Spalding and District Civic Society is disappointed that Poundland have not chosen to take taking the opportunity to make full use of the shop frontage on Winsover Road that was specifically designed to be an entrance and shop window for a retailer to display their offer.
Instead, in their planning application for new signage, Poundland have chosen to follow the path taken by the former occupier B&M Stores by seeking to install vinyl film, thereby blanking out the windows and doors. As was the case with B&M, blanked out windows and decommissioned doors will offer nothing to encourage the passer-by on Winsover Road into the store.
The town has been blighted with vinyl film blanking out shop windows for years. The society had hoped Poundland would break the pattern by showing some imagination by setting a better example for others to follow. Plenty of other Poundland stores have shop fronts that people can look in, so why not Spalding?
The Society will therefore be making representations to Poundland to ask them to reconsider their design and has made its feelings known as part of the planning approval process.
The Society has fought a long campaign against the use of blanked-out shop windows in Spalding. It is our view that shop windows should be used for the purpose for which they are intended. Ideally, they should not be blanked out at all. Where blanking out is unavoidable, then we would like to see greater creativity such as that shown by Hughes
Electrical on its side windows facing Victoria Street, which now shows historical photographs of the area.
In 2019, the Society secured a partial victory in its campaign. The South East Lincolnshire Local Plan adopted in that year which covers the South Holland & Boston areas includes a provision that external vinyl film on shop windows are prohibited. Despite this, there have been several examples where external vinyl film has been used, most noticeably the Adams Shop on New Road and the recently opened Easy Shop on Station Street.
Whether vinyl on shop windows is externally or internally positioned the effect of blanked out windows is the same.
There is nothing to encourage passers by into a shop and it reduces the attractiveness of a shopping area which must be detrimental to footfall.
The Society hopes that Poundland will reconsider their plans and set a new standard for others to follow.
John Bland on behalf of Spalding and District Civic Society
