This is true, but tbh it's a rather separate problem from the over-dominance of a few large chains in physical retail, and more difficult to solve. Tilting the planning and tax systems in favour of small shops on the ground is actually quite simple; regulating online shopping would be much harder, I think.
Margate won't get funding for regeneration unless they sign a gagging order with TV company
- Thread starter trashpony
- Start date
This is true, but tbh it's a rather separate problem from the over-dominance of a few large chains in physical retail, and more difficult to solve. Tilting the planning and tax systems in favour of small shops on the ground is actually quite simple; regulating online shopping would be much harder, I think.
trashpony
Hag
Lots of independent bookshops are members of internet ordering services which deliver to the bookshop or have their own P&P service. My nearest children's bookshops in Sittingbourne does free p&p and I'd rather pay a bit extra and give them the cash than Amazon.
It's worth looking into ways of supporting local retailers if you can.
It's worth looking into ways of supporting local retailers if you can.
True that. There's nothing to say the internet can't work well for independent shops. Certainly, it's been a boon to some specialist book and music sellers, although I can think of a couple of larger independents who've closed their shops and turned into online-only businesses.
Mrs Magpie
On a bit of break...
I don't think that the UK has ever had a situation where shopkeepers had to get permission to sell individual products.
For as long as I can remember, if you buy or rent a shop premises with standard "shop" (A1) planning permission, then you can use it to sell any legal product, from television sets to tomatoes. Or both, if you want.
Why shouldn't a shopkeeper be able to sell different stuff, if he thinks that his customers will buy it?
Giles..
Mrs Magpie
On a bit of break...
Wasn't there a shop in South London called Bearly Audible? It sold CDs ....and teddy bears.
You're not wrong (with the exception of licensing schemes for some products), but the fact it's not happened before isn't a reason why it should not happen now, is it?
Why, on the other hand, should a few giant chains be given unrestricted freedom to do what they like no matter what damage they do in the process?
Btw, I never said anything about anyone having to 'get permission' to sell anything. I'm not advocating some kind of unwieldy blanket licensing scheme; just a few targeted changes to the tax and planning regimes to a) tilt the balance of advantage towards small and independent operators, and b) strip the big chains of some of their activities. That would have to involver some provision saying that X category of planning permission comes with a right to sell A, B or C type of goods. I admit, I'm not sure how that could be worked out in detail, but it'd hardly be the most complex piece of legislation ever put before Parliament.
The idea of clipping the big supermarkets' wings is hardly very new or radical. There was serious talk a few years ago of using the Competition Commission to strip them of some of their land banks and perhaps force them to sell some stores, although in the end it didn't happen. Meanwhile, plenty of countries have far stricter rules on retail than we do - I've the loss-leading bans that are in place in several European countries in mind, but there are other examples. None of this is impossible or unthinkable.
Tbh I'm getting the impression your main objection to all this is basically ideological.
claphamboy
The wheels on the bus go round and round....
For those that haven't seen it before...
R4, margate, now!
Margate town council horrified. Only heard about filming a week before the press conference. Shopkeepers contracts filled with gagging orders, in stark contrast to sharing advice and experience.
Mary portas retracted on twitter. Only said it in the heat of the moment with the cameras in her face! Margate taking part. Portas says she's asked for all gagging clauses to be removed...
2yr c4 contract, commissioned - apparently - 2 months before this was all announced.
Apols if that's already been posted!
Margate town council horrified. Only heard about filming a week before the press conference. Shopkeepers contracts filled with gagging orders, in stark contrast to sharing advice and experience.
Mary portas retracted on twitter. Only said it in the heat of the moment with the cameras in her face! Margate taking part. Portas says she's asked for all gagging clauses to be removed...
2yr c4 contract, commissioned - apparently - 2 months before this was all announced.
Apols if that's already been posted!
pinkmonkey
2.4 hour party person
£100k is fuck all, anyway, I'm unconvinced. This just seems like lame (and goverment funded) p.r. for her next tv series.
This is her p.r. company. http://www.yellow-door.com/ Her major client is Westfield shopping malls.
This is her p.r. company. http://www.yellow-door.com/ Her major client is Westfield shopping malls.
Termite Man
zombie flesh eater
grit
an ugly force for good
This is something that has confused me during the whole fiasco.. 100k will be capable of doing precisely fuck all..
ViolentPanda
Hardly getting over it.
I was just pointing out that allowing councils to dictate to shopkeepers what products they may sell in their own shops is an intrusive and illiberal measure.
Sell what people want to buy, at a reasonable price, and you will prosper.
Don't, and you won't.
Giles..
oryx
Sitting on the bok of the day
It already happens, via the planning and licensing systems. All I'm suggesting is beefing those up a bit.
Intrusive and illiberal? I don't think it's especially either, but even if it is, so what? I repeat, it's the kind of laissez-faire attitude you're parroting that's caused so much damage in the first place.
So the textbooks say. Meanwhile, in the real world...
Why is it that most people's plans to "revive" empty High Streets somehow involves trying to push people back to using them by restricting their choices elsewhere?
Either restricting new shops from opening elsewhere, restricting when they can open, or what they can sell, and what services they may offer?
High Streets are dying because most people, most of the time, don't actually want to traipse around lots of little shops, buying meat from the butcher, bread from the baker, candles from the candle-stick maker etc. And because more and more people buy stuff online.
This is not going to change back any time soon.
They may as well turn some of unused the shops into more houses and flats - we need more of those - not so sure we NEED all those empty shops.
Maybe in rich or touristy towns there is a place for all those little shops, but elsewhere they may as well give up.
Giles..
It is.
Though it may be of use because of the extent to which it's (potentially) divorced from ringfencing.
There was one of the target towns on R4 a week or two ago, and they were saying things like that atm, 30% of town centre shops are empty. A part of what they're going to use the £100k for is to offer anyone local a chance to 'try out' a town centre shop. So, like, 3 months in a unit / shop, rent paid for by the £100k, business rates (or whatever) waivered with some form of central support provided for admin issues, whatever.
Which sounded like an interesting - and potentially quite cheap - way of using some of the money.
Might do fuck all long-term, but it might go quite a long way.
There's no alternative. In any case, by playing a leading role in the destruction of the high street, supermarkets have spent the last thirty years restricting people's choices: this is just a matter of redressing the balance a little.
You're not wrong that retail is changing and that more and more will be done online. Certainly there is a case for encouraging some retail space to revert to residential accommodation and/or other non-retail uses where it's clearly surplus to requirements. Nevertheless, conventional shopping isn't going to die out entirely in the foreseeable future. The question remains, then, how to put the high street onto a more sustainable footing, and there is no way that can be accomplished without a determined attempt to rebalance the market away from the big chains and out-of-town stores and in favour of the independent firms and town-centre sites. That's not enough in itself, but it's a a good start.
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