Stretford Mall

Aww, poor Stretford Mall. It’s not a place for high street fashion but if you’re in need of some essentials or some tat, you’ve come to the right place! And you’ll be surprised by how little money you spend (partly cos it’s mostly bargain shops and partly due to lack of good shops).
It has charity shops — the best one here being British Heart Foundation who are happy to take donated stuff and has a high turnover of preloved clothing. My favourite shop here though, is Quality Save. It’s a nice spacious one with cheerful staff and constantly updated stock, perfect fit browsing before hitting the new Pure Gym that opened in spring this year. There are the essentials — a Superdrug, Boots, WHSmiths (which house the Post Office), Specsavers, Tescos, Holland and Barrett, Iceland, and Greggs — yes, the newly redecorated café-​style Greggs!
If you live in the area and don’t know how to drive, I’d recommend a visit the mall. It’s slowly changing — new cheap chains are opening there — a Pep and Co this year, Aldi next Spring, and a slowly updating market hall with lots of room and potential to house some pop ups. It gets three stars for now, four when Aldi opens and five when they push the closing time to 7pm or even 6:30pm. I have hope.

I called in Stretford Mall, while in the area, mainly just to spend a bit of time and have a look around, as well as post something at the post office, which was an urgent thing that I needed to do.
They isn’t many stores here, but most of them appear to be in the same category. Many networks have stores here: 3, O2, EE, Vodafone (near enough every major network) and when you consider Carphone Warehouse and an independant AAA Mobiles and Gola Gifts, this is probably one of the places to go for mobile phones.
They is quite a few discount stores here too, with Quality Save and B and M bargains both having stores here.
This arndale shopping centre is quite big, but still it strikes me as empty space being squandered, with very wide walking pathways and a big Tesco (especially when they is a giant one round the corner!) and it could be better used, which could help make the Arndale busier again and less deserted.
Another bad thing about this place is food and drink: They is only one coffee shop — Love Coffee, despite being room for more which could of brought healthy competition and more choice, they is a few Greggs type shops and independent restaurants, but they are mainly selling the same thing hence the choice for food is limited.
Parking is pad for (yes, in a mall like this!) and the parking situation on the front means it is quite hard to find a space, with little to no disabled spaces.
Stretford Mall strikes me as a nice, big place with potential but they are just not using it the way they should, with certain types of shops being missing and it just being full of the same old shops: bakeries, phone shops, discounters. It makes it a place not to warrant the parking charge, which is 50p for 2 hours and in all honestly I can’t give more than 2 stars, but this place is still worth a quick look around while you are in the area, and hopefully you will be lucky like me and get someones 2 hour parking they only used 20 minutes of and paid for!
I would definitely have gave this place 3 stars if they had a better variety of shops and/​or more variety of coffee shops — This place as potential and next time I am in Stretford, I want to be coming back and I don’t want them to remain a 2 star.

Wants knocking down. Not even worth the one star I have to award.

too many discount shops i cant believe they got rid of McDonald’s and subway :-0

My fellow Unilocaler Sarah Anne has summed this place up perfectly. I do feel a tad disloyal speaking badly of Stretford Mall because I have been coming here for years so in order for me to put my Unilocaling family in the picture, I must describe its glory days to demonstrate its decline.
This precinct used to be a bustling shopping mecca for the people of South Manchester. The market was packed full of bargain stalls and every teenage girl would flock there for their next outfit. There was a busy McDonalds, a great cut price sports shop and the Post Office which is now a dying breed, was an important factor for Stretford folk. No Arndale centre is complete without the obligatory Ethel Austin and Au Naturel and although Stretford Mall had its fair share of young mums pushing prams of toddlers eating meat and potato pasties, the general vibe was one of office workers on their lunch breaks, pensioners on their days out and regular people rushing around Tesco to do their weekly shop.
Move forward five years and the Credit Crunch has decimated this place. McDonalds jumped ship, Woolworths met its untimely end– R.I.P Pick n’ Mix– and the Post Office was obliterated, ending up in the less salubrious W.H.Smiths where queues are endless. Dorothy Perkins has run away with Au Naturel, Sommerfield became Quality Save and the market is a ghost town. Quite sad really and for those without a car, it is a real loss. It is now an underprivileged abandoned town of closed units and empty parking spaces and it is only a matter of time before I can see the whole place shutting and being turned into the biggest Primark in the world. Stretford Mall can change its name but it cannot change its fate and I would not go there unless I absolutely had to.

