How Reading's 'Smelly Alley' is changing with the times

BBC News

20 hours ago

Union Street in Reading town centre, perhaps better known as Smelly Alley, has hosted many businesses over the centuries.Given the moniker because of the fishmongers that used to be based there, it was also the site of an open sewer hundreds of years ago.But Becky Ottery is planning to move her Eclectic Games business from Union Street to Duke Street, where she said the visitors were more likely to be interested in her shop, than in what has become "Tech Alley"."It's changed in character and therefore the flow of people through it has changed. You used to have the families doing all their fresh veg shopping," she said.
"Now you've got people coming along because their mobile phone screen has cracked and they want to drop it off and get it repaired. "You tend to have hordes of young people who want to buy as many vapes as possible for a tenner, which is less of a key demographic for me."The business will move from Union Street after a decade later this month.
Kevin Little ran fishmongers Frosts in the street for decades before it closed in 2019."It was so busy but such hard work because [trade] was continual. You couldn't walk down the street," he said."There were two fishmongers, I think four butchers, four greengrocers. It was the place to be, but those days are gone. That's how it was but those things will never return, not like that," he said."I do walk back there and have a look but it's just not quite the same, is it?"Gurdeep Wadwa opened his phone shop in Union Street for the first time in 2008 and said he was attracted by its cheaper rents."It's very different now. When I started, all other businesses were there and it was very busy and you would see foot flow of at least 5,000 to 7,000 a day," he said."It was a quick way of getting to the station and to Broad Street or get to other businesses. It has changed so much."
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