The Truth About The City Of Nottingham?

Rob’s Podcast – https://www.youtube.com/@ForestFanTV

Page 45 comic store – https://page45.com/

Fac1968 record store – https://www.instagram.com/fac1968ltd/

MadHouse Nut Centre – https://www.facebook.com/p/Madhouse-Nutcentre-100064117051592/

I am back in Nottingham!

After my last visit, it was clear that I missed the centre of the city. So I returned, this time with a local who said he would show me round.

It was great to return with someone who knew details about the place, who wasn’t afraid to shy away from the problems that there are. There are a lot of boarded up shops and empty units. You cannot deny that. But it was also great to see the busy parts of the city.

Huge thanks to Rob for inviting me back.

Until Next Time,

W.T

#city #shopping #abandoned #notts #nottingham

I’ve been doing this series The Death of the High Street now for over a year documenting the abundance of empty retail space shops pubs buildings offices houses anything that’s boarded up and empty I’ve been going and finding it now the reasons for it I just find it fascinating seeing how the places that we live are changing and I also find that in the time we live and especially in our country that we have such a value on Space we say space is worth so much be it a small shop or even a Terrace House that you’re trying to buy it’s so expensive and it’s so hard to actually get that yet all I find when I walk around everywhere is this huge amount of empty space so I’d say that the reason why my Series has done well is because I’ve given places a fair assessment now when I came to Nottingham last week I did what I always do I turn up I filmed what I found I found a lot of empty retail space however when I uploaded the video it was clear from the comments I’ve never had this before but everyone was saying look mate you have missed the center of Nottingham why don’t you come back one guy commented and said if you do come back I’ll give you a tour so that’s what we’re doing we’re going back to Nottingham I’m about to get on the train it’s a lovely day so I’ve got a local to show me around show me the stuff that I missed hopefully explain why those areas that are in a bad way why they’re like that and I think it’s going to be really interesting so yeah let’s get back to Nottingham was I wrong about Nottingham so this was the main comment on my previous video that got me intrigued and made me want to come back down so thank you to Rob for inviting me I’m looking forward to meeting you now he’s on a podcast which is called Forest fan TV I said I give it a shout out it’s all about Nottingham Forest footy Club if that’s your thing I’ll link it below go check it out and it is absolutely boiling this is great summer is upon us and it’s the perfect day to revisit the city so I’m going to go meet this guy now he said meet him at the left lion somewhere but this building’s sweet to be fair I missed this last time I got close because I think inside there The Exchange I went in there but I didn’t come out here and look at this building it’s a mega building looking nice and busy on a hot day around here doesn’t look like there’s anything empty to actually deon’s there but yeah in this giant Square which I didn’t see last time only The Big deums Empty the rest looks really busy so I’m looking forward to where this he takes me and where else he shows me is it Rob oh hello hello mate nice to meet you good to meet you yes thanks for coming back so this is Rob this is the guy that commented on the video and said come back down I want to show you around yeah I mean there was too much Grandam in the first episode yeah fair enough yeah yeah and that’s in Lincolnshire yeah I heard of that as well so yeah there’s lots to cover but thank you for inviting me back down I’m very my pleasure very glad to have a tour guide explore the city a little bit more cover some bits that I am intrigued to know why they look like that cuz there is a problem in areas you know what I mean oh there’s plenty yeah yeah yeah but like I’m really Keen so where should we go first um how about over here I just kind of went around to see what was in the Square it’s good in here to be fair only deham shut down there but yes so that’s um well we can explain that there’s a shop there called Primark where you can buy all the finest clothes from Bangladesh made with Slade labor and they pay tax in Ireland yeah so unfortunately poor old deams couldn’t compete with that that’s it I’m sad cuz I bought this jacket in deam brought this shirt in deham but yeah we lost debam but we still got our house of Fraser good good just just just about yeah so this is Brian kff Brian kff yeah yeah so I thought I’d bring you here because it’s quite important um he’s quite literally put this city on the map right okay yeah and then I’ve been in the desert of the UAE and somebody said to me where are you from and I said Nottingham said oh Nottingham Forest and I thought right there you go that’s Brian cl’s done that yeah yeah so and we’ve got two statues in Notting and one of him and one of Robin Hood the council house is a a hotch poch of two ideas basically they said they wanted something that looked like St Paul’s Cathedral but they wanted the Galleria from Milan underneath so they’ve got kind of both yeah yeah it’s the deliberate copy nice nice but the council actually don’t operate out of there anymore