What will make you use local shops more?
Hart District Council completed a retail survey in July this year. It only covered Fleet, Yateley, Blackwater and Hook - because these are defined by Hart as the "main settlements" in the district.
Odiham was left out, presumably because we are classified as a "Rural Service Centre" along with Hartley Wintney - but interestingly we have more shops and retail services than either Hook or Blackwater!
One of the interesting questions in the survey was "what improvements or new facilities would encourage you to make more use of your closest town centre?"
The top 5 answers were:
1 Nothing / very little
2 More major shops and stores
3 Better range of shops
4 More parking
5 Better quality shops
This seems to support the OTMG position on the need for more parking spaces in Odiham - and not the current proposed scheme involving less parking, stealth taxes and overwhelming signage.
Obviously we are limited in what we can do to encourage more shops - but we can help I am sure in encouraging local shops provide the goods and service that residents want. This will only work by being specific to Odiham and North Warnborough and not being based on Hart wide surveys - so in the near future we will be looking to do very specific surveys on this site to get your views and needs, and to communicate them to our retailers.
Please keep visiting and give your feedback when possible. It's important to all of us.
One of the most dissapointing aspects of local shops would have to be the coop.
While it does provide all the basic neccessities for locals, it's cleanliness is often suspect.
The shop often smells foul, the freezers at the back are currently full of dead crane fly and they appear to leak all over the surrounding floor. (the freezers, not the crane fly)
In short, it needs an extreme face lift and management who insist on cleanliness.
What is also lacking in the area, is a fishmonger and a bakery.
Thank you for commenting Matthew and I would certainly agree with you regarding the Coop.
We lost our Bakery some six years ago ( junction of Farnham road and London road and also next to St John Restaurant ) and our Fishmonger in the seventies ( Solomons Seal and Let's Face It.) What we have done is to introduce a weekly market with a regular Fishmonger but I guess that you are at work. The Grapevine Deli actually sell bread and speciality bread.
The Fishmonger is usually in the High street on a Tuesday by 8 a.m.
Thank you for your comments.