Tesco want to build a large new store on the edge of Leiston, our nearest town. Like others in the area we are worried about the impact of a store of well over 30,000 square feet gross on a town with a population of only 5,500.
For those of you who don’t know Leiston, it is about a couple of miles inland from the Suffolk coast. As a former industrial centre, it lacks the charm of a typical market town, but it has a thriving community which supports some excellent independent shops (notably two butchers, a greengrocer, a baker and a deli selling excellent fresh local produce) as well as a modest Co-op supermarket and a couple of hardware stores.
So off we went to Tesco’s road show in the local Unitarian Chapel. We were greeted by the usual collection of corporate charmers - neat PR people along with a slightly scruffier and older planner to answer the technical questions like “How big is it?” (He didn’t know.)
“The store will create 200 jobs.”
“How many full time equivalents?”
“About 100.”
“But that is gross. What about job losses when all the independents and the Co-op shut?”
“Oh no, Tesco will set up a local fund to help the stores through the opening period.”
“That’s as may be, but evidence from elsewhere shows that whatever you say at inquiry, the Tesco Death Star will wipe out the High Street.”
“Not necessarily, there’s a place in Kent where the butcher’s survived.”
“Well, that’s really reassuring.”
I know from experience that if and when the application gets to inquiry, Tesco’s retail planners will pick over the minutiae of policy and produce reams of calculations that will show a minimal impact on the existing shops. How they can keep a straight face, I don’t know. Their calculations defy logic and run contrary to common sense and past experience. But if they get it wrong, who cares? If the application gets turned down, that will be the end of the matter. And if it goes ahead and wipes out the town centre, no one will re-open the file.
Communities and Local Government have been strong on evidence-based policies. Their research projects, checking on the outcomes of programmes and policies have been legion. But no one has sought to review how retail schemes turned out and what effect they had on existing shops compared with the so-called expert predictions given at inquiry. The last bit of research I could find was dated 1998 and covered the impact of large foodstores on market towns, but did not seek to compare predicted impacts with actual outcomes. (Heaven forbid that anyone should think that this lack of action should have anything to do with the fact that Lord Sainsbury was a major Labour Party benefactor.)
No one wants to let the cat out of the bag. The whole thing is a charade. Clearly, the last thing the supermarkets want is the truth to come out – in a small town, a big foodstore will wipe out most, if not all, the independent convenience shops. The experts (are you buying or selling?) don’t want to prejudice a lucrative line in business. And the last thing the Department wants, is the world to know is quite how disastrous its polices have been for small shops and town centres.
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