An imaginary British high street has completed its regeneration programme by allowing residents to walk from one barber to another without ever being more than eight seconds from a third barber.
The development offers what planners call a mixed economy: skin fades at one end, taper fades at the other, and a vape shop where the bookshop used to keep its poetry. A takeaway provides somewhere to think about the haircut before commissioning a corrective one.
An invented regeneration brochure describes the area as a fifteen-minute neighbourhood. This means residents can meet all their needs within fifteen minutes, provided those needs are a haircut, chips and something that tastes faintly of a fictional fruit.
Local hopes for a hardware shop were briefly raised by a window display containing scissors. The premises subsequently opened as a premium grooming lounge. Its main innovation was charging more for exactly the same uncertainty about what to do with the back.
A fictional council spokesperson insisted the street remained culturally diverse. Several businesses offered different football matches on their televisions, and one barber asked customers about their holidays in a noticeably distinct order.
The only remaining newsagent has applied to become a heritage attraction. Visitors will be able to see how people once purchased an object without being asked whether they wanted the sides taken shorter.
