Market Day seen from Stockton Town Hall. In the distance is Maxwells Corner and to the right of the High Street is the popular department store of Blacketts.
Photograph courtesy of Mike and John Hardy
Picture Stockton Archive
A Pictorial History of Stockton-on-Tees
I think perhaps the real reason for Stockton High Street’s decline was the closing of the race course and the building of the out of town shopping complex Teesside retail park. That was designed purely for car owners with no real thought for non drivers (can’t even get a bus to it these days!). Had the race course been upgraded rather than neglected, and the Town given free all day parking with a big Tesco (or similar) in the middle of the High Street we could have had a real boom town.
All these out of town shopping areas kill off town centres, and whilst its true that the internet has changed much of our shopping styles it can’t be blamed for everything.
We wont ever give up driving even if petrol was £20 per gallon! because like it or not, cars (and other road vehicles) are an essential part of a modern society – we need them. Councils and other bodies should cater better for them and make transport an integral part of Town planning rather than to try to exclude them. The new Town Centre is nothing more than a bottle neck for buses and is designed to impede their movement at every point.
As far as Trams go you might remember the ill-fated Cleveland Area Transit scheme, which was a madcap idea to bring a Tyne and Wear Metro like project to Teesside in the eighties. The Tyne and Wear Metro is a success because the Railway infrastructure was already there, here you would have to build most of it from scratch.
The river however, is a great success story its cleaner than its ever been! -I’ve seen seals at the Tees barrage chasing the fish there! You would not have got that there in the good old days, anything swimming up the Tees then would have disolved by the time it got past Haverton Hill!
Whatever happened to the great market? The councils over the years have messed the High Street about so much that today we have a market which is only a pale shadow of its former self. The old market drew in crowds looking for bargains and consequently the High Street shops benefitted as well. Now 30 % of shops are closed a sad reflection on so called progress!
Derek, cars are what happened to the market, when we all had to bus or even walk into town it was the only place to go hence the huge market. People bussed in from all the villages around even as far as Durham for the market, money was short the market cheap.
We all got more prosperous, cars became a must have and out of town markets appeared, plenty of free parking. Stockton did not have too much room for car parks until many of the Street houses were demolished and by the time pay as you stay car parks were available people were shooting off to the Metro Centre or other outlets.
The Council always get the blame though it should be put squarely on the shoulders of us the shoppers who find it much easier to shop in one place rather than walk the Town.
The Market is gone because we do not need it anymore and as the trend to on line shopping increases so we will lose the out of town markets, we the shoppers make the progress, change the shopping habits of our parents, the Council have to run to keep up with the trends we set.
As the River use increases, the front is developed and they keep bringing events to the town then its usage will increase again, if and when we all get fed up with driving and Trams once more run from North Ormesby to Norton Green then the Town shops may come back into their own, do not think it will not happen, other places are already doing that and it works.
I remember Blacketts and the posh, oak veneered lifts