The shopping centre where the currency is hope
Commerce has deserted Newcastle-under-Lyme’s town centre. The latest in our new economics series looks at how the community is filling the gap
For years, all Mike Riddell has seen in his trade is failure and death. But today he’s at a birth – and all his hope rests on it. A new cafe is opening in the shopping centre he manages and they are throwing a party. Having brought along his wife and mum, 53-year-old Riddell goes into “full-on host mode”, chatting up council officials and swapping elaborate handshakes with teenagers. Yes Sir, I Can Boogie blasts out of the stereo, and some obliging soul in a Spider-Man costume complies. Over all the music and chat, you can hear the free ping-pong tables getting a pounding. Yes sir, clip-clop, clip-clop, I can boogie, clip-clop, clip-clop.
Through the big windows, you can see the world Riddell normally faces – and it’s desolate. No babble, no mucking about. Hardly anyone clip-clops past. On this Tuesday lunchtime at York Place, the most tired shopping centre in Newcastle-under-Lyme, just outside Stoke, there are few actual shoppers.