Good riddance 2019

Apart from an afternoon walk, we did nothing special to observe New Year's eve, apart from stay up until midnight and watch the firework displays in the city centre at Winter Wonderland and down the Bay. After such an awful year for me personally and for Britain, I felt there was no cause to celebrate, just breathe a sigh of relief it's over, hardly daring to believe that 2020 will be any better.

I spoke with Ashley, and he said that the shopping centres and clubland weren't nearly as busy after Christmas this year as in previous years. The roads have not been particularly busy, and walking in town this afternoon I too felt that there was a change. In our experience too, retail shopping is being hit hard by on-line business. People may visit shops to look at goods in the sale, but not to buy, as on-line ordering and delivery turns out to be more convenient - that is, as long as you have someone who can stay at home to receive parcel deliveries. Trading is certainly evolving, and there are bound to be more casualties among city centre shops. 

Years of effort with new improved shopping Mall developments may in the long term prove to have been a less than wise long term property investment. Attention has now shifted to building student accommodation in the city centre, and large office complexes, not all of which have clients lined up yet. The idea of new student accommodation was to free houses in residential districts around the main university buildings and return them to the mainstream housing market. It seems these are too expensive, except for rich overseas students, who may now be deterred from coming to study in post brexit Britain. 

There's talk of changing planning consent to allow conversion of student flats into proper domestic accommodation, but who for, if they're already unaffordable? It seems to be that developers and investors, over influenced by big city trends are paying to much attention to return on investment rather more quickly than is viable, either for the student market, or the millions in need of housing, and the biggest need at the moment is social housing for single people who cannot afford to get on the property ladder abut still need places to live. As ever, it's profits before people. How could this change in the coming decade, if it's been like that for centuries? I'm not optimistic about the future. The galloping climate crisis will have a severe economic impact globally. Will this awaken us to the possibility of a radical change of values and lifestyle that benefits everyone, at the eleventh hour?