Among few winners from COVID-19 is, as I wrote last time, the car. Another, as we'll see, is the servo.
In the early 2000s, the neighbourhood service station was out on its feet. The garage mechanic disappeared as your average car became an impenetrable catalogue of gadgets. Large service stations on major arterial roads became dominant, shopper dockets gave discounts, partnerships with supermarkets added rows of essential goods, food and coffee standards improved.
The old servo sites lingered but without re-development options. Soils were soaked with toxic spills. Underground fuel storage was expensive to remove. The cost of remediation was prohibitive.
Now, new things are happening on those vast grease-smeared slabs. Major investment is underway in Metro and United franchises all across the Lower Hunter, rivalling Shell, Caltex and BP for market dominance. Intriguingly, the fight isn't only about selling petrol. The new servo fills a significant void in the Hunter's commercial offering.
What could be missing, you ask, in this age of commercial abundance? Certainly, our shopping options are plentiful - so long as there is parking.
For decades, the Hunter has been a target for over-provision by the big supermarkets. Then we enjoy, or tolerate (pick your verb), the super malls at Kotara and Charlestown, and their smaller competitors at Glendale, Jesmond and Green Hills, for example.
Then there are the booming bulky goods sites, euphemistically described by local councils as industrial areas, such as those on the old textiles sites at Kotara and up the valley at Rutherford, and those at Cardiff and along Industrial Drive through Hexham to Beresfield. In the bulky goods parks, all drive-tos, are the warehouses to fit-out the new houses in the Hunter's new residential estates, the furnishings and barbeques and pool equipment, and the things to occupy all those new kids, until they are old enough to drive. And confettied across all this commercial choice is the drive-to, drive-through fast food outlet, one after the other.
Of course, the high street is the big loser in this provisioning of our new suburbs and retro-fitting of the old. Our high streets are fading. The loss of cafe and bar trade, our high streets' most recent lifelines, has placed them in comas or, as time will tell, killed them off. Most notably we may soon mourn Newcastle's Hunter St and Maitland's High St, once among our state's finest civic, commercial and entertainment strips, now strangled by our consumer choices, and the absence of a parking spot, it has been noted.
All this said, shopping online, accelerated by COVID-19, threatens high street and mall retailers alike. The losers to online are the walk-up discretionary goods retailers, the core of super malls, the fashion and glamour brand stores, and their endless sales. Around the world Amazon sales are booming. Malls and brand retailers are worried.
But in this jungle of retailing a void has emerged. Where do you go if you need something immediately? Like right now, like a chocolate bar, a can of fizzy cordial, a packet of ciggies, bread, milk, gas for the barbeque, painkillers, nappies, detergent, or a hot snack? None among bulky goods park, mall, high street or Amazon can oblige. Perfect, though, is the servo, the drive-to, easy park, in-and-out, back home on the couch, who cares if it cost a few bob more, I have my fix in a flash servo. Search for Metro or United near me on your map site. The re-birth of the local servo is rapid and intense, franchisees cashing in by selling the things we need right now, a quick dash in the car, no mask, home satisfied.
When the vaccine comes, when the exile ends, this is the retailing landscape we resume with. To an extent our choices will determine what thrives and what dies. But a couple of decades of choosing the drive-tos over the high streets has diminished our options. In particular, salvaging civic places where people come together not only to shop, but to chat, and to protest, meet elected representatives, celebrate, share music, art and theatre, to be together in public, is going to be difficult. The servo can never fill this void.
