‘Newbury is a great shopping centre’ – business owners feeling positive despite upcoming closures of Wilko and Superdrug

Town centre business owners are feeling positive about Newbury’s retail future despite the upcoming closures of high street staples Wilko and Superdrug.

The two national retailers are set to vacate their Northbrook Street premises in the coming months, leaving two key units empty.

However, several local business leaders are confident that these will be filled and that the economic future for town centre businesses is secure.

Newbury Business Improvement District (BID) chairman and The Catherine Wheel publican Warwick Heskins said: “Every town in the country is going through what Newbury is going through now.

“It’s not a Newbury thing; it is a high street thing. Every high street is doing the exact same thing.

“You can look at Reading and its lost Debenhams in The Oracle, they’re losing House of Fraser and they’re converting all those big stores into small stores.

“That’s the sort of thing that is going to happen here. Some of the bigger units are just too big for what retailers need nowadays because of online shopping.

“What you’re looking at is the high street changing to smaller, independent outlets rather than huge, big stores.”

Mr Heskins felt very positive about the current retail state of the town centre.

He praised the success of Newbury’s independent retailers and stated that many of the empty units had businesses, national and local, lining up to fill them.

“If you walk down other high streets, I think Newbury is doing quite well to be honest,” he said.

He also stated that he knew there were plans to fill the large Wilko unit with something else when the budget UK homeware chain goes under.

“It’s not going to sit as an empty unit for too long,” he said.

“Newbury is a great shopping centre, and once Parkway is fully let, it’s going to be a huge boost for the town.”

Parkway Shopping centre manager Andy Marmot added: “We remain positive and we are seeing strong leasing activity as we approach retail’s golden quarter.

“We have lots of interest in Parkway and there’s lots of offers that have been made on most of our units.”

Mr Marmot believes that most of the town centre’s vacant retail units will be filled in time for the Christmas period and that the future is “positive”.

“We will continue to attract national, local, independent and interesting retailers to the town and yes, we have gone through a cost of living crisis and retail failures sadly have happened, but we will come out the other side of it and Newbury will remain a strong and vibrant retail destination,” he said.

Teresa Glanville, owner of the homeware and gift shop No 96 on Northbrook Street, believed encouraging independent businesses into the town would improve the town centre.

She suggested that a free day of parking could be implemented every week or month to encourage shoppers to visit; Newbury’s markets could be expanded and improved; and Market Place could become fully pedestrianised to provide restaurants with more space for outdoor seating, with Bartholomew Street returned to two-way traffic.

She stated: “Newbury has a lot to offer but not enough is being done to bring independents in.

“We don’t need to be a Reading; we don’t need to be a Basingstoke. They’re just up the road.

“We need to have something different to hook people in and as an independent, I think we should have more independents.”

Scott Waters has owned an independent opticians at 98 Northbrook Street since 2018. Before that, he was a franchise owner for David Clulow at the same address for 13 years.

“I feel, when you start looking round at other towns, there are a lot of places that are suffering worse than Newbury,” he said. “I think we forget how good we’ve got it sometimes.”

Mr Waters was BID chairman for two stints, the first being from 2014 to 2016, and the second from 2018 to 2019.

“When I was part of the BID, we always used to use the phrase that other places were bigger but not necessarily better,” he said.

“That’s the truth. Newbury is a little gem, and we’ve got to use it or lose it.

“At the moment, hats off to my customers because they continue to see me, but I am happy with the way things are going.”