I feel for the retailers in Hawthorn in Victoria – a few kilometres from the city, including the local baker, butcher, newsagent and gift shops, that were affected by the major road closure at the weekend. While pedestrian access was possible, it was challenging.
This past weekend is considered by many retail experts to be the most in the Christmas period for the destination purchase. While from here on is busy, this is usually to serve last minute shoppers. The second-last weekend is, they say, the busiest for the more thoughtful shopper.
The businesses on either side of the major intersection were I’m[acted for two full days, denied important shopper traffic, offered no support, no assistance. For some, it cost many thousands of dollars in sales in the busiest time of the year.
Councils, public transport businesses and others responsible for infrastructure and access need to be more thoughtful in their decisions to impact access as has happened here. I see it too often right around Australia – poor decisions being made, works taking too long … retailers being impacted with little regard to the cost to the businesses and the families that rely on the businesses.
After being woken up the last two mornings with road works starting at 7:15am,
I would simply say the people who organise these road works simply don’t care about the people and lives that they impact upon.
While this is all off topic, the area I live in has a large amount of elderly people in it, footh paths are dug up and left with holes and gravel in it where once it was smooth footh paths, for months at a time, till eventually someone gets around to fixing it.
if the councils and people don’t care about elderly people walking on unsafe foothpaths I see they would have even less regard for small business and shops that their actions impact upon.
I feel sorry for them.
We had major roadworks out the front on a main road for 7 months. Absolutely killed us for that period and has taken 2 years for us to really recover.