When Purley ‘Lorimers’ closed their doors to the public for the last time on 15th January 2022, it felt like the final straw for Purley High Street. According to the locals, it was the last original store, and now the last few fragments of a childhood memory have been scattered away in the feuding wind of an increasingly competitive high street market. Today, only a small handful of shops have been there for at least five years or so, and the constant change has forced people who have lived in Purley for decades to reconsider the place they call home.
The majority of the stores on the high street are charity shops, evidently shown when three out of the five people I spoke to were charity shop managers. They were all comfortingly friendly, and were very eager to give an opinion on Purley.
Elena, the manager of a Children’s Trust, had lived in Purley since 2018 and moved away in 2021. She has very fond memories of the high street, particularly about ‘Lorimers’.
‘I used to go there with my kids to look at the toys,’ she said, and commented repeatedly on the ‘lovely ladies’ who worked behind the till, who were forever smiling. It is clear that the closure of ‘Lorimers’ has had a profound effect on the children of Purley, who now have nowhere to entertain themselves, apart from the park which has been copiously defaced with graffiti and increasingly littered. When I first moved to Purley eight years ago, there were multiple places for children to go on the weekends- ‘Get Fired’ was a birthday favourite which allowed any child to display their creativity through arts and crafts, and the swimming pool was somewhere for families and friends to entertain themselves in the water. Both have now been closed, and with Lorimers being the final destination for a young family to entertain themselves for even a shred of time gone, the only option for kids to do now is to either freeze in a sea of beer cans in the park or be dragged to Tesco to complain of boredom and a lack of activity. Purley has a variety of primary schools nearby, and a growing number of families with time to spare and nothing to do. As public spaces open up more to everyone, people will find that there is a lack of activities to do on the weekends and during school holidays.
However, when asked about the customers, all three managers agreed that the clientele are friendly, chatty, and are never rude or ‘attack’ those behind the till, as Elena told me with a fond smile on her face. She also emphasised that all the charity shop managers on the high street know each other, and that there is a sense of community, which can be seen in events such as Paint Purley Purple, when Purley is bedecked in purple scarves on trees and purple banners, arranged by the South East Cancer Help Centre, as well as hosting other numerous events, which not only spreads awareness, but brings people together. So when the locals make this much effort to unify the people of Purley, then shouldn’t the high street reflect this with local businesses and independent shops?
Someone who recently opened a florists’ seven months ago commented on how ‘straightforward’ it was to open a shop in Purley. Although they also acknowledged the friendliness of the customers, they also discussed that there is a great deal of cleaning needed to be done, in regards to littering and the onslaught of pigeons that seem to have taken a liking to Purley, and that the area has not seemed as safe as other areas. They mentioned incidents of burglary and theft, which seems to cast an unfair light onto Purley and its locals. Out on the high street, I see no trace of anyone who would even think to commit a crime in Purley, and yet the worst crime of taking someone else’s life occurred a few years ago in 2019, when one teenager was found dead and two others severely injured. This caused a great unrest in a tightly-knit community, and made us question whether we really did know everyone as well as we did, and whether Purley was the safe haven of childhood memories it once was.
Monica, another manager at Cats Protection, found it profoundly difficult to find any real positive change to talk about concerning Purley High Street. She seemed to think that these new changes have not developed Purley in a positive way at all, and in a similar way to Elena’s thoughts, also found that new businesses did not last long and were disappearing left, right, and centre, to form an ever-changing face of Purley town centre, which might even seem frightening to the locals who no longer recognise the place some of them grew up in- I emphasise ‘some’, because Monica discussed how Purley’s locals are changing a lot and an increase to building sites of high rise flats seek to over-populate a small community and commercialise an otherwise suburban area. A lot of people have moved out to surrounding areas, Monica herself having lived in Purley for six years and moving out to Coulsdon. However, she knows people who have lived in the area for some 40 years, and who have seen this new change as a regrettable action.
Monica also has fond memories of 'Lorimers', which gave a ‘nice experience’ and provided a place for others to buy toys for children’s birthday parties and Christmas, and also somewhere to rely on for a range of festive cards, suitable for any person and any occasion. Another great loss to the high street, also mentioned by Elena, was the swimming pool which Monica thought correctly as taking people away from the high street, and summed up her remorse for the closure in one word- ‘Gone’.
Despite this, it is clear that Monica does not feel too bad about the area. The train station is conveniently located and someone is able to get out to central London in almost no time at all, making it very easy to commute and leading more people to visit Purley. And yet, a flaw remains, that if someone were to visit Purley, there would be a sense of disappointment, as they realise that they could probably visit somewhere just as good or even better elsewhere, perhaps with less graffiti and less litter.
The majority of people I spoke to had negative views about the changes of Purley High Street, until I spoke to Tariq, who volunteers in Oxfam, and seemed to retain that the street had remained fairly similar. And he should know- he moved here from Morden in 1996, and he mentioned that apart from an increase in the population, there had been a lack of change. Although the houses remained the same to him, he mentioned the increasing roadworks in the local area, echoing every frustrated driver’s sentiments exactly. Over time, the area has grown on Tariq, and he finds the staff professional and wholly helpful. However, he also repeated the same comments on the swimming pool as the majority of the locals I spoke to- the leisure centre closes down other opportunities for both the locals and visitors; whilst most high street stores have charity shops and food outlets, not all of them have the capacity for a swimming pool. By losing the pool, Purley also loses a part of its originality.
All those spoken to have provided very valid opinions, for which I thank them for- however, it must be noted that they are all adults who have become used to Purley, and now we must consider: what do the young people of Purley think?
Nicole, a Year 11 GCSE Art student, has lived in Purley all her life and has seen it change during this time. In an interview with her, I think it portrays a young person’s view on a changing high street perfectly.
‘I went very often, ever since I was younger,’ she said when asked about Lorimers. ‘Back then it was to get toys or birthday cards and recently it was to get school supplies. It’s definitely been quite a big part of my life, I loved it.’
Similarly to most Purley locals, she mourns the loss of Lorimers, a true original stationary shop of the high street, and praises the staff’s kindness towards everyone, no matter what day of the week.
When asked about the high street changing, she had certainly given it a lot of thought.
‘There used to be more independent shops with a variety, now many of them do the same thing (eg. Chicken shops) or are charity shops. It’s uncontrollable for people who live in Purley, so you get used to seeing independent shops close down.’
This is how, I imagine, a lot of people in Purley feel. There is a lack of control for the locals concerning their involvement in the high street, and it has begun to feel that the high street no longer belongs to us- it belongs to faceless retail, and depends heavily on their profits, rather than the locals’ real enjoyment.
Purley deserves better. Our sense of community is strong, but it will only take so much. Surface level problems about the high street such as multiple chain stores that disappear as quickly as they are created are agonisingly perplexing for the locals, but all in false compare in relation towards problems that could endanger people, not only physically but mentally, with a growing fear of anti-social behaviour which no one who has lived here for a long period of time is able to even remotely recognise. The high street is no longer tailored for the people of Purley, the families, the devoted locals, the regular shoppers, the teenagers who just want to hang out- it is created as if it is a place of experimentation, for profit; a street that changes so much no one is certain of whether a store will stay or go. Purley needs a place for everyone, and needs somewhere they can depend on. There is no need to delve back into the past to find defunct shops and a dead town that is non-existent today, because this is unattainable- what we need to learn is to take ownership of Purley again, before it is lost forever.
