The only business in town: supermarkets multiplying
By Western Daily Press | Wednesday, November 30, 2011, 09:00
t.cork@bepp.co.uk
The economy might be stalling, banks not lending and factories not hiring, but in one section of the West, business is booming – supermarkets.
From Cheddar to Gloucester and Chippenham to Yeovil, supermarket giants Sainsbury, Tesco, Asda and Morrisons are inundating council planners with plans to build new stores or massively expand existing ones.
Perhaps the biggest developments are planned in Gloucester, where tomorrow, city planners will debate two huge plans which could change the retail future of the city forever.
Tesco want to knock down its current store at St Oswald's in the city, and build one on the same spot three times bigger. They said the store would cost £25 million and create 160 new jobs.
Meanwhile, Morrisons are the key retail part of an ambitious plan to regenerate the Railway Triangle area of the city, where a £34 million development would include a new supermarket, a business park and fastfood outlets.
Sainsbury's plans to almost double the size of their store have hit a delay in Chippenham, where councillors voted against giving it permission at a planning meeting. They also voted against refusing the scheme too, and it was deferred to give more time for planning officers – who had recommended it for permission – to thrash out conditions to the scheme.
The store want to build an upstairs to massively expand their non-food sales, and would also build a two-storey car park on the Bath Road site, but the local chamber of commerce, and campaigners from the town's Civic Society are opposed to the idea.
In Malmesbury, debate is still raging about whether the town should see its first large out-of-town supermarket, and both Waitrose and Sainsbury say they will submit planning applications by the end of this year for two different sites, while in Melksham, Sainsbury has responded to the opening earlier this year of a new Asda on the edge of town.
Meanwhile, in Frome, Asda has unveiled plans to expand its Warminster Road store by nearly 20,000sq ft. Councillors in Frome are currently debating whether the town centre needs a new supermarket, but Asda have responded with their own plans which would create 25 new jobs.
And elsewhere in Somerset, supermarkets are working with football clubs to get new stores built. In Cheddar, debate is also raging about a plan to relocate the village's football club's facilities and build a Tesco on the site.
In Yeovil, the League One team want to sell their training ground to a supermarket firm and build new facilities nearby.
Comments
Kind words...but it's not about me, enough people in Frome do act this way despite there being ample provision of supermarkets. Nevermind the retail giants, a bigger threat is the c12% (and growing) of retail spend taking place online yet we still have our shops.
Most of us will be spending less in the coming years and a bit more competition between supermarkets could be useful. But we'll still have some discretionary spending and if you think a shop is great, don't stop at the theory, keep using it.
By Roger_Burnett at 19:23 on 01/12/11
Reportyes Roger if we could rely on others to act like you then our local shops would survive. Unfortunately not everyone behaves like that. It only takes a 15% drop in turnover to wipe out the profits of most independents. So if only one in six customers buy from the big multiples the local shop dies
By friendoffrome at 08:38 on 01/12/11
ReportSome years ago, my parents had a small shop in Silver Street, Warminster. My Father, purchased from one of the leading Chocolate manufacturers, a number of boxes of large Chocolate bars in special labels, at a special price. He saw it as an opportunity to make some money, and give his customers a good deal. However, a couple of days after delivery, my Mother was shopping in the old Tesco store, that Warminster had then. To her amazement, there were the same bars with special wrappers, and the price was far lower, than my Father could purchase the bars for, though he dealt regularly, directly with the manufacturer. He had been conned. That was back in the 1960s. Since then, I have watched as the large commercial empires, play games with the public....There have been proven cases of price fixing between supermarkets for instance...All the time, these companies tell us how much they are helping us, and they don't all care to well for their staff. Now, many of them have people conned into serving themselves to add a few more to the unemployment lines. How many of the small, independent shops are left in Silver Street, George Street, or anywhere else? The Supermarkets know exactly how to work us, from our loyalty cards, and we dangle like puppets before them....If you are over forty, what do you buy in the Supermarket now, that you used to buy somewhere else? What happened to all the little family run Service Stations, Newsagents, Grocers, Butchers, Bakers etc? Soon the Supermarkets will have us at their mercy completely, along with the other giants of enterprise. Don't for one minute they will be concerned for the poor, or anyone else...Profit is all they care for.
By derryhawk at 22:57 on 30/11/11
ReportI'm looking forward to Waitrose opening in Warminster next year, however there are so many supermarkets popping up in towns. I'm not sure all are really needed.
By Debs1000 at 20:29 on 30/11/11
ReportThere is a supermarket war but we shouldn't be so fatalistic. I live near Asda but don't shop there and won't when it's a bit bigger because I can choose where I shop. ( I'm of the orange bag tendency instead.)
I don't buy books on Amazon because it's there either, I use Hunting Raven because they're quick and good and because I want to live in a town with a good bookshop. I didn't buy a telescope from a website, I went to the shop on Catherine Hill (who were great - sorry I forget what you're called).
The town will only end up a no mans land etc if the people of Frome shop elsewhere or online for everything. We've got enough choice to do this now, if we wanted to, and we don't.
I'll carry on supporting the good shops (not all of them are great by the way) and so will many of us. It's our decisions about where we spend our money that dictates what's in our town centre.
Game over or game on?
By Roger_Burnett at 18:34 on 30/11/11
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