This may be London's most depressingly mediocre shopping centre.
It's The Centre, the shopping mall for Feltham, which has all the charm you'd expect from a 2006 redevelopment of a 1960s High Street demolition job. It's one of the four main retail centres in the London borough of Hounslow (along with Hounslow, Chiswick and Brentford) and serves a local population of approximately 65,000. It's anchored around a library, a multi-storey car park, an Asda and a Travelodge. And I was struck by how uninspiring it was, and wondered whether that was down to its selection of shops.
So I've rejigged the store list from The Centre's website and tried to categorise it.
Poshbrow
Highbrow
Midbrow
Boots, Specsavers, Holland & Barrett
NatWest, Nationwide, Lloyds, Halifax
Dreams
Nando’s
Starbucks, Costa, Wenzel’s
Vodafone, EE, 3 Mobile
Lowbrow
Asda, Iceland
Subway, Greggs, Treatz
Wetherspoons
Poundland, £Stretcher, CeX
Select, Matalan
JD Sports, Sports Direct
Cards Direct, Card Factory, The Works
William Hill, Coral, BetFred
Superdrug, The Fragrance Shop
Nobrow
Flamingo Flames, Three Flames, Appetiser, Golden Empire
Bella Nails, Moda Cut
Izzy Home Store Casino Slots
There are no posh shops in Feltham, nor even any mildly upmarket ones. There's a solid base of banks, coffee shops and phone shops, plus a Boots, a bed showroom and one restaurant worthy of an evening out. But the majority of stores are chains aimed at lower budgets, from the supermarket offering to the clothing stores, card shops and obligatory Wetherspoons. That's not a bad thing, it's what the local population wants, and it's not so lowbrow that Primark, Wilko, Home Bargains and Shoezone are here too. But there are also surprisingly few non-chain stores, as you might see on many a London high street, because Feltham remains one rung above cheap independent one-offs.
Hounslow's Treaty Centre is a bit more Midbrow (with its H&M, Next and Schuh), whereas Chiswick fizzes with Highbrow (and occasional Poshbrow) and Heston's minor parade is Nobrow all the way. I suspect a similar ranking job could be done for all our retail centres, indeed probably has been by some consultancy nationwide. All I've done is apply some abject subjectivity to a mall I don't much like to confirm that yes, Feltham may be London's most depressingly mediocre shopping centre.
