Friars Walk Shopping Centre — Local services in Newport

A shining monument of the devotion and desperate attempt of a council to go to any extent and any cost, to, despite all reason and sound logic, polish a turd. Amongst the miserable heap of junk and broken dreams that we now call Newport stands this beacon hope. Hope that a better class of citizen will inhabit this wrech. A hope that it will lure unexpecting souls with this blatant bait and switch into the clutches of Casnewydd.

Nay, I say. People deserve better than your regurgitated, copy and pasted restaurants. Nay to your standard issue flashy yet cheap decor. NAY to the endless sea of 'high street' shops, a term simply rebranded to conceal the fact that this nation has plummeted into the pathetic state of unoriginality and tastelessness. The most diverse nation of complete lookalikes, with the same tastes and the same ideas and thesame exact uniqueness.

I may have derailed somewhat. Friars Walk is alright. Nothing new or...

There's not a whole lot there, the whole town is slowly shutting down which is a shame. Sin City Comics is great! The selection is enormous and the team are really on hand to help in anyway they can. Pandora was a bit of a let down. The restrictions of people inside were not being adheared to and instead of having someone limit entry one staff member was out front who was clearly flustered she opened the door to the back area to ask for assistance and a few people came out and passive aggressively started commenting on how many people were in the shop without actually trying to address the issue (limit was 8 we were 7&8 and about 6 people came in after us) the situation was very poorly managed. Bamboo also had polite and friendly staff on...

I like the restaurants but they need to keep stores from closing by offering competitive rates. If all that is left are painted boards there will be a knock on impact to those that remain and they'll all close. Please, keep this alive or we'll have a ghost town.

UPDATE...Oh come on Talisker Corporation please! Empty stores won't earn you any rent and incidental foot traffic is lost for others. Debenhams has gone, the Cinema vacated as are so many other units now. Newport Centre needs quality shops and restaurants, not empty comic stores and 99p stores - please fill with prime stores. Reduce the rates and keep stores, at least until there is an over demand for units. Look how depressing it looks...