New blow for Britain's worst seaside town rated 'drab' and 'rundown' as its main shopping centre goes up for sale at knockdown price
In a new blow for Britain's 'worst seaside town' described as 'drab' and 'rundown', the area is so unpopular that the main shopping centre has been put on the market for just a quarter of the price it cost to build.
The historic Welsh resort of Bangor took the unwanted number one spot on the Which? survey of worst seaside town in Britain earlier this month, scoring just 42 percent and being given one-star ratings for food, shopping and tourist attractions.
And in a sign of the former Victorian resort's slump its premier shopping centre - the Menai Centre - is up for sale at just a fraction of the cost of building it.
In a Which? survey posted in early May, Bangor came off the worst with an approval rating less than half of the nation's best beach town - Bamburgh Castle in Northumbria - which had an approval rating of 86 percent.
Other towns suffering the label of being some of the worst for a beach getaway in Britain include Southend-on-Sea, Skegness and Clacton-on-Sea.
However, Bangor was praised as a good base for visiting the 'fabulous' scenery and coast of North Wales.
Photos from the town show virtually no footfall outside of the summer season, with the town's main shopping centre now being offloaded too.
It is particularly noticeable as the town has the longest high street in Wales, and is also the oldest Welsh city.
The label shows how far Bangor has fallen since its heyday, with historic photos showing hundreds of people gathered to watch the opening of the pier during the Victorian period in 1896.
Even as recently as 30 years ago, the area was still a beloved hub for tourists and holidaymakers, and even featured in a popular song by folk group Fiddler's Dream in 1979 named Day Trip to Bangor (Didn't We Have a Lovely Time).
The song made it to number three in the charts and secured the band's place in history as a one hit wonder.
It was also later mired in controversy after it was claimed the song was actually inspired by a trip to nearby Rhyl - but Bangor was used in the title due to it having an extra syllable.
But its 'shopping dream' precinct - developed in 2007 and cost £18.5m to build - is now listed for auction with a guide price of just £4.2million.
The centre once housed High Street fashion retailers such as Debenhams and H&M, but they left during the pandemic and the centre is now 80 percent vacant.
Among the shops left include a Greggs, The Original Factory Shop, and Hays Travel, as well as a cocktail bar.
A health centre is set to open in the former Debenhams store funded by the Welsh Government, which is hoped will attract footfall - but that unit is not part of the sale.
The 130,000 sq ft building was bought by Bearmont Capital - run by Rob Lloyd - in 2023 and is listed for auction with property giant Savills in a two stage bidding process.
Savills said: 'The property is arranged over ground and one upper floor and arranged as 19 separate units. It comprises 64,321 sq ft of retail and leisure space.
'Tenants include JD Sport, Cafe Nero, Hays Travel, 3 mobile, Superdrug and Greggs amongst others
'Each shop benefits from their own street frontage. The Shopping Centre has no communal atrium, thus minimising the common parts. To the rear is a service yard.'
Savills say the current annual rents paid by tenants add up to £508,000.
Explaining the bidding process, a spokesperson said: 'In stage 1 potential purchasers will be invited to place bids via a set deadline. These offers will then be considered by the client and a best and final offers may be called.
'Should an offer meet the clients requirements a successful bidder will be selected and a sale will take place via an auction contract, which will be signed immediately along with receiving a 10 per cent deposit. The property will be deemed as 'sold prior to auction'.
'If no stand out bids are received or bids received are of a similar value then a reserve price will be set on the property and it will be sold via a live online auction (date to be determined subject to Stage 1 of the process).'
The stage one bids close on June 10.
After receiving the title of worst seaside town in Britain, Bangor City Council said: 'It's disappointing to see Bangor City named as one of the UK's worst seaside towns. Such rankings often fail to capture the full picture and the unique charms that make Bangor City so special.'
