Ihave visited (and slept in) a lot of university towns and cities this summer – and one thing that the nation’s taxi drivers all seem to agree on is that they can’t wait for students to come back.
That’s partly because they’ve all watched as office dwellers and shoppers in their locale have been being slowly being replaced by students living in cluster flats – and the better off among them tend to avail of the services of said firms from time to time.
I was staying in one such city the other day. Plymouth seems to have a major (and controversial) capital project going on involving ripping out the trees from the central artery that runs from the station down to the Hoe – but even when it’s finished, the emphasis on the hoardings seems to be about retail and food.
My ongoing contention is that in all of the cities where retail is collapsing or retreating, there’s only so much vaping, crazy golf, soft play or formatted dining that a local economy can bear. Wilko’s, Marks and Sparks and Debenhams won’t be returning because some trees have been chopped down or some new benches installed.
