How Many Chavs ...

[joggerjayne]

... can you get in one place, at one time?

I think we will soon find out, as Europe's biggest shopping centre opens today in Stratford.

On the plus side, it has Britain's biggest casino. So all the locals will have somewhere to blow their Jobseeker's Allowances.

OMG ... I'm starting to sound like a Daily Mail reader.

[EvianBaby]

If it's anything like the other Westfield in White City, it will mostly be full of uber rich snobs spending Daddys inheritance early.

[joggerjayne]

The one on West London?

Isn't there a small difference in the deomgraphic?

[joggerjayne]

I'd be worried that every hoodie wearer within walking distance will now have somewhere dry to hang out all day.

[jno]

Stratford isn't particularly chavvy, it's just poor, which isn't the same thing at all. Maybe the Olympics will regenerate the area, maybe not.

The staff are not always literate

http://www.thisislond...nnot-read-or-write.do

but that's a failure of the educational system, not of the pupils.

[joggerjayne]

I'm not confident about the Olympics regenerating the area, jno.

I suspect the Olympic circus will take advantage of the area, and then leave it to it's own devices, with a huge commercial infrastructure that it can't afford to support.

All the new shops will start closing, and it will become a ghost town.

Unless there are some ABers who will tell me that, although they don't live in the area, they will make a trek to Stratford to go shopping.

[EvianBaby]

I agree with what you say about the Olympics but I do think people would venture out to Stratford for the shopping.

They do with Lakeside and Bluewater. If Stratford is even bigger, they'll go there.

[sandyRoe]

How can it be that after at least 10 years of education job applicants can't complete an application form or do a simple addition sum?

[joggerjayne]

Speaking of big shopping places ... I'm off to Costco now.

[pips1]

I live near Stratford-on-Avon and because we call it Stratford for short I thought you meant there - haha no chavs there, the complete opposite lol.

[piggynose]

what will shakespeare think?

[sophie_1003]

That's what I thought pips; couldn't quite imagine a massive shopping centre next to Anne Hathaway's cottage or the like either!

[rockyracoon]

I'm definitely going to have a nosey next week when all the fuss has died down. My husband worked on the Aquatics centre at Stratford and we went on a family day to see it before the handover, it's very impressive but I don't know how they will able to fund such a pool after the Olympics, no expense was spared, the pumps and filtration systems are state of the art, the floor of the pool moves up and down to make it shallower. That being said it was massively impressive to see it, just hope it works out for the local people.

[Postdog]

Just a personal opinion - stratford was getting to be a hole anyway but this new shopping centre will just make the existing hole deeper - it will kill trade outside it and it's already on it's last legs

[joggerjayne]

Sadly, Postdog ... you are right about local business.

The last thing local businesses want to see is a big new shopping centre ...

(especially when it's the biggest and newest in Europe)

Forecast ...

The shareholders of the big chain stores get richer ...

Local shop owners go out of business.

[jno]

it's aimed at getting continental traffic too (as are Lakeside and Bluewater, being near the motorway from the ferry ports to London). Given the strength of the euro at present, they'll be expecting French shoppers - if the Eurostar can stop there. It is supposed to but I'm not sure they've actaully worked this out yet.

[joggerjayne]

I suspect the long term volume of shoppers from France will be unlikely to make much of an impact on a huge shopping centre in East London.

The place will just soak up all the local trade that was keeping the local shops alive.

And will the big shops use their buying power to undercut local businesses? ...

... You bet they will !!