I CAN’T be the only person concerned about the future of our town centre.

In addition to the problems currently experienced by some of the national retailers on our streets and in Festival Place, I was gutted to see the Italian deli in Church Street close its doors. I always felt that it was a really unique addition to Basingstoke, and was somewhere to buy a quality, individual product.

It was run by locals who provided a personal service – for example, recommending a better Marsala to me for cooking, on one occasion – and who were interested in making the town’s retail provision as interesting as possible.
Now it’s gone, all because of impossibly high lease prices. 

Despite the doom and the gloom, I cannot help but feel that town centres must pull through this difficult evolution of their services, as their importance far outweighs that of simply being somewhere to buy something.

After all, how many of us ‘pop into town’ socially, simply to walk around, to browse and to partake in a community atmosphere? I have done so all my life.
As a young girl, my mum took me into town every Saturday. As we didn’t have much money, it was somewhere to go and something to do when the weather wasn’t nice enough for one of our trips to the local park.

We’d get the bus and then potter around the shops having a wee look and inevitably bumping into lots of people that we knew, before having an essential rest stop for tea and a bun (the Northern Irish word for a cake). There was no need to spend – window shopping and watching what else was going on, street entertainers etc, was quite enough.

Then when I was growing up, walking around town was the key social event for me and my underage friends. Meeting your mates in town, getting your photographs taken in a booth, buying a milkshake or some pic ‘n’ mix...Those were all essential moments whilst being a teenager, and I see kids today doing exactly the same.

These days, I’m married to a shopaholic whose idea of heaven is to go into town. I linger in the charity shops looking for good books or in lovely Eastrop Park while he happily does circuits of his own personal favourite locations. 

Town centres are somewhere to go to spend some time, to see, and to be seen (if that’s what you want) - and that’s why I’m optimistic for their survival.

Nothing can replace these hearts of the community, in which people of all ages come together to enjoy the communal experience of a decent session of information gathering / retail therapy / aimless meandering.