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
The Sun
11 minutes ago
- The Sun
Major fashion brand with over 200 stores to close city centre branch in just HOURS
A CITY centre branch of a major fashion outlet is set to close its doors in a matter of hours. The branch of Cos at St Ann's Square in Manchester will close as of June 8. No statement has been issued by the retailer regarding its closure. However, a sign on the shop reads: "This store is closing on June 8. "For more information, ask a member of our team or visit Cos, which is part of the H&M group, had sat among other brands like OMEGA, Christopher James, and Mappin & Webb on St Ann's Square. The branch's staff are expected to be moved to other stores, the Manchester Evening News has reported. Another H&M brand Monki also saw a store close in Manchester's Arndale recently. Cos had taken its spot on St Ann's Square where GAP had previously been in 2018. The brand, which launched in 2007, currently boasts more than 200 stores. It comes as other high street retailers struggle across the country. The owners of River Island are understood to be drawing up a radical rescue plan, according to Sky News. Final sales begin as popular clothing brand closes all stores leaving 'devastated' shoppers scrambling for alternative The chain is being forced to restructure as a result of tough trading conditions. The firm's latest accounts at Companies House warned of growing financial and operational risks. "The market for retailing of fashion clothing is fast changing with customer preferences for more diverse, convenient and speedier shopping journeys and with increasing competition especially in the digital space," it said. Why are retailers closing stores? RETAILERS have been feeling the squeeze since the pandemic, while shoppers are cutting back on spending due to the soaring cost of living crisis. High energy costs and a move to shopping online after the pandemic are also taking a toll, and many high street shops have struggled to keep going. However, additional costs have added further pain to an already struggling sector. The British Retail Consortium has predicted that the Treasury's hike to employer NICs from April will cost the retail sector £2.3billion. At the same time, the minimum wage will rise to £12.21 an hour from April, and the minimum wage for people aged 18-20 will rise to £10 an hour, an increase of £1.40. The Centre for Retail Research (CRR) has also warned that around 17,350 retail sites are expected to shut down this year. It comes on the back of a tough 2024 when 13,000 shops closed their doors for good, already a 28% increase on the previous year. Professor Joshua Bamfield, director of the CRR said: "The results for 2024 show that although the outcomes for store closures overall were not as poor as in either 2020 or 2022, they are still disconcerting, with worse set to come in 2025." It comes after almost 170,000 retail workers lost their jobs in 2024. End-of-year figures compiled by the Centre for Retail Research showed the number of job losses spiked amid the collapse of major chains such as Homebase and Ted Baker. It said its latest analysis showed that a total of 169,395 retail jobs were lost in the 2024 calendar year to date. This was up 49,990 – an increase of 41.9% – compared with 2023. It is the highest annual reading since more than 200,000 jobs were lost in 2020 in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic, which forced retailers to shut their stores during lockdowns. The centre said 38 major retailers went into administration in 2024, including household names such as Lloyds Pharmacy, Homebase, The Body Shop, Carpetright and Ted Baker. Around a third of all retail job losses in 2024, 33% or 55,914 in total, resulted from administrations. Experts have said small high street shops could face a particularly challenging 2025 because of Budget tax and wage changes. Professor Bamfield has warned of a bleak outlook for 2025, predicting that as many as 202,000 jobs could be lost in the sector. "By increasing both the costs of running stores and the costs on each consumer's household it is highly likely that we will see retail job losses eclipse the height of the pandemic in 2020." 2
The Sun
42 minutes ago
- The Sun
From creating the NHS to investing in people, Labour are innovators – next week we'll do it again… with £86b for hi-tech
IT has been almost a year since Labour came to power – and in that time we have made tough choices to steady our economy. This government will never forget that the decisions we make impact your family's finances. 4 4 You know what it means to work hard and make sacrifices when times are tough. And while that has not been easy, the tide is beginning to turn. Interest rates have been cut four times — a boost for everyone with a mortgage. We raised the pay of millions of working people by up to £1,400 a year by increasing the national minimum wage. In the last week, we have increased the number of children eligible for free school meals by half a million and announced £15billion to upgrade trains and buses outside London. Now is the time to invest in Britain's future, and that means doing things differently. We are building a new economic model that puts working people first. By investing in the industries of tomorrow, we will create good jobs, boost wages and put more money into people's pockets. Too often, governments get caught firefighting today's problems, neglecting the opportunities of tomorrow. But history shows us a different path. Inside robotic surgery that is revolutionising outcomes on the NHS After a post-war election victory in 1945, a Labour government created the NHS. In the 1960s, we backed science and technology in the age of the 'white heat'. In the 1990s, we invested in people and public services, transforming lives. Today, we must do the same, by backing British ideas and innovation. Next week, the Chancellor will set out our plan to renew Britain's economy by investing in your priorities: health, security and good jobs. As part of that, we are announcing an £86billion investment in the UK's fastest-growing sectors — tech, life sciences, advanced manufacturing and defence. This money will fund cutting-edge medical research to tackle hard-to-treat diseases to help keep families together for longer. It will support defence innovation to keep Britain safe in an increasingly volatile world. 