Gardiner calls for Retail Regulator to curb Supermarket Chains
Samuel Gardiner MLA, Ulster Unionist Spokesman on the Environment, Local Government and Planning said today that legislative and regulatory action had to be taken now to prevent the market dominance of a few supermarket chains driving smaller shops out of business. The MLA believes that once they have established dominance the big supermarket chains will raise prices in a cartel-like operation.
His comments come after a new report from an influential cross-party group of MP’s said we had only 10 years to save the Town Centre High Street.
“Consumers will be the biggest losers if the Supermarket chains are allowed to go on expanding unchecked. Prices of products will remain fairly low until the consolidation of supermarkets reaches a saturation point and then the attention of the multiples Directors will turn to increasing share net asset value to shareholders by growth through margin. Prices at that point are likely to increase with fewer competitors in the market. A cartel-like operation will drive prices up and the shopper will be at their mercy.”
“What we need is a Retail Regulator in just the same way that we have a gas and electricity regulator. In a market place where just a few big supermarket chains dominate they need to be regulated or they will become too powerful and over-mighty. The consumer must be protected.”
“The end-result of all this will be that convenience stores, petrol for court stores and small local shops are unlikely to survive. This will do serious damage to the Town Centre High Street as we know it. This will affect many kinds of shop – not just food shops - because the Supermarket chains are into everything including clothes and electrical goods. Wherever profit leads them, they will go.”
“Between 1965 and 1990, 15% of small rural settlements experienced the closure of their last general store or food shop. Between 1991 and 1997, 4,000 food shops closed in rural areas across the UK. The most vulnerable groups - the elderly, the less affluent and others without transport - will be hardest-hit. Women, who make up the majority of small shop workers, will also suffer as their jobs disappear.”
“We must act now to save the High Street. What sort of world would it be without our town centres ? It would be an unrecognizable landscape dominated by out of town shopping centres, and semi-derelict town centres like museum pieces which few would visit because there is nothing to bring them there.”
“Tesco, Britain’s biggest retailer has already nearly one-third share of the food market. Anywhere else they would be introducing anti-trust laws to curb this kind of market dominance. One step we could take is to imose a ban on all future mergers and takeovers,” said Mr Gardiner.