“Save Our Town Centres” - Newsletter Platform Piece by Sam Gardiner MLA
Our town centres are an important and integral part of our way of life and they are under threat. That threat is so palpable that I believe that, unless action is taken, many could be in a state of semi-dereliction within a decade. This is not alarmist. If current retail trends are allowed to continue unchecked, then the dominance of a few supermarket chains and out-of-town shopping centres will irretrievably alter the pattern of all our lives. If we think about this logically, I do not believe most of us want this to happen. If we want to stop it happening, then we need to do something about it now.
What action can be taken ? To begin with, we have got to stop the irresistible drift towards market dominance by a very small number of supermarket chains. Already, for example, the immensely successful Supermarket Giant Tesco controls 30% of the grocery market and they are set to control half the market within ten years if current trends continue. We have got to ask ourselves - do we really want this to happen ? It seems to me that the only way to prevent this happening would be to appoint a Retail Regulator, charged with ensuring that certain pre-set rules are adhered to, that there is an adequate level of fair competition and that the interests of the consumer are properly catered for.
A Retail Regulator could operate in just the same way as a Gas and Electricity regulator. In a market place dominated by a few big supermarket chains only regulation will prevent them becoming too powerful and over-mighty. The consumer must be protected.
Allied to this, the prevention of further mergers among large scale retailers would prevent a cartel situation developing. My belief is that, if current market trends continue and the Supermarket chains are allowed to go on expanding unchecked, the prices of products will remain fairly low until the consolidation of supermarkets, through mergers and take-overs, reaches saturation point. At that point the attention of the multiples’ Directors will increase price margins to generate profits and benefit shareholders. With fewer competitors in the market, a cartel-like operation could drive prices up and the shopper will, effectively, be at their mercy.
The end-result of all this will be that convenience stores, petrol fore-court stores and small local and specialist shops are unlikely to survive. This will do serious damage to the Town Centre High Street as we know it. This will affect many different 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.
What has happened to the countryside and villages in the past forty years will now happen to our town centres. Between 1991 and 1997, 4,000 food shops closed in rural areas across the UK. That trend is now encroaching on our town centres. The Supermarket chains are already placing their own convenience shops in town centres to mop up what remains of local town centre business. The bigger the giant, the hungrier it is. The most vulnerable groups - the elderly, the less affluent and others without transport - will be the hardest hit and women, who make up the majority of small shop workers, will also suffer as their jobs in these smaller retail outlets disappear.
We must take control of this situation and not leave it to market forces. We must shape those market forces by prudent regulation if we are not to lose one of the most enduring and focal parts of our way of life – our town centres which are the hub and most visible expression of our community life. Will there be any room left for people in this mega-world of big shops, big councils and big brother ?