Transition Island Blog

The House of Commons All Party Small Shops Group estimates that there will be no independent shops by 2015.

This equates to the closure of over 50,000 small businesses and a massive knock-on effect for other small businesses in the local community.

The Federation of Small Businesses is campaigning on Keeping Trade Local.

Why?

• 2000 local shops are closing each year
• By 2015 it has been forecasted that there will be no independent retailers in the UK (amounting to a potential closure of over 50,000 small businesses)
• The average person now travels 893 miles a year to shop for food
• 25 % of FSB members are in the retail and wholesale trade
• In the four years prior to 1996 7,337 independent stores closed and during the same period the market for convenience stores grew at a rate of 5 % each year

Instead…

• To obtain 1 million signatures for the FSB’s petition: http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/keeptradelocal/
• To secure the future of small shops across the UK and safeguard the choice and competition that people expect in the market place
• Ending the two market approach. The superstore and the small independent shop market should not be considered as two separate markets. Neither should investigations into the impact of supermarkets on local economies be limited to the grocery market
• The introduction of a truly independent regulator to review local planning
• Automatic entitlement to Small Business Rate Relief
• Prohibiting of unfair pricing advantages, such as below cost selling
• Addressing the problem of free out of town parking
• Ensuring that out of town supermarkets allocate space for small retailers

It is NOT

• The FSB’s Keep Trade Local campaign is NOT an anti-globalisation campaign or anti-supermarket

opinion

Out-of-town supermarkets are dependent upon cars to get people to their store and carry their weekly shop back home. Local shops can be accessed by foot - oftenwhen doing other things in town anyway, so produce comes home in smaller loads.

This uses less petrol, less plastic bags, and provides for more competition within the town by local business owners. Profits do not disappear to another country. Responsibility is more visible. Personal customer service is more natural.

action
We urge you to sign the FSB’s Downing Street petition to secure the future of small shops across the UK and safeguard the choice and competition that people expect in the market place.  http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/keeptradelocal/

This entry was posted on Monday, April 7th, 2008 at 9:00 am and is filed under Eco-Action, Eco-News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.