“Some people like the idea of a quaint little town, full of little gaslit alleyways, where cheeky urchins play with hoop and stick. Fortunately, that is a fairy story and until people decide to change their shopping habits, you can keep saying good bye to independent shops.

Lets do a survey - how many planners shop exclusively at independent retailers?

Of course it is almost an unchallengeable article of faith among some quarters that markets and small shops are somehow essential to the fabric of society. Markets open far too early and have gone home by 3pm. What use is that to working people?!

Supermarkets are justifiably popular. They have "taken over" because the British public love them.

I agree with John of Helston - the past has gone. You cannot recreate it or try and manipulate people's shopping habits. Unless your town competes, it will fall behind and people will naturally gravitate to the town that accommodates the best range of retailers.”

“And not before time, and other measures need to be put in place to limit all sorts of planning applications.
Developers of housing estates, build a mixture of housing, ie 1 bed, 2 bed, and so on, with the planning authority having a say in what is built. Then house holders put in planning applications to increase the size of the property they have just purchased, thereby tipping the balance between the availablity of different size properties. How mad is that?”

“Wherever do these planners get their ideas? I think most of them are incapable of planning their breakfasts, never mind how we all live. They think if they close some supermarkets we will all flock back to the little shops - what rubbish, most will drive to the supermarket in the next town or the one beyond that before that myth becomes a reality. Supermarkets destroy the community? More rubbish. What did the independent shops do? Gave somewhere to shop and maybe to meet and chat to a friend. All this now happens in supermarkets, nothing has been lost except the tremendous inconvenience of hiking up and down the high street carrying a handbasket five times per week, an activity which no-one has time for with both partners working. If the councils want to tempt people back to the town centres, then stop charging businesses such outrageous taxes and stop charging for use of the car parks which most people need in order to reach the towns because the planners housed them all in estates miles away! The only thing which put shops out of business were council greed forcing their prices into uncompetative levels and making visits to town too expensive, and our modern lifestyles which give us no time for traditional shopping styles. That era ended with the single bread-winner family. When the day of the privately owned car is over, so will supermarkets be as it will be difficult to carry the supplies for a week in one load and only then might small shops make a come-back. In the era of the small shop, the population was much smaller, lived closer to the town centre and lacked the means to go anywhere else except by cumbersome buses. For the time being all that has changed. Stop trying to make people live in the past, it has been out-grown. If you want to tempt people back into the centres, you will have to put something other than shops there to tempt them in. What we need most of all is local government with some clue about how cause and effect work, and with some ability to do joined-up thinking. Things won't happen just because they wish it, neither will they happen because councils try to force them upon us. This shower are just a bunch of dreamers with their heads stuck in some rose - tinted vision of a past which was probably nothing like what they like to imagine anyway. What useless chair-polishers they are - and all voted in and paid for by us, so perhaps we deserve them. Why can't voting slips have a box for "none of the above"?”

“One thing the supermarkets seem to be stable with their pricing all the year round, not like the local shops, soon as the visitors start arriving up goes the prices, I would rather do without or go further afield, and still be in pocket.”

“Thank you Bill you've just proved my point. The general public are to blame for losing the character of their towns and cities. If you only thought about the reason so many local businesse go bust is a direct result of action by the supermarkets. Selling goods below cost price to get people in the doors goes a long way to killing off the opposition. It is not a level playing field and the supermarkets play dirty. Still what do you care if every town and city in the country looks like every other with nothing but supermarkets to visit?”

“If, as is always portrayed, there is so much support for the "friendly little shops", how come they are going out of business? No-one is dragged kicking and screaming and forced to do their shopping at the supermarkets - they go there of their own free will and because the supermarkets are cheaper!!! The average shopper doesn't give a toss about where their money ends up, so long as they can do their weekly shop at a lower cost to their purse.”

“A bit like shutting the stable door after the horse has bolted. After letting the supermarkets have carte blanche to take over communities and destroy the character of all our towns and cities now they talk about supporting the local businesses. Too little too late. Supermarkets rule. Never mind that the money taken at the tills benefits the community not one iota and that taken by local businesses stays in Cornwall. How blinkered the public have been to let them take over.”