There’s just one shop open in the plaza at the end of Swinton precinct. Garlanded in travel suitcases and fake plants, Pound Plus & DIY is surrounded by shuttered-up businesses in the ghostly quiet square. 

“We’re not making enough to cover the rent,” says business owner Mohamad. “The rent is too high, and the business rates. Honestly? If it carries on like this, we’ll have to close down in a couple of months. It’s been really hard – and it affects your head, you know, the constant worry.” 

The well-stocked store sells everything from elbow grease to exercise equipment, watches, mirrors, garden utensils. Mohamad took the shop over a year ago, after its previous owner went bankrupt, he said. At the time, he was assured ‘business is good’. 

“But look around you, all the closed shops,” he adds. “We don’t know if the market will survive.” 

Swinton Square, between Chorley Road and Swinton Hall Road, is a ‘ghost town’, according to one local.

It’s become a common story across the UK – the once thriving sixties shopping centre has seen a drastic decline in recent years. Fewer than half the retail units are currently occupied and remaining smaller businesses are struggling to stay afloat. 

“I know it’s a problem everywhere, but this place really has gone down the pan,” said Lynette, 44. From a bench on the main parade, where she was eating lunch with mum Pat, 74, she starts pointing at the various boarded-up shopfronts and listing what they used to be.

“The B&M shut, the frozen food place, this is shut. It’s gone rubbish. We come out every week, every couple of days, but we’re just getting fed up now because there’s nowhere to go. Today we came out to get a few bits and bobs for our holiday, and we didn’t get anything we wanted.” 

Lynette has lived in the area for 18 years, and her mum Pat moved here 16 years ago. 

“I did it because with me getting older, all the shops were here,” she said. “You could get the food you wanted and everything, go to the doctor’s, get your dentures done.

“But now it’s all gone. If my partner didn’t have a car, we wouldn’t be able to get everything we need.”

Many of the businesses that closed had been in the area for decades. Pat recalls a chippy that had been in the complex since the 1970s, but closed down last year. 

Puccinis, a Swinton institution that hosted sporting stars Gary Neville and Ryan Giggs, shut earlier this year after 44 years. Though owner Michele Pucci has helped his wife launch her own coffee shop and wine bar, Pucci, on Chorley Road, his original restaurant is now gathering dust on the high street. 

“Trade is dying, Swinton is dying and we’re dying in Swinton,” said the 65-year-old of his closure, naming Brexit, a difficulty finding staff, and rising costs through National Insurance hikes, VAT, rent, rates, gas, electric, wages, and suppliers as part of a complex patchwork of reasons hospitality businesses are dying on their feet. 

Pucci’s words were echoed in Salford’s town hall earlier this week, when opposition leader councillor Ivan Varanov asked what the local authority was doing about the ‘dead’ shopping centre right on the doorstep of the Civic Centre. 

The council used to own the precinct, but flogged off the asset in 2002 for £3.2m. Since then, plans to re-acquire it have reared their heads several times over the past two decades. Between 2017 and 2020, the local authority spent £348,000 on various components of a masterplan for Swinton, which reportedly included the precinct, but has never been published. 

And since 2024, the local authority has been ‘exploring’ a plan to buy back the shopping centre from its private owners, similar to its £4m purchase of Eccles shopping centre. In his response to Coun Varanov, city mayor Paul Dennett claimed ‘work is progressing’ on the plans. 

“It’s not just Puccinis. Many banks have literally closed their doors along that stretch of the precinct,” said Mr Dennett. “While we get on with Eccles, Swinton is absolutely in our minds.

“That precinct is not owned by Salford City Council, it’s owned by West Bromwich Building Society. It’s really important we look at ownership when we look at what the role of the local authority is. Work is progressing, but the first priority has to be negotiating the movement of that asset into public ownership.” 

West Bromwich Building society previously told the Local Democracy Reporting Service that it doesn’t own the precinct, but acts as ‘a lender to two overseas registered companies and is managed by an LPA receiver’. The LDRS reached out to the precinct managers but received no response. 

But while the vexed subject of ownership waits to be resolved, Swinton is slowly fading into nothingness.

“The area is really struggling,” said Ross Hargreaves, another local shopper. The 74-year-old has lived in the area his whole life. “Like everywhere, slowly it’s gone down the drain. It used to be packed, look at it now. It’s the school holidays and it’s still deserted. It’s not just the shops either, it’s jobs, the factories, industry.

“I think if you look at other places that are doing better, they have more coffee shops and bars and things like that instead of shops. We just have empty shop fronts.” 

And as the buildings become emptier and deteriorate, anti-social behaviour increases, according to locals. 

But there could be a path forward. One unit at the precinct has bucked the trend for closures. The former trainer of record-breaking darts champion Luke Littler this month opened a brand new darts academy on Swinton Square, where youngsters and community groups can play the sport for just £5. 

Arran Mattinson, director of the White Swan Darts Academy, said: “We aren’t a traditional business, so [the decline of the precinct] affects us less. We’re a non-profit and tend to work with schools, community groups, veterans and so on.” 

Mattinson has a vision for the area that leans into more charity-run or community interest model businesses – and is geared at keeping young people out of trouble.  

“The real problem round here is that there’s nothing for kids to do – so they just get in trouble instead. That’s why we’re here. We have youngsters come in here, acting really polite and respectful. Then they step out that door and immediately get themselves arrested. There’s just nothing to do, so they start destroying things, or breaking into abandoned buildings.”

Focussing on the city’s smaller neighbourhoods is part of the council’s Corporate Plan.

This outlines a vision to create a ‘fairer, greener, healthier and more inclusive city’ by 2028 – or as the Mayor put it, a “vision for socialism.”

The Corporate Plan includes building more homes, and making Salford a ‘child friendly city’ through a number of policies aimed at improving outcomes for the city’s children.

But asked what progress had been made around the shopping precinct, the local authority provided no reply and indicated that ‘no decisions have been made’. And as time ticks on, some wonder if it’s not already too late to save the dying shopping centre. 

“No one wants to come here anymore,” Lynette told the LDRS. “Because it’s boring. It’s just a bit of a ghost town now.”