EMPTY SHOPS CATALOGUE

INTRODUCTIONINTRODUCTION

This zine explores the empty shops that exist throughout Bristol. I chose five main areas that I visit regularly and illustrated the empty shops they had. I used local signage as inspiration for the fonts to establish a visual connection to the area. The building styles of the empty shops influenced the style of illustration I used, ranging from sketchy marks for the more run down areas to big bold marks for the centre of town. The five areas were Broadmead (BS1), Park Street (BS1), Stokes Croft (BS2), Bedminster (BS3) and Knowle West (BS4).

Broadmead is the first place I lived when I moved to Bristol and I loved how busy and vibrant it was. Two years later and the high rate of shop closures has clearly taken it’s toll on the town centre. I went to Broadmead (BS1) to draw the empty shops and I definitely found more than I had expected to. There were 13 empty shops along just a single road and it shocked me that nothing was being done with these empty spaces.

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1 IN 4 SHOPS ARE EMPTY1 IN 4 SHOPS ARE EMPTY

Park Street links the city centre to Clifton. The steep hill is home to quality homeware shops, high fashion, quirky art and restaurants including Jamie Oliver’s. It is known for it’s expensiveness, architecture and it’s shopping, which is why I thought it would be interesting to look at as part of this project.

The fact that even the better off areas are struggling to keep their shops open shows how widespread the problem is. The example to the left shows even the employment agencies are closing down, most probably due to the distinct lack of jobs.

STOKESCROFTStokes croft, to me, is the heart of Bristol. It encompasses the fun loving, musical, artistic qualities that I love about the City. I lived on Gloucester Road (where Stokes Croft lies) in my second year at university and fell for the incredibly free atmosphere of the area. Host to many independent shops, squats and charity shops it is sad to see that there are still so many buildings left unused along this street.

BEDMINSTERI moved to Bedminster six months ago and have really enjoyed the sense of community that exists there. There are always activities taking place for the young and the old to get involved in and local people put a lot of effort into improving the area. The area of Bedminster that I focused on for this project was the East Street end where you can find charity shops, takeaways and off licenses. This part of Bedminster was awarded a £100,000 grant in the Mary Portas initiative to improve UK high streets. The bid was put forward with the hope of being able to fund a transformation of the run down, less-than-glamorous area into a ‘village’ centre for street art and street theatre.

KNOWLE WEST Leinster Avenue / Bristol / BS4

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With such a strong community centre I was hoping to find less empty shops here. The two shops, a tattoo parlour and an advocacy centre, must have closed recently as I remember them both being open last summer.

Knowle West is situated in the south of Bristol, about two miles from the city centre.I chose to look at this area because I spent two months working at Knowle West Media Centre (KWMC), a media arts charity and limited company that aims to develop and support cultural, social and economic regeneration, last summer. I was struck by the fantastic work this organisation did in making art part of the local community and involving people in improving the environment.

KWMC is located on Leinster Avenue which is host to a total of 8 shops out of which, two are empty. This is evidence of the one in four empty shops statistics given by retail analyst the Local Data Company early last year.

Bristol