Guardian:
George Monbiot
People know a Tesco will suck the marrow from us. Yet the decision is left in the hands of a remote and frightened council
I have been writing about it for years. But it's only now, when I'm caught in the middle of it, that the full force of this injustice hits me. Like everyone else here I feel powerless, unstrung as I watch disaster unfolding in slow motion.
I live in the last small corner of Gaul still holding out against the Romans. In other words, a small market town (Machynlleth, in mid-Wales) which has yet to be conquered by the superstores. No one expects us to hold out for much longer. Last month Tesco submitted an application to subjugate us. It wants to build a store of 27,000 square feet on the edge of the town centre. This is twice the size of all our grocery stores put together, and bigger than our tiny settlement--2,100 souls--can support. Tesco will prosper here only if other shops close and customers come from miles away.
More than 300 people--roughly one fifth of the adult population--have sent letters of objection. The case against the store and the strength of local feeling is so strong here that if we can't beat Tesco, no one can. But, being deficient in magic potion, we have precious little chance of stopping it.
This town's tragedy has been precisely foretold. In 1998, the government commissioned a study of the impact of big stores on market towns. It found that when a large supermarket is built on the edge of the centre, other food shops lose between 13% and 50% of their trade. The result is "the closure of some town centre food retailers; increases in vacancy levels; and a general decline in the quality of the environment of the centre". Towns are hit especially hard where supermarkets "are disproportionately large compared with the size of the centre". In these cases the superstore becomes the new town centre, leaving the high street to shrivel.
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