Britain's saddest shopping centre: Riverside Mall in Evesham nearly empty days before Christmas

Riverside Shopping Centre in Evesham, Worcestershire, sits largely empty less than a week before Christmas, a damning snapshot of the state of Britain’s high streets. In a town that markets itself on riverside charm and medieval heritage, the mall is quiet to the point of silence: graffiti-streaked walls, rubbish in the corridors and a glass roof that leaks as rain falls. What once drew shoppers from across the region now resembles a relic of better days, with only a sliver of life left behind at the end of a long decline.

From the moment visitors enter the multi-storey car park, warning signs suggest this is no longer the bustling hub it once was. A door may be closed due to vandalism, and the air carries a stale odor that some describe as urine. 'They closed the toilets here years ago,' said Mike Hancox, 85, who stops for coffee in Coffee Moments, one of the two outlets still open. 'The nearest public toilets are the other side of the river, so I guess people get caught short.' The interior bears the marks of long neglect: closed-up shops, abandoned walkways and buckets catching rainwater where the roof leaks.

The centre’s corridors lead only to a single remaining tenant, a Home Bargains store, with most other units shuttered or replaced by poster walls. Local workers recall a busier past. 'In the early 90s, every shop used to be full, it used to be a lovely place,' said Lisa Mitchelmore, 59, who works elsewhere in Evesham. 'What was once a children's clothes shop is now called the Evesham Sanctuary and you see a lot of foreign people going in there for help. It has certainly changed a good deal.' And for those who remain hopeful, the crumbling scene is painful to witness: 'They used to have a grotto above Home Bargains and, until a couple of years ago, there was a mobile reindeer display that the kids loved. Now I try to avoid the place. The owners want to knock it down and build flats so they are driving out the businesses with extortionate rents. The car park is a local joke. The only thing that works are the cameras and you’re very lucky if you don’t get a 60 pound fine through the post because most of the payment machines don’t work.' (Note: the quotes above reference the experience of residents and workers amid the mall’s decline.)

Image: Riverside Shopping Centre

The thread of decline runs through the comments of longtime locals. 'On a scale of one to ten, I’d give it minus one,' said Jonathan Hall, 66, a retired business owner. 'It is pitiful. I believe it has been owned by a series of London-based insurance companies who clearly don’t care a jot about us here. They keep putting the rents up which makes the place unviable.' The sentiment echoes across conversations about the centre’s past and present: roofs leak, cleaning staff have been laid off, and the once-bustling retail environment now relies on a lone coffee shop and a single discount retailer to anchor what remains.

The centre’s rough arc mirrors a wider pattern in Britain’s high streets. Many locals point to the closure of Woolworths in 2008 as a turning point, with the Covid-19 pandemic delivering a further blow to foot traffic and small businesses. 'I was here when they opened it in 1987 and it was packed to the rafters,' Mitchelmore recalled. 'The rain just keeps falling and the centre keeps slipping away.' The harsh weather of the past season has intensified the problem, turning what used to be a shopping destination into a cautionary tale for town planners and investors.

The proposed future for the Riverside site is as contested as its present. Some owners argue that the space should be redeveloped for flats and smaller, modern retail concepts like coffee shops. Others say the centre’s fate is sealed unless rents come down and investment improves safety and accessibility. 'Just before Covid the then owners went bust, now they are just waiting for the last of the leases to come to an end and they want to replace it with flats and coffee shops. The roof leaks, all the cleaning staff have been laid off. It is just a big eye sore,' one resident observed.

Those tensions have spilled into the public sphere in recent years. At the entrance, beneath a corner where pigeons now nest, sits a door labeled 'Management Office and Control Room Entrance.' An intercom invites contact, but the office has long been unmanned, emphasizing a disconnect between management and the communities that rely on the centre. For those who love Evesham, a town known for one of England’s largest abbeys and the River Avon, the Riverside site stands as a painful reminder of stalled redevelopment and the fragility of local economies in a shifting retail landscape.

Residents describe a mixed reality: festivals along the river during warmer months, followed by a near-empty shopping hub during its busiest season. 'There was such an uproar recently about the mess in the Centre, dog as well as human, that they got contractors in to give it a once over,' recalled Christine Biggins, a retired accounts worker. Her husband, John Biggins, added that Woolworths’ collapse was the linchpin of a broader spiral: 'Woolworths was the key. Once they went bust it was one shop after another.' While some councillors and property owners argue the market will rebound with redevelopment, others warn that without a reset in rents, investment will continue to shrink—and with it, the town’s appeal to newcomers and visitors who might otherwise help sustain local commerce.

The Riverside case is not isolated. Across Britain, high streets have wrestled with changing consumer habits, the rise of online shopping, and shifts in investment that favor out-of-town locations or new-build flats over traditional retail. In Evesham, the challenge is sharpened by a riverfront setting that once drew in shoppers with a sense of place but now struggles to convert footfall into sustainable business. The debate continues among residents, business owners, and policymakers about how to balance redevelopment with preserving a town’s heritage and providing affordable, livable spaces for residents.

Even as some residents acknowledge the limits of nostalgia, there remains hope that the Riverside site can be reimagined in a way that preserves the town’s character while delivering practical value. For now, though, the Riverside Shopping Centre stands as a case study in what many analysts describe as a broader malaise gripping the country’s high streets: a complex mix of economic pressures, changing consumer behavior, and the long tail of past decisions about ownership, rents, and public investment. In Evesham, as in other towns, the clock may be ticking on a chapter of retail history, with the question not just what comes next, but who gets to decide what that next looks like.