they’ve moved to another building yeah we’ve done a very Nottingham thing meeting at the left lion because um that’s where everybody always met and think I know the reason why that all the buses from my side of town used to terminate here along this stretch which is called long row you always meet people there oh F 1968 that’s it here it is let’s go see if the guy’s in I got a message on Instagram literally I think it was last night saying if you’re ever back in Nottingham come check out my store record store and it’s fact 1968 so I’m going to go see if they’re in yeah so the guy’s in there just going to have a chat with him but what’s great is he’s busy people are buying records which is amazing to see so I’ll have to wait until people have stopped buying records to have a chat but that’s a to see what’s your name sorry Gary Gary yeah David so yeah this is this is the guy that messaged me literally last night I think it was and he said uh if you if you’re coming back down and you or you missed this shop or this area Miss Fair bit I’m accepting that but I said well I’m coming down tomorrow mate so can I pop in well I had a record short in in hockey I think you came up ’90s and then I sold that in 2004 because basically people stopped buying records so I thought i’ just managed to sell it just before I went Bank basically and uh I never thought I’d be back selling records and then here I am I opened up about 6 months ago wow so now obviously as you can see from the shop we sing records and clothes as well I think you need to do something else so you’ve done the full circle right record that must be so nice and did you ever think I’ve just got to say I’ve always wanted to chat to someone about records on this series cuz it is something that let’s face it we thought was dead we thought records were like DVDs on now yeah if you take your DVDs to char say no don’t or vide records were the same weren’t people doing and there’s always a few die hards hanging on but not many you couldn’t really make a living so you wouldn’t get enough foot for and how is it being an independent business owning a store rents rates it’s hard yeah it’s really hard because by you know rents are deer and they’re not going to go down for a while and rates kill you then electric and very hard and then you’re not helped by for example in in Nottingham uh the Council of you know the bankrupt so one of the ways they’ve decided to deal with it is to put the parking charges up yeah which sounds great initially because they get more money in but of course it just stops people coming in yeah cuz why would you pay it’s very expensive to park people can just go out of town yeah so it doesn’t help yeah I guess I guess the interesting thing though you ain’t going to find somewhere like this at medah Hall you’re not going to find somewhere like this at whole that’s what that’s our special specialty our secret power yeah you know that we’ve got something that other you know it’s not boring it’s not you’re not walking around the same thing it’s buzzing that it exists I’m so glad you can you have your store back mate that’s class yeah it’s nice you know I’m really enjoying it I’ve not made a lot of money yet I must have it but I’m enjoying it I’m able to pay my rent I’m able to pay the rent on my house and that’s the main thing enjoy it what an absolute Legend I’m going to link all his stuff below he gave me his leaflet I’ll link his Instagram below all his stuff do check him out if you in him if you like records love it I’m glad I got to see a record store before Westminster they actually used to hold parliament in Notting him really uh on some occasions so uh in the olden days uh the king moved around and he called a parliament whenever he needed to raise some tax and Nottingham as you’ll see when you go to the castle later was quite an important administrative financial center and that’s why upper Parliament street is called upper Parliament street W now over here is an absolutely beautiful theater look at this which you missed out on your first I did miss out I did miss out not intentionally so what’s it called Theater Royal Well the two together are called The Royal Center this the theater Royal and on the back of it is the Royal concert hall there’s obviously a lot of fast food yeah around here as well that’s partly cuz we’re next to the university so you got two universities in yeah so this is really the big business here these days so this one that’s in the Center Nottingham Trent university has got about 5,000 students and then um uni of as they call it University of Nottingham is on a campus which is you can get to on the tram but it’s about 2 miles I saw passed that on the train yeah they’ve got another 35,000 students student population Nottingham close to 100,000 yeah wow half of that I would say is international students as well because they pay three or four times as much so it’s it’s pretty much the biggest business for the city now and the student accommodation it’s all around us now the minute something becomes vacant it’s going to turn into student accommodation what’s that big empty building there right that I think was the Guild Hall where the um magistrates courts were right but that’s moved to a new sort of glass and steel thing but obviously they’re not allowed to knock it down that is gorgeous is it they’re the saddest ones to see like that when you see buildings like