During the Festival, several empty shops got filled - with all sorts of interesting things. There were art exhibitions, and someone selling equipment to make giant bubbles, and clothes and antiques/junk and food, even a pop-up cafe.
As soon as the Festival was over, some of those shops emptied again, but a few have stayed. On Broad Street there's a new art gallery called Window - the one with the tree trunk carved into the shape of an open book outside it, which has previously been a bookshop (of course) and the offices of the bwa design people until they moved round to the back of the British Legion.
On the end of Castle Street, the Old Electric Shop is continuing to sell interesting antiques/junk, and they also have space for "mad lampshades" and Llynfi Fabrics. There was a plan to turn it into a pizzeria, but I understand it wasn't granted planning permission.
The shop on the corner opposite Booths Books will shortly become Bartrum's Stationers, and the Welsh food people who filled it with straw bales for the Festival have moved out of the shop, but have retained a presence in Hay. Gwirioneddol Gymreig/Authentically Welsh source local food and deliver it to holiday cottages, where they'll make sure the fridge is stocked up before the visitors arrive, for a 25 mile radius round Brecon. One of the problems with people in holiday cottages is that they tend to stock up on food at their own local shops before they come, so the shops in the holiday area don't get that trade. This seems to be a good way of getting round that, and introducing holidaymakers to local produce that they might not otherwise discover. Gwirioneddol Gymreig also sell hampers "to give as gifts or for your own indulgence!" They have a website at www.authenticallywelsh.co.uk and can also be reached through Broad Street Books, where they have a hamper in the window.
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3 comments:
Stewart the Greengrocers on Castle Street already delivers to order aswell, and has been doing for ages.
The thing about pop up shops which can cause a bit of resentment is that they are there one day and gone the next AND avoid paying rates. This isn't fair to the shops who are present 356 days of the year.
As a former "pop up" now running a permanent fixture I'd add an alternative viewpoint to this - I think most people would rather have shops being used, even for a short time, than sitting empty, which would have been the case in the sites mentioned.
If I was really going to play Devil's Advocate I'd also ask whether we need several of the prime retail spots in town to be occupied (permanently) by charity shops, which also benefit from rates relief?
However I thoroughly recommend Castle Street greengrocers to anyone who needs fresh fruit & veg!
It's possible that some rentals will remain empty if festival-type rents are charged when there's no festival around. The town has a year-round economy, still based on the second-hand book, and I suspect that some property owners just don't resonate with the prosaic needs of lesser mortals. And as long as a charity chain gets relief, the rent it pays to local property 'tycoon-councillors' is always going to be less of a problem for them.
P.H.
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