It was the heart of the town after it opened in 1972 and, for a time, the biggest indoor shopping centre in Europe. It was connected to a hospital, courts and nearby estates by futuristic walkways in the sky. In its early days, people from Manchester and Liverpool would come to shop there.
But now, despite a makeover ten years ago, it feels old-fashioned. Big-name stores like Woolworths and Littlewoods in the 70s and 80s, and more recently Tesco and The Range, have all closed down. Now, Shopping City in Runcorn, Cheshire, is full of empty shops, some of them big.
Adam Killen, 29, who works as a barber in Runcorn’s Old Town, said: “It’s a shopping centre with no shops in it.”
Shopper Lisa Mayers, 35, said: “We’ve had everything in here but it’s getting worse, emptier. Even the bank has shut down.”
She pointed to the old Santander branch which is now empty. Adverts on the windows of this and other empty shops say ‘Excellent retail space’ and ‘Make this space your own’. There also used to be a B&M but that moved too.
Nathan Dawson, 30, who was shopping with his 3 year old son Arthur, told Cheshire Live: “It’s behind the times. It’s just stayed in the early 2000s.”
Magda Spratek, 35, manager of The Coffee House, which opened in Shopping City in June 2021, said: “We are quite lucky because we have regulars, but it’s very rare that we see a new face, someone who says ‘Let’s go to Shopping City and see what’s there’. I see the same faces so often that I wonder how they can afford to come here all the time.”