that boarded up I don’t mind some well some of the shops where you think well what’s that but buildings like that I’ll get some closer up footage in a second but put your camera through the window yeah I bet I can so I’m obviously back to give the city a fair look around and document the good stuff but in terms of bordered up buildings I will show them and that is one of the biggest I’ve ever seen the biggest boarded up buildings ever so that’s interesting to see as well so we’re just going to go have a little look inside the foyer of the Nottingham Trent uni hopefully you allow me and I can pass off as a student I reckon I can’t yeah maybe I’m a lecturer mature students we’ll call ourselves you have got the Blazer you do look like the lecturer oh yeah that’s nice whoa that roof that’s well good look at that AR roof are brilliant they are that’s it right so is this are we going to go in the Victoria center now then right so the Victoria Center this is the place that everyone said you missed out unfortunately the one local that I did speak to in my last video he said don’t bother going there well he may have had a point you can make your own mind up oh really a monopoly really they owned both of the shopping centers in not so this is Victoria Center in the Heart of the City we may get kicked out I always get kicked out of these for filming going to get kicked out don’t take anybody in here but this is like yeah this is super busy it’s like the arale in Manchester where it’s like in the center and again the one not quite on the same scale but yeah the Andale is doing really well though like so yeah the Victoria Center the one you told me all I should you all told me I should come to I’m here as you can see pretty much everything is still open in here yeah yeah everything open yeah not one shop so far this this is why people come into town now that one we still have our house Fraser John Lewis at the other end and I think if either of those were to go it would be like kicking one leg out from the center really man if you get some pictures what’s that it I’m just filming just filming around yeah you’re right yeah yeah wondering turn that’s me yeah how you doing I was watching you the other night oh really well I’m back to give nothing a bit more of a fair trial because I missed a lot yeah I was telling the I watched the video you did about not you oh yeah I’ve seen you walk all over the country no way how cool we’re going to be on YouTube well if you want to be what’s your business your business doing well well it’s it’s been affected by everything but we we still here yeah we’re still doing train amazing no I was showing was I showing on I showed you the video watch you go all over the country it’s brilliant what you’re doing is really good thank you really appreciate you’re really highlighting stuff and and do you know what thank you very much mate I’m really appreciate that and I’ve been in here 31 years honestly you you’re doing a real good job that’s absolutely brilliant and it’s not just for this city but for all of them yeah well I wanted to come back and give a bit of a fair trial with the local cuz I missed a lot and I’m glad I could come back and show what’s going on you want to come around this Market yeah the the the council and is just Nottingham City Council they’re the worst ones the city council but all councilors are destroying All City centers absolutely yeah back yeah oh well I’ll give you a shout out what’s your name store mad nut Center madet Brant I will I’ll get a picture of the front I’ve SE I’ve been watching you for probably about a year or so oh mate top man thank you very much I appreciate that right so there we go that was the Victoria Center unfortunately I said on the way in we’re probably going to get kicked out and what happened we are a major security threat yeah yeah it is all busy in there I mean the market I got to see a little bit around the market that’s pretty empty but that nice guy I bumped into had a chat with him there he told me a bit about it so we yeah the Victoria Center it is busy I made it to it so thank you for you telling me to go there this has been um the busiest shopping street in Nottingham because it’s the route from the Victoria Center to the broad Mar right okay yeah yeah but as you get closer towards the broad Marsh you will find everything is closed because the broad Marsh is no longer there yeah I mean everyone you’re seeing here is a student right yeah the office workers are all at home they don’t come into the city every day and a lot of the office buildings are being sold off for student flat so so those people now aren’t spending the money in the city center honestly it’s not one thing you can’t put it down to brexit or or to to any one thing it’s just all One Direction unfortunately the Broadway Cinema yeah yeah uh so you may have heard of the director Shane Meadows oh yeah from these parts uh he Premier all of his films there oh really no way or the lace Market everyone told me to go everyone said go to the lace Market that was another thing that people said I missed yeah these streets are well nice around here aren’t they is this the lace Market yes this is the lace oh so this is the actual lace market so so a lot of these buildings were um to do with the lace manufacturing trade so this is where they did the fancy bits they sort of embroidered it all at the end and and they had