Where else can you find Poundland, Pound World, Quality Save, Card Factory and Wilkinson’s all under one roof?!
That’s right, the classiest shop you’re likely to find here is probably Argos. But that’s not necessarily a bad thing. In fact, according to its website Stretford Mall is indeed, ‘the perfect way to spend your day.’ The scary thing is that I have the feeling a lot of OAPs and youths actually do spend their days here, with the former scoffing their Poundland treats whilst chatting to strangers on the numerous benches and the latter congregating on their mountain bikes outside the entrance next to Riley’s.
I have no idea why this Soviet looking shopping centre gets the American ‘mall’ status, but it’s not *that* bad if you want a bargain. It’s best to head to town or the Trafford Centre if you want to buy something more than a multi-​pack of crisps or a cheap birthday card.

Now this is a place that barely deserves one star.
Stretford Mall (or arndale/​precinct as it is known) is my local shopping centre but I would rather walk barefoot to the next nearest one two miles away than actually go there.
I find myself walking through some days to shelter from the rain on the way to the tram stop and I cannot believe a place could be so depressing.
When I was little, my mum used to bring me shopping here, it was amazing! The heart of it being the Woolworths of course! Now the place is full of chain store bakeries and pound shops.
There’s talk of it being knocked down… we can only hope.

The Stretford Mall isnt the best place to shope, it has to be said. However, at night the Green Windmill is open and hosts an array of fantastic live music, music quizzes, even Karioke! It doesnt get very busy unless a very popular band is on as this is due to the location, but its definatly worth a look. The Sound system is great, and so are the drinks prices!

not a great deal of selection of shops and is a bit of a grotty place, bu tloads of bargain shops

The Stretford Mall is a decent enough shopping centre, handily located for residents of Stretford, and possibly even Chorlton. What it might lack in flair, in comparison with The Trafford Centre for example, it makes up for with old fashioned practicality. Wilkinsons stocks a variety ofumm, pretty much everything. TJ Hughes is always ideal if you need a cheap umbrella or a new can opener. Other than that, there are a selection of pretty standard shops; Burton, WH Smith, Max Spielman et al. A Topshop would be welcome, and it wouldn’t hurt for the shops to be open just a tad later. The Tesco closes quite early as well, which can be a trifle irritating.

Oh dear.
There’s two sides to Stretford Arndale — or ‘Mall’ as it’s called now: its level of handy-​ness and its clientele.
Wilkinson’s is handy to have as it seems to sell everything; ditto TJ Hughes. Tesco’s is handy because it stays open later than everywhere else. The various card shops are handy if you’ve forgotten somebody’s card. It has a WHSmith — now that’s got to be handy. Cash machines — handy. A Boots — very handy if you’ve got a cough and want a bottle of jollop. You get my point — very handy kind of place to have. It’s there to nip into (and very swiftly out again) — it serves no other purpose.
But the majority of the clientele? That’s where the oh dear comes in. Walk around Stretford Mall and you will find a baffling number of people who are sat on the benches outside the shops apparently doing absolutely nothing. They don’t have any bags, nor do they appear to be waiting for anybody else as they will still be there an hour later.
Stretford Mall seems to be full of people with nothing else better to do; God help us all.

Stretford Mall is a great precinct for shopping if you dont want to venture into the busy city centre. Located on Chester Road, it has a great selection of high-​street shops such as Burtons, New Look, Boots, Superdrug, MK One, Claire’s Accessories, Clintons Cards and Dorothy Perkins, to name but a few. Food-​wise, there’s not many cafes but there is BB’s coffee shop smack bang in the middle, which is nice for a rest while you are wandering around, Greggs the bakers, Gabbotts Farm and a McDonalds. There are a couple of great discount shops like Quality Save, Wilkinsons and even PoundLand, and Au Naturel has homeware at really good prices. The shops are open late on thursdays and fridays til 8 in the run up to xmas. There is a face painter there too to keep the kiddies occupied, and there is a Riley’s snooker and pool hall at the back to keep the men occupied!