Tory vs. Tesco

[Gromit]

A Conservative government should move to break the dominance of Britain’s supermarket chains, David Cameron’s latest intellectual adviser has said.

Phillip Blond, the head of the ResPublica think-tank, launched a broad attack on Tesco and other big supermarkets, suggesting they are too big and should be broken up.

A Tory Government should “create new models” for supermarkets’ businesses, he said. He also suggested higher charges on supermarket car parks and new rules to prevent the building of new stores.

http://www.telegraph....big-supermarkets.html

I can buy that. Do you agree or disagree?

[Ankou]

why stop at supermarkets, what about boots, wh smith, top shop, next, carpetright, halfords, b&q, homebase, wickes.... ?

why encourage capital enterprise if you don't like what that achieves?

[Gromit]

I like the idea because if a large supermarket opens, then they tend to kill off many businesses for miles around. They tend to negotiate deals with the local councils that see them paying less rates per sq metre than a local butcher or newsagent. When they shops close, the choice and quality they offered is not matched by the supermarkets.

I agree with this Tory, they seem to enjoy many hidden subsidies, so local businesses cannot compete on a level playing field. I think the playing field should be levelled, not attack the supermarkets just because they are successful.

[jno]

Supermarkets have a bad name but everyone uses them. I don't think suggesting they be reined in would do the Tories any harm, though. Farmers might benefit, and countryside villages (if there are any left unTesco'd) can keep their high streets; and that's all Tory territory.

I get my food from old Farmer Marks and Farmer Spencer myself.

[Ankou]

s106 and ss78's mean that they contribute to the locale by improving roads and access points. local shops are less accesible and when they are accessible you are usually charged extortionate rates for parking. this is the councils doing, not the stores.

the other stores i mention also affect local stores that used to sell the same fare, and usually operate out of the same retail parks. so why not them as well?

[LoftyLottie]

All that I can say is that there was an enormous outcry when Tesco proposed coming into our town cemtre. In the end Tesco's won. As a result the town has brightened up, more people come there to shop and park for free at Tescos and then wander round the rest of the town. The town has improved no end and the small businesses are benefitting. The landscaping around the store and that part of the town have also been improved curtesy of Tescos. It's not all bad.

Before Tescos people were driving to the out of town large superstore and not even bothering with going to the town and the shops were doing really badly.

[Ankou]

should we be baning large retail shopping centres like bluewater and trafford centre as well ?

[jno]

Ankou, I think the specific objection to Tesco's - unlike Boots etc - is that they sell everything so they can kill off entire high streets, not just single shops. I was interested to read Lottie's report that Tesco's actually improved her area - until the last sentence, where it turned out it was basically in competition with another superstore! So what's actually left in your town, Lottie - is it just shops that aren't in competition with Tesco's? Or have others found a way to survive competition from Tesco's AND a superstore?

[jno]

oh, and regarding your question about shopping malls: I think these are mostly well out of town and so not seen as a threat to particular individual communities. Most but not all - I don't know how Shepherd's Bush shops are doing under the onslaught of the new Westfield mall at one end.

[Gromit]

Ankou

Your comment
//when they are accessible you are usually charged extortionate rates for parking.//

from the link
//Mr Blond also criticised what he called a “hidden subsidy” for supermarkets over parking.
Supermarkets do not pay high enough business rates on parking areas, he said.//

This is what I mean by levelling the playing field.

[Ankou]

jno, the fact they are out of town i woud have thought 'is' a threat to the high street.

[LoftyLottie]

I just typed a long answer jno and lost it.

Anyway, the superstore is not in the town. It is not accessible to a lot of town folk unless they like a good long walk with all their shopping or have transport.

Tesco is not as big as the Superstore. Its still a reasonable size. We still have bakers, greengrocer, butchers in the town who are thriving because they are good and local. Other small local stores did suffer when we first got a large out of town supermarket because those that could get there went to the superstore. Special buses run to the superstore. Both Tescos and the Superstore seem to be doing well.

Being a small market town in a tourist area we have lots of cafe's antique shops, gift shops etc. as well as health food shops, clothes shops, a large furniture store and various 'others'. Tescos has certainly brought a different atmosphere to the town. It has started to feel like a town again instead of a ghost town.

[LoftyLottie]

And the three hours free parking is a boon as all the other carparks charge.

[jno]

Ankou, yes, if there was a town/village near Bluewater, say, it will have come under huge pressure from the mall there. But the threat to other high streets further away will have been much more diffuse. People may automatically go to Tesco's rather than a local greengrocer for food - the figures in Gromit's link suggests this is so - but I'm not sure they would automatically go to a mall rather than a high street for a range of shopping. Parking is a problem in high streets, of course - but as Gromit says, this is a matter of a highly uneven playing field: councils charge you for going to the high street and encourage you to go to a mall by subsidising the parking there (out of the money they make from meters in town, presumably).

[jno]

Lottie, we have two Sainsburyses, a little one by the station and a bigger one half a mile away (and a huge one about two stops down the line). None of them has made our high street look nice, alas, and our best restaurant closed down a couple of months ago. But I think we count as outer London rather than a self-contained town; and metropolises have their own rules, so my experience needn't be the same as yours.

[LoftyLottie]

Very true jno. Completely different scenarios. The area around the new Tescos looks really nice now, a dying end of the town has sprung into life and our local wonderful award winning fish and chip shop and restaurant which is right opposite the Tescos entrance must be making a small fortune. It always was popular, now the queues go on forever!!

[Ankou]

jno, if you’ve ever been to dartford, stone, greenhithe, or swanscombe then you’ll notice that bluewater has had detrimental impact to the quality of those towns. however, the people of those towns love bluewater and consider it the best thing in kent.

people travel an average distance of 25 miles to get there, so the diffusion strectches much further than just kentish towns. (not to be confused with kentish town in London, which really is a sugar hole !!)

[jno]

does 'the people' include the former shopkeepers of Kent? I'm not really arguing against shopping malls, though: their effect is not so much to supplant high streets as to bring a mixture of Oxford and Regent Streets to wherever they land - that is, the sort of fancy shop that may well not have been in the high street in the first place. So the 'shopping experience' may well be improved and people can buy locally without trekking to the West End. If I have an objection, it's that they don't promote local entrepreneurs, they mostly just import chain stores of one sort or another.

[Kromovaracun]

See, I can kind of see the main objection to supermarkets being the more dodgy stuff they're alleged to get up to. Nobody's ever actually shown me any concrete evidence for this, though - the usual response I've had when I've asked for it is a roll of the eyes and people telling me how naive I am.

Hating on supermarkets for the sake of it is stupid, though. I'm open to persuasion, but I've simply yet to see an argument that successfully counters the idea that supermarkets wouldn't have sprung up the way they have in the first place if people either didn't want them to or were deeply unhappy with them. Tesco does what it does well - for students, for instance, it's practically a godsend (no matter how many of them complain about it...). Quality might not be as good as specialists (who have done less well but have far from died out - though I suppose it depends where you look), but it's not complete crap either and it also varies between the supermarkets.

On the other hand, I can see why the sheer scale of Tesco's market share does concern people (though one should bear in mind it provides a market for lots of non-Tesco products)