Of course this is beginning to bite the property landlords too, the picture above is of Blackburn’s Shop in Ramsgate now, its been empty for about seven years when the freehold for the whole lot sold for around £90,000 it went in the auction about three years ago with a reserve of £170,000 failed to sell and sold after the auction for £106,000 it comprises three shops larger than mine and market forces suggest that each of these shops has a real value of £20,000. this would suggest a rent of £2,000pa or £40 per week with rates of around £20 per week, dream on though.
News, Local history and Thanet issues from Michael's Bookshop in Ramsgate see www.michaelsbookshop.com I publish over 200 books about the history of this area click here to look at them.
Wednesday 22 January 2014
Blackburn’s bite the bookseller.
Of course this is beginning to bite the property landlords too, the picture above is of Blackburn’s Shop in Ramsgate now, its been empty for about seven years when the freehold for the whole lot sold for around £90,000 it went in the auction about three years ago with a reserve of £170,000 failed to sell and sold after the auction for £106,000 it comprises three shops larger than mine and market forces suggest that each of these shops has a real value of £20,000. this would suggest a rent of £2,000pa or £40 per week with rates of around £20 per week, dream on though.
4 comments:
Comments, since I started writing this blog in 2007 the way the internet works has changed a lot, comments and dialogue here were once viable in an open and anonymous sense. Now if you comment here I will only allow the comment if it seems to make sense and be related to what the post is about. I link the majority of my posts to the main local Facebook groups and to my Facebook account, “Michael Child” I guess the main Ramsgate Facebook group is We Love Ramsgate. For the most part the comments and dialogue related to the posts here goes on there. As for the rest of it, well this blog handles images better than Facebook, which is why I don’t post directly to my Facebook account, although if I take a lot of photos I am so lazy that I paste them directly from my camera card to my bookshop website and put a link on this blog.
Great theory, Michael, but Blackburns furniture shop in Broadstairs has been trading for over a century and a half. Even in modern times it has offered a great selection, competitive prices and a personal service you will not find at Westwood X so why, oh why, did the owners of the business not buy the freehold sometime over those many years and thus, liberate themselves from a rental that escalates with the value of the property. Is it that the old fashioned tenant shop keeper has had his day and new forces have come to the market place or is it all the fault of Ikea who, as with Amazon in your business, now dominate the furniture world. Whatever, I will miss Blackburns.
ReplyDeleteWilliam as a family we once had a chain of bookshops in Hertfordshire, my brother having the main bookshop in St Albans, he rented the site and was squeezed out by the ever increasing rent and rates. Many of the shopkeepers in the same road had bought their freeholds but for the most part the rates finished them off.
DeleteThe key being that once that shops around you have stopped being proper shops and become estate agents, solicitors, hairdressers et al the footfall drops.
With Broadstairs I would say that it is fast becoming a town centre where it is difficult to complete a normal shopping mission, my guess being the future would be a sort of housing estate with plenty of pubs and the associated problems
Hardly, Michael, for Broadstairs has three butchers, two greengrocers, one fresh fishmonger, two grocers, two bakers,Iceland, four mixed convenience/newsagent shops, four antique dealers, one bookshop plus a selection of varied retail outlets on top of the abundance of estate agents, solicitors and hairdressers. It remains a High Street offering most of one's daily needs and only needing a trip elsewhere for clothing and shoes as in my childhood. Just the names change. The real difference is that when I was a kid one went to Margate or Ramsgate for clothing and footwear, but now that trip is to Westwood.
DeleteI agree with William. I like Broadstairs town centre. It cheers me up. Whereas Ramsgate and especially Margate do the opposite.
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