showrooms here wow yeah gorgeous that isn’t it and when I used to come here as a kid for the choir this church was black completely black and I thought at the time that it was made from some kind of special Black Stone oh really what was it it was um uh coold dust I mean basically Nottingham should coalfield yeah yeah powered this country for right yeah you 100 years and um it was the acid rain had turned the stone blank wow and when I moved away from not in for a short period And I came back and it was the church was brown no way it’s cuz they’ um treated it with chemicals and they sand blasted it but if you find any pictures of this from the ‘ 80s it’s entirely black okay W that is a great door wow that is a lovely bit of door I’ve actually got a video coming up soon at a stained glass factory my made in Britain series which I think will be fascinating this Oran is um and there was a time when this church could um fit a thousand people in it wow and I’ve seen it fall once and that was in 1989 the day after the hillsb disaster really had a service in here and it was absolutely act and I was in the choir and I looked on the front row and the whole forest team was there with Brian K Wow thousand people here wow that’s crazy no way right so this is crazy the picture in the piano so and I’m all for it revitalizing spaces keeping pubs alive what would Jesus have said yeah he would not be happy oh yeah look at this WOW am I out just get some pictures but yeah that’s our new bus station and then this is our new latest coffee shop which has also got a library in it yeah so the library in the coffee shop not the other way around absolutely not the coffee shop in the library if you go in there find mainly people drinking coffee yeah and looking at um phones phones and Macs and then there’s some books on the wall yeah yeah so this this being knocked down this being finished has essentially killed all the trade down here yes you’ll see it when we go up listate all this like this is all to let here like everything shut down here nothing going on and and that’s and that’s all because know how you bring trade back to this quite honestly so what are they doing with this place what’s the plan for here they have no plan they don’t they’re doing a consultation oh my God so it fell through because of private funding and then got put in the hands of the council is that right yeah I mean the council owns the site I believe but um in who owned both shopping centers uh were supposed to build a new one here after it was knocked down but um the pandemic finished them off and where we’re standing here was uh a British home stores once that went that sort of really put a nail in the coffin of the broad Marsh there was a very big boots here and a CNA which is now H&M which is now closed yeah and um a marks and Spencer home this is the bit that’s really got to hell yeah yeah but um wow even since you were here they’ve taken the thing off saying they’ve moved and then yeah the only one really that’s open down here is the big new look and then again it goes on to empty empty yeah empty empty Paul Smith this bit here used to have all the designer clothes shop right yeah oh there so that’s it there Paul Smith I’ve never been in it’s above my price range is it yeah still be going oh this is nice I mean it’s very quiet but it doesn’t look like there’s anything shut down in here which is nice Jonathan’s been trading here for decades you can ask him more nice oh yeah sweet so you own this shop you’ve been running for how long in this premise that’s over 30 years in October do you own this uh we do we’re quite fortunate we managed to buy the building about 15 years ago um and actually one of the things we’ve done as part of our re it is putting a separate street level entrance so we could get uh use out of the upstairs so we got an escape room company in there now and we wanted to make sure that rather than just converting it to residential we could do something that would support an independent business right yes so you’ve kept the whole building alive essentially oh that’s really good to hear we have a website www p4. comom we ship worldwide uh everything we’ve got in the shop and we sell online we only charge what it costs us to post not a penny more and what we specialize in is comics comics and graphic novels every type of fiction and non-fiction there are sequential based stories to be told yeah and that’s what we specialize in yeah yeah oh sweet all right nice one thank you so much and this was this used to be my favorite shopping street oh really so this was this poundland was a virgin mega store oh right yeah and back in the 1990s that was very exciting yeah um then it turned into HMV for while still quite exciting yeah and now poundland less exciting yeah very true this is another very old Pub oh salutation that looks great nice Pub that oh that looks all nice there doesn’t it so this is called standard Hill Y and the reason it’s called standard Hill is it’s where the Civil War started on this point wow just there so King Charles raised the standard against Parliament there right there wow Nottingham was a royalist stronghold and as a result after the parliament won Oliver Cromwell came and dynamited the castle wow so that’s why it’s largely destroyed but once you get inside there’s not much of the old castle left but here I am rare occasion the Wonder in not holding the