'Foundations for change' And it will power advances in engineering biology that could revolutionise how we produce food, fuel, materials. These investments will more than pay for themselves and will create thousands of well-paid jobs across the country. And the decisions over where to spend the cash will not be made in Whitehall, but in the communities that will benefit, because we know every corner of Great Britain has a part to play. We want to see Liverpool leveraging its expertise in life sciences to accelerate drug discovery; Northern Ireland harnessing its reputation for cutting-edge defence equipment to shore up our national security; and South Wales making the most of its expertise in designing cutting-edge semiconductors that power the devices like mobile phones and electric cars we rely on every day. 4 4 We know the legacy of the past 14 years can't be reversed overnight. But the tough decisions we have made are laying the foundations for lasting change. Now, we are entering a new phase, focused on long-term renewal and economic strength. The principle is simple: invest through tough times to grow stronger. We see this in the business world constantly. Like the American tech company that, in the 1990s, was 90 days from bankruptcy before doubling down on innovation. That company was Apple, and today many of you are reading this on one of their products. Britain has always led the world when we bet on ourselves. Led the world James Watt's steam engine powered the Industrial Revolution. Work at Bletchley Park laid the foundations for modern computing. Tim Berners-Lee invented the worldwide web. Today, we are global leaders in life sciences and among the top three countries for AI development. These strengths are not just academic — they represent opportunity. Industries that generate billions, improve lives and offer quality jobs for the next generation. We believe Britain's best days are still ahead. That's why we are investing in our people, in innovation, in the future. The road won't always be easy, but we are building a stronger, fairer economy that works for everyone.
Telegraph
an hour ago
- Telegraph
Starmer's raid on family businesses to cost his constituents 1,000 jobs
Labour's tax raid on family businesses is projected to cost hundreds of jobs in Sir Keir Starmer's constituency alone, new analysis shows. The revenue-raising scheme is also projected to hit the local economies of Labour constituencies harder than their Conservative, Reform and Liberal Democrat-voting counterparts. Analysis by the Confederation of British Industry (CBI), which represents nearly 200,000 UK businesses, revealed that the changes to business property relief (BPR) announced in Rachel Reeves's October Budget will stifle growth in Labour seats across the country. The CBI claims that the average gross value added (GVA) losses in seats that elected Labour MPs at the last general election will be over £24 million, compared to £20 million in Conservative seats and £18.5 million in Reform constituencies. The projections span from the October 2024 budget to April 2030, after the next general election. Only seats held by the Green Party fared worse with an average GVA loss of around £40 million, suggesting that cities and urban centres will be worst hit by the raid. The CBI expects the economic hit to result in thousands of job losses in the most-exposed constituencies. Sir Keir's seat of Holborn and St Pancras will be the fourth-worst hit constituency in the country with 1,037 jobs expected to be lost, according to the analysis. Cabinet ministers to feel the pinch in their seats Red Wall seats are also set to suffer. The analysis shows that of £14.9 billion in nationwide GVA losses, some £4.6 billion (31 per cent) of that will hit constituencies that the Tories won in 2019 and Labour won back in 2024. These seats include the 31 Red Wall seats in the North and Midlands along with other key marginal constituencies which Labour will hope to win again at the next election if it wants to stay in power. Senior Cabinet ministers will also feel the pinch in their constituencies. The second-worst hit seat in the country, Manchester Central, is currently represented by Lucy Powell, the Leader of the House of Commons. The third-worst hit seat is Birmingham Ladywood, represented by Shabana Mahmood, the Justice Secretary. Hilary Benn, the Northern Ireland Secretary, represents the ninth-worst-hit seat of Leeds South. In the October Budget, the Chancellor slashed BPR in an attempt to raise money from family businesses. BPR was originally introduced by a Labour government in the 1970s. It allows company shareholders to leave business assets to loved ones without paying inheritance tax on them. But in a sweeping change that will take effect in April 2026, full business relief will only apply to the first £1 million of a business's assets upon a shareholder's death, with everything above this subject to 20 per cent tax.
