Poundshops, bookies and fast food joints are also big on the remains of our town centres.

Last edited by formby (2013-09-01 10:27:38)

Isn't Lidl a supermarket that ensures fresh local veg in all its stores?

I don't blame the supermarkets for the state of the UK, but they can be blamed for the death of certain high street shops e.g. fruit & veg ones. But this is because their buying power is so great, they get all the good stuff and the high street gets the dregs.

Supermarkets here in the Netherlands are not as good as ones in the UK, or France, Italy or Germany and hence, there are still vibrant high street fishmongers, butchers and other shops that if the supermarkets were of a higher standard would be seriously challenged.

I remember when the first really good supermarkets came in the early 80s, particularly the Sainsbury's in Chester, it was an event to go there with your mum and dad on a Thursday or Friday night.

Well,this has roused Sunday afternoon nappers! The real (or imaginary) Ye Olde England always does. But there was, once, room for smaller supermarkets (Lipton's and International spring from memory) in town centres. They both competed with, and complimented, the smaller traders. The reason for all the big buggers scarring the landscape is profit for shareholders. They are not there to benefit the local population more than the outfits that they have ousted - and they managed to oust them because people are (or think that they are) pressed for time. They are also a blight on the landscape - no doubt about it. I admit that I used to shop in London supermarkets when I lived there but the supermarkets have had less impact in central London than in the old market towns. My biggest regret is that the supermarkets have even crushed the life out of the small, specialist shops - sweet shops and tobacconists, for example, without bringing anything else to the party - and left the high streets bereft of any shops really worth visiting at all.

^  I suppose you also think that justice has been done to the banksters then.

"Economics is the study of the use of scarce resources which have alternative uses"

Fair enough - but it underscores the idiocy of the programme of 'regeneration' of town centres, at public expense, when the buildings that are being torn down and replaced are actually better structures than the replacements - and, before you say it, often quite capable of internal adaptation to modern needs. The profiteers cannot get their fingers on so much public cash that way though.