General Chat

When I was younger and my son was small I used to use Norwich city centre for shopping plus some of the smaller shops near my house, also fairly close to the centre, for many things, I would also use our local market for fruit and veg etc. As my lifestyle has changed I have been unable to use the market as they often close their stalls at 4.30 pm. and as I cannot walk far now or carry home heavy bags of shopping (probably what did my shoulders in years ago) I have to use somewhere it is easy to park close to. Now I am living 5 miles from the city centre I use the nearest supermarket, Somerfields, and the shops nearby it, and the small Tescos enroute from my son's home to here. Now and again I will go to a big Tescos, if I want to look at clothing too, or the Asda, for the same reason. I think we have all done the same, local Post Offices are closing because there aren't enough people using them, but they are still badly needed by certain members of the public. A case of 'use it or lose it' most of the time, but by the time we bemoan the loss, it is too late, we have helped cause the closure by our own actions, however unintentional.

I have to leave the house at 7.45am to take daughter to school, then straight on to work. Don't finish work until 6 pm most days. The rest of the time I seem to be playing catch-up on the house work. Therefore I have to use Tescos because they are the only outlet open - would prefer to use the local greengrocers, bakers etc but they all close at 5pm. Hate using the big supermarkets because I feel they are taking over, especially Tescos, seemingly with their fingers in every pie, i.e. insurance, phones, credit cards etc.. I work in retail myself albeit a national 'off- license' chain and we do not close until 10pm. If small retailers were open later I would be more than happy to shop with them as when I do shop at the 'locals' I find that they sell local produce and would prefer to pay my hard earned cash to them than put it in the coffers of the giants who dictate the prices to the growers/producers and therefore control prices/costs. We all suffer in the long run. Libby

High Street versus Supermarkets. When people used their local high street shops, most people shopped nearly every day. Along the street they would meet their neighbours and chat...all the shopkeepers knew their customers personally, there was a real sense of community. These days, with out of town supermarkets, we get in our private little capsules, can only wave to someone if we see them, and its not often we see lots of people we all know in that big store, let alone the store staff! I think that is the worst thing about them, the way they along with cars have taken the community feeling out of a town or village.

This is a topic of great interest to me. When I first came to the US about 6 years ago, one of the first things that struck me is how every city is a carbon copy of any other in that the same few chains, not just supermarkets but restaurants and almost everything else, hairdressers, oil-change places, you name it, dominate the landscape. Small enterprises are really being suffocated and everything is franchised so that a relative minority make the money and there is little variety or real choice. Personally I find it very depressing and even soul-destroying. Corporations rule, not people, and I may be becoming a grumpy old woman but I really don't like the globe I currently live on. I'm not sure what can be done to reverse the trend, and on a visit back to the UK last year, Britain seems to be becoming almost as bad. I think it's a very sad state of affairs. It's not that I'm nostalgic for the past - they weren't particularly the 'good old days' - it's more that civilization as we know it doesn't seem to me to be all that civilized.

Supermarkets have a valuable place in today's society, but there must always be other choices. The trouble now is that there is not a level playing field. Big supermarkets seem to get planning consent with relative ease, often by promising extra 'community benefits'. They have large, free car parks whereas using high street retailers means forking out for parking. Supermarkets can attract customers by using 'loss leaders' e.g. cheap milk and bread, small stores can't afford to do this. Supermarkets can turn the screw with their suppliers, making them offer specials and 'BOGOFs'. The list goes on and on. My nearest large supermarket is Tesco and I haven't been there for months as I think they are the worst of the bunch. I use local butchers and farm shops where possible for fresh stuff. Things will only change when people vote with their feet and start (in significant numbers) to use other outlets. One day perhaps we will realise that there is no such thing as 'cheap food' and the cost must be measured in more than the till total.

what sort of shopping are we talking T ?

This actually made me think because I too bemoan the loss of small shops. But I realise that I use the supermarket for a weekly shop. We used to have a lovely local butcher but I only used him occasionally, my reason being the way in which I shop. i don't carry much cash and shop using plastic. I also don't carry a cheque book. He would only take cash or cheques. He was also dearer than the supermarket. We lost him, the shop has stood empty now for about 5 months. we also lost the greengrocer, I occasionally used them but they too only took cash. that shop unit was absorbed into the smallish Somerfields branch (These are local shops not town centre.) I suppose I use the supermarket because it is easy, all under one roof and good free parking. But I rarely use Tesco because I don't like the way they are gaaining a monopoly. I tend to use mainly Morrisons and Sainsbury's but also use the local Somerfields. I do use the local bakers too. We do have a llargish sainsbury's still in the town centre, plus a Wilkinsons. Ann Glos

Hello Matey! Any sort of shopping hun....clothes, food, you name it

I've only lived in Norwich for three years so I can't really comment, though people here do say that the supermarkets have crippled the city centre. I can comment on where I used to live in Essex. When I first moved there 20 years ago, there was on Tesco in the town centre. It was big enough to cater for the towns needs back then, but with the development of that part of Essex to to the expansion of Stansted airport, new housing estates sprung up all over the town and outside. Now there are THREE Tesco's serving the town. During the applications, other supermarkets were turned down flat, yet Tesco won! What happened to competition? Meanwhile, the High Street continued to suffer. Several Greengrocers opened in an effort to compete, but were closed within a year, just as one example.

The above extracted from a blog. http://stickrattling*com/blogthing/2006/02/23/supermarket-vs-high-street/ What's your view on what's is happening to our High Streets, and the ever-accelerating competition between the major supermarkets.

The whole supermarket debate seems quite top of mind. I generally tend to take the side of the underdog and personally find it harder and harder to walk through the doors of a Tesco. Partly for rational, reasoned, right on views about loss of high street vitality, industrialisation of the food chain etc. but mainly because it just seems bleak and depressing and lifeless. It’s all sort of wrapped and soulless and deadening. But I nonetheless have a degree of sympathy for the supermarkets. Clearly they represent a modernistic improvement on the high street and there’s a faint whiff of wanting to return to the 1950s domestic housewife social model in the campaigning against them. What I really want is for the high street to reinvent itself. Late opening, a wide mix of food shopping options from value through to premium, easier access via proximity, parking or home delivery. I completely understand all the hurdles involved in achieving this – longer working hours for sole trading retailers, etc etc. And how far high streets have already been forced into decline. Regulatory assistance clearly needs to be part of the mix. But I’m interested in how high street retailers (and regeneration agencies?)can work together to rebrand high streets as part of the fightback against supermarkets.

I prefer shopping in local family run shops,Im lucky theres plenty here. we have an excellent fish/meat market too. But I can understand why people shop in supermarkets.