camera look at this this is from when did he get put up oh 1951 big in it I remember a long time ago somebody stole the arrow so I think it’s uh it’s welded on now nice look at that yeah you can see the Old Stone there nice Old Stone the modern Stone so here we are in the castle the to if you drew a line round on a map the total population is about 700,000 but within the administrative City it’s only about 350,000 so the city boundaries are drawn within the city um and that means that the population of Nottingham is made up mainly of the inner city areas which are which are poorer more deprived areas so uh the suburbs um rushcliffe brockow and gedling have all got their own councils they’ve all got Tory MPS all the council tax from those wealthy leafy suburbs is kept out of the City yeah which is why the city is really quite poor and if you look at um League tables for sort of deprivation crime poverty Nottingham is on the wrong end of all of those tables but it is somewhat artificial because of where the boundaries are drawn yeah oh Ellena you would love this see that there on The Horizon okay yeah the the cooling towers or the hill that is the last operating cold fired power station in the United Kingdom really it’s one of one it’s Ratcliff on saw power station in Castle Donnington and obviously you can see why it was built here because the Nottingham sh Co field was producing all the coal yeah but there were lots of coal fire power stations here which takes me back to the the black church but a couple of years ago we were down to four Cal Fire power stations and now just that one keep saying they’re going to close it down and they never close it down because the nuclear power that’s supposed to replace it is always behind schedule so that is the last of a bre fascinating I don’t know whether you can make any value judgments about whether it’s getting worse or better it’s just changing yeah and um you know I I do feel nostalgic for what it used to be like it’s had different heydays in the past and it’s had different slumps I mean when the whole mining industry closed down when the late industry closed down it’s just changed yeah yeah look at this look we’re back we are back at your old trip to Jer Jerusalem for the second time I didn’t think he’d be back here so soon let’s go get a pip do you want to you want grab a table out what do you want a lger right yeah yeah right there we go Chin Chin Chin Chin thank you so much for the T thank you for bringing me back thanks for giving me the opportunity to see the other side of it I think it’s important as I say I always try and be fair and balanced and I didn’t give a fair and balanced account happy to come back and do it there go all M well Chin Chin thanks for getting me down um yeah good man what a perfect day to revisit Nottingham the weather was glorious and Upon returning to Yorkshire I am presented with that familiarity I know so well so I asked that question was I wrong about Nottingham and in a series where the primary focus is finding empty buildings boarded up shops retail units to let I definitely came across a large amount of that however I’m so buzzing that I was invited back to the city by the people of Nottingham who said come on give us a fair chance you haven’t explored it all honestly Rob thank you so much for giving me that tour and showing me everything and along the way being able to meet the guy who opened the record store faak 1968 who the guy had lost his record store back in what was it the ’90s and thought he’d never open one again and then recently he has so so good or the guy with the comic book store page 45 who’d not only open the store down stairs but giv life to the bit above with an escape room a real good way of revitalizing the whole building and that buzzing guy in the market what was it mad house nuts who I just randomly bumped into and it was really nice to hear from him as well him saying oh thank you for raising awareness because I hope that’s what I’m doing and hearing from business owners who clearly understand the struggles of rents and rates and for him to say oh cheers mate I’m glad that this series is getting taken seriously by and meaning something to those who are directly affected now been exploring the city more as well I also came across a lot of other boarded up stuff that I missed like that giant building which I came across which really is the saddest stuff to see those grand buildings that are just devoid of life however as I said I’m so glad that I got to come revisit and explore Notting him more one other thing I got a few comments on the other video as well just saying all your content is just completely negative that’s all you do tear the country down and I actually think if you watch my content if you actually go into it I’m an incredibly positive guy I you want to build the country up go watch my maid in Britain Series where I’m celebrating the businesses that are still doing great making things here go watch the video I made about the guys who bought back a pub they saved it brought it back to life go watch that and tell me that’s negative but please don’t think that I’m trying to tear this country down there’s many many different angles on this channel I want to keep my content as varied as possible if you think it’s all just negative do what I did with Nottingham go have a second look and maybe you’ll change your mind thank you bye-bye