, low footfall and crime
RISING rents, dwindling customer numbers and crime are being blamed for the increasing number of empty units in New Milton’s high street.
One in 10 commercial premises on Station Road, between the junctions of Osborne and Spencer roads, is currently unoccupied, with more heading towards the Avenue Road junction.
The A&T has spoken to business owners who have moved on and those who are sticking it out, with one predicting the high street would eventually become entirely residential.
Among those who have quit New Milton’s main commercial hub is JPC Technology’s Cliff Harris, who now works from his Walkford home.
“I gave up looking for another shop in the area after leaving Station Road,” Mr Harris told the A&T. “I have no reason to go back to being on a high street, with all the shoplifters and the drunks hanging around outside the shop. Station Road has changed a lot.”
Mr Harris launched JPC Technology in the early 2000s and moved to the Station Road premises in 2008.
“I chose those premises because they were close to the Co-op, before it became a Morrisons,” he said. “When I knew Morrisons was moving in I thought, ‘Oh, we’ll be in a good spot and there will be a lot of good footfall,’ and it worked very nicely for a while and the business did well.
“But over the years it’s just got worse, and the high street is no longer a nice place to be any more.
“You’ve got drunks coming over from the rec to just sit around outside the store, there are beggars camped under the archway, and I used to regularly see Morrisons’ security staff chasing shoplifters – it’s just not a nice environment any more.”
Mr Harris continued: “The landlord wanted to jack rents up massively and sign me up for another 10 years and I just thought, ‘It’s not worth it’.
“Working from home repairing computers works very nicely for me.
“I had a look around at other local business premises and the prices were just astronomical. In New Milton, the rents are too high and the parking is atrocious.
“Being able to park easily is a big thing for Station Road and the Morrisons car park is really the only free one around.
“Especially for my customers, being able to park outside the door and bring in their computers is really important. I couldn’t find any commercial premises that are still suitable, but working from home is absolutely perfect for me.
“My shop used to get good footfall, especially with people popping in to buy printer paper and ink cartridges, but I’ve seen that fall off.
“Manufacturers now supply products like ink cartridges directly to customers, and you also have to compete with Amazon and eBay and you just can’t.”
The A&T understands the former JPC Technology store may become an Asian supermarket.
A stone’s throw from there, the owners of Superpet at Mallard Buildings recently quit their premises, leaving a note in the window explaining their decision to customers.
The note reads: “Unfortunately, times have changed in the high street and with reduced footfalls, higher rent and online shopping we have been forced to remove our presence in the high street and carry on our business at our warehouse on the Queensway industrial estate in Stem Lane, New Milton.”
The owner thanked customers for 40 years of support.
One business owner who quit their Station Road site, but asked not to be named, told the A&T: “Footfalls have dropped dramatically and NFDC and the town council don’t seem to help.”
New Milton Town Council’s business development manager Chiara Rabbito said there was little the council could do where rents were concerned but new town centre businesses did well once opened: “You never know when a unit is going to become available.
“Landlords and business owners are not obliged to tell us in advance. But when we do get open units they tend to fill up quickly and, when the business is set up, it tends to do well.
“There can also be a pattern with retirements, where a business has kept going as long as possible, but there’s no new family member or long-term employee who wants to buy it out. We have had some businesses leaving due to landlords putting up rents but there’s nothing the town council can do about that.
“It’s down to the national situation – we can ask central government to make changes to make business rents more accessible, but there’s nothing more that we can do.”
Ms Rabbito pointed out the town council works to help businesses through its Go New Milton website and its Facebook and Instagram pages.
“We try to give a bit of history on businesses to try to attract tourists and make the area feel more accessible to them,” she explained.
“We also work with NFDC when we can to offer free parking at the right times of year, such as Christmas, to attract shoppers.
“We do all we can as a council to promote and encourage shoppers and tourists to come to town.”
She added that Leveling Up funding has been used to “spruce up” commercial areas of Ashley.
“Online shopping does affect town centre footfall,” Ms Rabbito added, “but I would say overall we have a very successful high street.”
Chief executive of mortgage lender The Parity Trust and Hampshire Chamber of Commerce member, Sandeep Sesodia, told the A&T: “Even pre-pandemic, businesses were complaining that rents were rising.
“In New Milton, even when you look at a store like Boots, I don’t know how much they pay for that site, but it’s not the biggest store and it’s right across the road from their competitor Superdrug. With online sales being what they are, can companies like Boots justify still paying rents on premises like that?
“I don’t even know what’s happening with the business regeneration plans that local councils are supposed to be operating.
“Online shopping and rent rises are definitely having an effect. In areas likes Station Road, if you took away the cafes and food-focused business like M&S, there wouldn’t be much left to attract shoppers.”
Even the business owners sticking it out in Station Road acknowledge that times are tough.
Shoe Care owner Jon Cooper, who bought the business in 1991, has noticed a drop in customer footfall in recent years.
“You’ve got businesses like Amazon and eBay and it all chips away at high street businesses,” Mr Cooper told the A&T. “Sometimes you talk to customers who ask, ‘what has happened to this business and that business?’, but they’ve closed down because people didn’t use them.
“Sometimes people say, ‘I would go in there once per year,’ but that’s not really enough to keep a business going.
“I know that the high street is dying; I think in 50 years this road will all be residential.
“It now has too many nail bars, barbers and charity shops. and some of those charity shops are now selling new goods like cards which I didn’t think they were allowed to do.”
Mr Cooper said Station Road “needs variety” in its shops otherwise it runs the risk of being “boring”.
“All businesses have had to adapt but it’s not always easy,” he explained. “I used to be able to predict the days, and even the times of day, when we would be busy, but now I don’t know when that’s going to be.
“My rents have gone up in the last eight or so months, but I’m not going anywhere any time soon.
“A lot of businesses are struggling and high streets seem to be dying out everywhere.”
The owner of Hardys electrical store, Robert Hardy, agrees with many of Mr Cooper’s points. Mr Hardy told the A&T: “We own this building so rent increases are not an issue for us.
“We had the opportunity to buy the property with a lower mortgage rate than our rent, so it was a no brainer, and we don’t have to deal with greedy landlords.”
Mr Hardy, who owns the freehold for the Toys & More store next door, said he has a “gentleman’s agreement” with the owner to keep the rent affordable.
“He's a mate, and we want a healthy high street,” Mr Hardy said. “There’s no point keeping the building empty. It seems like more and more landlords don't mind their premises being empty because they want a higher rent, which is strange to me.
“Inflation is affecting everything, not just rent, but staff wages and stock costs, and it becomes a vicious circle for businesses.”
Helen Hardy, who co-owns Hardys, added: “The high street is changing and morphing all the time. We need more shops for young people. For example, there’s nowhere on Station Road to buy baby clothes, the only thing you can do is try your luck at a charity shop.”
Helen added that online retailers like Amazon are now considering charging for customers to return items like clothes. She said: “Even if it might cost you £1.99 to return clothes you bought online, by the time a customer pays for petrol and parking to come into town to return a product, they’d probably be quite happy to just pay £1.99 for a return.
“And if the council ever considers adding parking meters in the street, that would be it for local businesses.”
