St. Peter's Street Becoming a Dead End?

If you've walked down St. Peter's Street recently, heading up from the Old Town Hall towards St. Peter's Church, you'll have noticed a lot of empty shops - and it's about to get worse.

In early June, Tesco is set to move to the shop once leased by Woolworths. Next door to where Tesco is today is a health food shop and a travel agent, both of which, as far as I can tell, are doing well. However, walk any further up the street and you'll find empty shop after empty shop.

Last month the Nicholas Wine Shop closed. Next door to it is the Bon Marche, which remains open, followed by Near and Far, which is closing next week, and the mobile phone shop (which mostly appeared to sell useful, but junky, household goods) closed before it. There also used to be a Thomson holidays shop and a McDonalds in the same stretch of shops. When Tesco closes, that will leave six of the nine shops in that part of St. Peter's Street vacant.

What ideas do you have for drawing shoppers further up the street so that shops at that end can thrive as they once did? Or is there enough shopping already in St. Albans? Or maybe the shops should be converted for use as, for example a city centre hotel? What ideas do you have?