'Non' is no good

In her lecture "Will Wal-Mart eat Britain?" she explained how communities in the US are fighting to limit the size of superstores and, crucially, banning them from some locations.

In a report called Clone Town Britain published in 2004 the New Economics Foundation (NEF) say independently-owned general stores are closing at such a pace that, between 1997 and 2003 alone 50 small such shops butchers, fishmongers, grocers, were closing business each week!

Andrew Sims, NEF's policy director indicates that local authorities have existing but seldom used powers to "promote economic and social well being" and could certainly as has been done in many US places define the nature of their economy.

As with the US the growth of superstores means large portions of money leaving the local area entirely since local shops used local services.

The large stores aim to attract custom from outside the town and this would add a burden on costs for the local authority for road and car park maintenance, policing, etc which would directly increase our current monstrous local tax so benefits from mass availability are thereby minimised as a consequence.

All this is not the working of a free market but an increasingly feudal retail economy run by a mere handful of invisible chainstore barons!

Marlow is teetering on the brink of local economy collapse!

Arcada in Northern California has placed a cap on the number of restaurants in the town, but just look at the epidemic of restaurants and boutiques in Marlow totally out of compliance with its needs!

And rumour has it that, whilst Waitrose has expanded into selling flowers, confectionery, plants, newspapers and magazines, if they get their new monolith they will be offering books and clothes and have another restaurant!

In other words we would all be living in a standard, contrived, poorer, cloned community with our choices limited by unseen moguls!

Hardly a new world vision is it?

Bill Purdie, Marlow