Even on a sunny Tuesday when nearby beaches fight for locals’ attention, the quaint streets of Chichester are bustling. And in an age when boarded up shops and eerily empty high streets appear to be more and more common, this little city is bucking the trend.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cChichester<\/a> is a wonderful place to live and work,\u201d says\u00a0Dan Roe, the general manager of\u00a0Timothy Roe<\/a>\u00a0jewellers.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re lucky to have beautiful beaches at West Wittering [a few miles south], the canal, marina and harbour and the South Downs. I often forget it\u2019s all here. Working here, you can become a bit blinkered to it. The city centre is improving too.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cFor a while, there were a lot of empty units, but they\u2019re filling up again, and more\u00a0independent shops<\/a> are returning, which is great to see.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n So many independent shops have returned, in fact, that there’s now an estimated 240 in the city, making it arguably one of Britain’s best high streets for those who have tired of copycat towns stuffed full of the same big names.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n Unlike some other towns and cities there’s not a feeling either that Chichester can’t cope. More tourists please appears to be the message.\u00a0<\/p>\n Dan says his family jewellers has been in the city centre since 1996 with many customers now travelling from outside of Chichester to buy from the shop. Shops like his have\u00a0become “destination businesses” he believes, bringing extra people into the city.<\/p>\n Sarah Collins, the owner of Jam Cafe<\/a>, says it can be financially hard to run her business but the passion she has for making a success of it is clear.\u00a0<\/p>\n She says: \u201cIt’s a really varied high street we have here. We have a lot more independent shops than I think people realise within Chichester, we’re quite lucky in that respect.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cIt’s tough – times are really tough at the moment for businesses in general but for indies in particular, it’s really, really hard. If you walk up a hundred metre stretch of this street you’ll go past more indies than you will chains, which is quite nice for us.\u201d<\/p>\n Sarah says there are still plenty of chains in the city but there are also a lot of big empty shops which everyone is keen to ensure doesn’t become a more common theme.\u00a0<\/p>\n She continues: \u201cI would love to see more\u00a0tourists<\/a> in Chichester. We’ve got the cathedral, we’ve got the theatre, there’s so many things that you can do. I love Chichester, it’s got real potential – the amount of creativity in the city is huge.”<\/p>\n One of the great well-preserved Georgian cities in the UK, Chichester has played a key role in the affairs of Sussex since at least the Roman times.<\/p>\n