Retail decay

There are very many reasons why its a struggle to run a high street business in Helminthdale. Everyone's skint, for sure, which doesn't help. Helminthdale enjoyed the bleakness of the 1930s so much it never much bothered with the post-war boom. All that aside, though, one of the main reasons that the Penkridge Road has been so blighted has to be down to utility companies and transport planners. I've been working there for twenty-odd years and in that time there has not been a single year in which the town centre end of the road has been completely dug up for at least two months, with all the dirt, misery and traffic diversions that all this entails. There isn't much scope for passing trade in those circumstances. And of course, having those shops blow up after somebody fiddled the gas meters didn't help any. This past three years of tram laying during a time of severe recession has done the death to most of what was left of the high street shopping experience along the Penkridge Road. This, I feel, is a shame.