Rye High Street is ‘dying’

As they worry about traffic, Rye high street is slowly dying as a place of interest for residents. What are the council and chamber doing to encourage new businesses, particularly national names, to come to Rye? And what are they doing to make empty properties look attractive? There are several that had been empty for over a year and are eyesores.

The residents of Rye need shops that we can use on a regular basis. We can only support so many cafes, souvenir and knick-knack shops, and ‘art’ shops that thrive when tourists are thick on the ground, but offer very little during the winter months. I see last night’s council meeting was considering two further planning applications to turn shops in the high street into cafes!

Oh that the traffic problems were the result of residents anxious to use the wide variety of shops available to us. Sadly, they are not.

Sincerely, Peter Savory, Rye.