The Heritage Cafe/Bistro, Burslem closes it's doors for the last time
On the back of Dereth's post about Saturday morning in Burslem the other day in which her photo shows no one about in what should be a bustling time of day for shops, this bit of sad news, from Neil Jackson, owner of the Cafe.
sorry to announce that today was the last day of trading for the heritage bistro. thankyou for all the support and loved every minute of it.
We enjoyed a fabulous night out the other month for a special occasion and were really well looked after, and had some fantastic food, so I was really saddened for the Jacksons and also for Burslem for losing another little gem.
Neil goes on to say.
We have lost to much day trade to the recent openings and way to many food establishments now available in such a small town (over 24 cafes, sandwich bars, restaurants +pubs doing food etc within a 2 mile radius and thats without the kebab houses and indian takeaways etc) and with the recent funding been given out to the places that do bring people into a quiet town they seem to be opening cafes etc in the funded buildings which keeps the people inside instead of encouraging to go round the town to the businesses that are already there. All in all we did our best and loved all we have done
P.S. we haven't given up on our dream maybe just the location. Hopefully this will be taken the right way and things will start to be done differently in what should be a good town, maybe listen to what the people really want and not just people in with ideas and solutions that have been done in other places which just dont suit Burslem.
Comments
Over on BookFace David Martin
Over on BookFace
David Martin says
Burslem faces an uncertain future and will continue to decline until the local authority takes posative steps to regenerate the town centre.
Well all of that money went
Well all of that money went straight into overly inflated bus shelter up Hanley rather than building on shop burslem.
Do we have any people from Burslem, or work or shop(ped) there who would like to say what needs doing to make Burslem work again.
In my opinion I've been over a few times in the past few months and my number one gripe is parking. There are only a small number of parking bays, and you need to pay. Now I'm the worst person in the world for having change as I work from home, so never really need a bit of cash until the weekend, and by that time the Mrs has nicked it.
Tunstall has the same problem. So few free parking bays that it puts you off going into town.
Parking is a big deal because
Parking is a big deal because it's such a bugbear for people. It doesn't matter what the cost of the parking is, it really irritates people and I completely agree it's very inconvenient if you want to stop but don't have the right change with you.
Burslem's cafes and pubs seem to be in a bit of a price war, which is good for the people who go but it is a worry when they can't make enough profit to stay open. In addition there are fewer and fewer workers to make up the lunchtime trade.
What Neil was doing with the Heritage was perfect for Burslem, a really nice place which showed off its history and had very good food and drink, it was good for tourists/visitors as well as locals.
I don't think there are any easy answers for Burslem, but a change in the parking regime so people could park for a couple of hours for free would be something that could be really well publicised by all the businesses there and would give the towns a fighting chance as they try and compete with the retail parks. It would show that the council were listening after all these years of protest and I'm sure they could build a case for it through increased rates if there were more thriving businesses.
One of the main reasons that
One of the main reasons that Burslem has died is because of the greedy short thinking City council. They day they put up the rents on the market stalls, and the traders went, was the day Burslem died. Another is the the parking charges. Then ship everyone out and leave empty buildings, that they can not afford to pull down. The council have spent hundred's of thousands of pounds on consultants and still nothing has changed.Add all that together and pat the council on the back for destroying a town single handed. Green shoots ' my arse '.....They should be ashamed of themselves.
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