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Bye-bye
High Street
By the destruction
of communities and jobs Supermarkets have become all powerful by putting
smaller retailers out of business.
In their Ghost Town Britain Reports (2003), the New Economics Foundation
(NEF) revealed that: between 1995 and 2000 we lost roughly one fifth of
our local shops and services including post-offices, banks, butchers and
grocers. Furthermore, over the five years to 2002, around 50 specialist
stores closed every week. In 1960, small independent retailers had a 60%
share of the food retail market. By 2000, their share was reduced to 6%
while the multiples' share increased to 88%. ... Money spent in a supermarket
is spirited away to shareholders and management staff, rather than staying
in the community where it has been spent, supporting local businesses
and their suppliers.
Below cost selling
on the High Street
Supermarkets have overseen
the near eradication of small-scale retailing entrepreneurs. Those who
survive live in fear of supermarket special offers promoting goods cheaper
than an independent retailer can buy from a wholesaler. Only serious measures
to clamp down on persistent below-cost selling or 'loss leaders' can halt
this. France, Germany, Ireland and Spain already have legislation to prohibit
the selling of goods below the price paid by the retailer to the farmer.
Introducing such measures into the UK may well help slow down the decline
of the high street.
Source: www.just-food.com and 'Battle in Store?'
A discussion of the social impacts of the major supermarkets
A Safeway store was
built in Leominster in 1993-4.
A last minute local campaign tried, and failed, to raise sufficient local
opposition to the store. Local traders took little interest at the time,
but after the store was built they really felt the impact. Research by
the DETR, revealed that when Safeway opened the store, many of the town's
small shops lost 30 per cent of their trade.
Source: www.planning.detr.gov.uk/foodstores/index.htm
House of Commons Environment, Transport and Regional Affairs Committee
Supermarkets are increasingly
focusing on non-grocery goods, which will impact on the size, and siting
of supermarket developments.
Tesco is already the largest petrol retailer in the country, and all the
supermarkets are eagerly becoming chemists, newsagents, DIY and garden
suppliers, travel agents, banks…in fact taking over the entire high street.
Source: www.planning.dtlr.gov.uk/ppg /ppg6/index.htm
DTLR, 'Planning Policy Guidance Note 6: Town centres and retail development'
All supermarket developments
pose a threat to local communities.
Whether they are on the high street, in shopping malls or out of town,
they are attempting to bring what the entire high street can offer, under
one roof. Supermarket development compromises the economic viability of
small independent retailers, increases traffic and destroys the social
role that small shops provide in bringing together communities and fostering
trust about the products supplied. "Council planners can resist granting
permission for developments that will undermine the local economy. While
small independent shops often stock local products, supermarkets rarely
do, and their centralised distribution systems mean that 'local' products
may be transported hundreds of miles to depots and then back to local
superstores. Source: http://www.corporatewatch.org.uk/pages/check_out_chuck_out/check_out_chuck_out.pdf
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