St Thomas Shopping Centre

19/03/08

St Thomas Shopping Centre

The shopping centre is designed in a horse-shoe shape, with a parade of small shops along three sides of the car-park. The fourth side of the car-park fronts on to the main road and the bus stop. The parade is covered by a white roof structure, attached to the shops like a porch, but is open to the elements apart from this, like a regular paved area. Most of the shops are independant. There are a few recognizeable brands - a Natwest and HSBC bank, and a Somerfield Supermarket. Because the shops are small there are actually quite a lot of them, and a wide variety of types of shops.

I walked around the parade starting at the side where the Natwest bank is.
On the first side of the parade I handed out flyers to shoppers. It was quite busy, though not at all crowded. I walked past an Optometrist, Newsagents, Pet Shop, amongst others on this side. At the first corner there was a cafe, with two tables outside. I gave flyers to a large group of women having coffee together, and to another table of customers.

I continued around the second side of the parade. I passed an HSBC, a Coral Bookmakers, Exeter Hair and Beauty salon, and stopped at Stokes Green Grocers. At Stokes I bought some fruit - there were boxes outside you could help yourself from, and inside the shop it was also self service. There was a very wide variety of fresh fruit and vegetables. I bought a Chinese Pear, a mandarin and one other fruit (I forget what). The lady at the counter packed them in a plastic bag for me. The bag is unique to Stokes - on one side it has a big strawberry, with
STOKES
written across it, on a pink circle. Around the strawberry it says
FRESH FOR LIFE
Helping to promote lifelong healthy eating habits
and at the bottom of the bag it says
Environmentally Friendly Bag 100% Degradable
On the other side of the bag it says
STOKES FRUIT AND VEGETABLES
COMPARE OUR QUALITY! COMPARE OUR PRICES!
and also gives the website address
www.stokesplc.co.uk
The lettering on this side for 'Stokes' is green with a red apple forming the 'O'. It's a very nice bag.
I saw that there is a notice board in the shop, but the lady serving me said she was not allowed to put any posters on it. She agreed, however, to put a poster on the staff notice board, and seemed very happy to do this.
Stokes has a green and white striped canopy over the shop front, which makes it distinctive from a distance.

Next door is Martin’s Newsagents. Martin’s has two ‘customer ads’ notice boards. They are not really notice boards, more of a card holder, where you can slot in a postcard. Most ads were handwritten, advertising items for sale. There were also ads for guitar lessons and Karate, and a printed ad for a Man & Van Service. I paid to advertise two cards for two weeks. The cards would be put up the following day (20th March).

The third side of the parade consists mainly of Somerfield Supermarket, a café and on the corner there is a pub. Beyond the pub, at the corner of the carpark, is a large brick-built flower bed, large enough to sit on the wall of. On the outside edge of the flower bed is a row of Phone Boxes. I sat on the wall to have my lunch – it was sunny and just warm enough today. A few other people also sat on the low wall - one young woman had been eating her lunch and then talked on her mobile for a long time (all the time I was there she talked to her boyfriend – I saw them meet up later near the bus stop), another woman sat and ate lunch then left, and another woman came looking for a light.

Opposite the bus stop, on the other side of the road, is the St Thomas Post Office. I inquired whether they would display a poster in the window, as they already had a display of various posters on show there. The man I spoke to told me that he was happy to take the poster, though he could not be sure if it would be displayed as they had to have an audit of the posters in the next few days and then decide which could go back in the window - it was out of his hands. It sounded a very complicated, thought-out process. Did the poster get put up? Perhaps you saw it, if it did.