Good News: I've finished Christmas Shopping.

Bad News: I didn't buy anything in Hedge End.

With M&S nearby one might think that incredible, but I just feel "factory-farmed" whenever I go near that shopping centre. And getting near it is sometimes rather challenging, particularly around Christmas time and during the January Sales when people sometimes travel literally hundreds of miles, just to visit M&S...

Hedge End Village Centre seems to be blessed with lots of Banks, Estate Agencies and Charity Shops so only has a couple of reasonable shops where I might find a decent Christmas present. The superstores have clearly killed some local businesses, but the town-planning in the Village Centre doesn't seem right to me. Surely more should be done to make Upper/Lower Northam Rd a worthwhile retail centre rather than dominated by Estate Agencies etc....

So much as I like Hedge End, I am afraid I have to report that Whiteley Village did best out of me this Xmas. It was nice and quiet and relaxed, parking was very easy, there was a pretty good range of small shops and I was able to get more or less everything I needed in the one place.

I think that's what Hedge End Village Centre should be like, i.e. more like Whiteley Village. Not dominated by a couple of superstores located on the Motorway exit, but with lots of little businessess in the Village Centre able to make a decent living and providing convenient local employment, selling baggage, books, toys, lingerie, shoes, clothes, furniture, curtains, sportswear, garden equipment, candles, stationery, jewellery...

And at the risk of repeating myself, the way the car park behind St Johns Centre is managed doesn't help attract shoppers to the area...