Recently, we’ve been treated to yet another ‘Banbury nothing but empty shops’ style piece in the regional media. You know the ones – a collection of photos of empty shops, dire declarations that the town is in an economic death spiral despite Banbury steadfastly (and repeatedly over the years) refusing to accommodate them by dying as described.
Behold all these locals stubbornly enjoying the marketplace and once again failing to take heed that Banbury is supposed to be a ghost town.
These pop up now and again when editorial types need quick filler, find it politically expedient, or when Oxford needs to feel better about itself. And there’s always a whiff of snobbishness about it, a ‘Banbury, know your place’ vibe. *
Don’t get me wrong. There is 110% a story to be told about empties in town – and I’d like to start with 25-26 Bridge St, the very definition of eyesore – but FFS, if you are going to talk about empty shops in town, then talk about it in context. Do it with some semblance of balance and integrity. And at least, try to look like you’ve put in some effort. What we get instead is one-sided, slapdash and tediously repetitive. I give you, for example, a story of Empty Stories About Empties: Then and a Now.
THEN: Banbury Guardian, Sept 2019
In Sept 2019, the Banbury Guardian – a paper I have little time for given how lacking in editorial standards they seem to be – tweeted “It is a sorry state of affairs for Banbury’s retailers as 42 units sit empty.”
Now, at some point 42 became 40 but never mind. Were there 40 empties illustrated in these pictures? Not quite because some were pictures of:
- shops shuttered because they hadn’t opened for the day,
- pictures of the shuttered back of a shop,
- spaces closed off because the interior space was undergoing renovation in preparation for opening of a new business. This is one of theirs below.
Boarded up, yes. Empty? Not so much. Months before this article, it was announced that the site was being transformed into Lock 29, with men and materials in & out constantly.
Now, I could quibble and say this was deliberate misrepresentation meant to give the piece extra thunk factor – but let’s be generous and say it was an honest mistake though they never addressed it after it was pointed out to them. What they also never addressed – and what no one ever seems to address in these pieces – is what else was and is happening around those empties. It would have been super easy for the author of the piece to find out because her own paper was FULL of articles about new shops & businesses in town, especially businesses taking long-time empties and getting them back into use.
So, that was then.
NOW: Oxfordshire Live, August 2022
This time it was the turn of Oxfordshire Live. The piece hardly deserves the description of filler.
It’s a far smaller selection this time, only nine photos but again a keening wail along the lines of ‘OMG! Banbury is crumbling! Behold a landscape of empties.’ A cry rather undermined by – again – photos of spaces being renovated & opening soon (as it says on the sign in the picture of what will be Harry’s Burgers) and another photo of JT’s pub, described in the caption as “boarded up and closed permanently in May 2021” despite said picture featuring, right in the centre, the sign with JT’s opening hours on it.
A handful of overheated captions and no indication that the ‘journalist’ had done more than park up, hop out, snap a few photos on the phone and leave again without speaking to… well, anyone. The centre of Banbury is declared “a ghost town standing in the shadow of Castle Quay” on the basis of nine photos, only some of which show actual empties and no attempt to:
- set the rate of empties in a wider context – regionally or nationally,
- mention the businesses taking long time empties and others (food, clothing, and other retail) opening in the shadow of the pandemic,
- talk about what was happening in Banbury commercial space as a whole. **
Oh and there were a number of typos. But you know, if you fail to notice a sign with the opening hours of a pub you have described as having been closed permanently since 2021, then you clearly don’t have your editorial eye in.
* It’s that same ‘stuck in the past’ view you get from those people who are still complaining about the cattle market closing or who never got over the council refusing Coca-Cola planning permission over 40 years ago.
* * I mean, even the Banbury Guardian had managed to speak to a local commercial estate agent. Do you know how crap a ‘news’ outlet you have to be to make the Banbury Guardian look good?