Marks & Spencer - an Alternative View

I must respond to Harry Blakeley's article praising them proposed M&S development and calling for planning restrictions to be relaxed to allow a retail park at Marsh Lane and but the other side of the argument.

It is interesting that the majority of small locally owned retailers countrywide as represented by the Federation of Private Businesses (FPB) and the Federation of Small Businesses (FSB) have come out in almost total opposition to such edge-of-town and out-of-town developments. In the words of FSB Chairman Nick Goulding “Retail parks are masters of self-praising promotion whether it is in their bombastic newsletters or in their sanctimonious public pronouncements and their benefits are overplayed. Yes they provide some jobs but at the expense of existing jobs in the high street and most of the jobs that are created are low paid and menial. Moreover, the vast majority of the cash spent in retail parks disappears out of the local community into corporate bank accounts. That is the fundamental difference between national and independent local retailers. Money spent in locally owned shops is retained in the community to drive growth and prosperity. That is why smaller businesses are so important.”

Many towns in the UK are already suffering from the so called doughnut effect where once bustling town centres have become dead and decaying cores surrounded by harsh concrete and glass retail parks. A retail park at Marsh Lane would be a malignant cancer and rather than contributing to the regeneration of Hayle it would be another nail in the coffin of its destruction.

Yet local retailers have said that a retail park will not adversely affect trade, to the contrary some have said that a retail park will bring more people to the town and lead to an increase in trade. I don’t know which world these people are living in but its not the real one. I have not found a single example of an out-of-town retail park resulting in an increase in trade for existing shops. Indeed all of the examples I could find from afar apart as Glasgow and Brighton have shown that in all cases the out-of-town retail has just pushed trade from existing shopping centres to the new sites where easy access, free parking and convenience means less ‘footfall’ in the shopping areas.

A retail park is like giant vacuum hoovering up trade, money and jobs from the high street. Could Bigglestone and the Jolly Bodger really survive with a large DIY store on their doorstep? What hope is their for the Foundry and Copperhouse Chemists with a Boots superstore? Could the florists, greengrocers bakers and butchers survive the onslaught from mighty M&S? How would the clothes and shoe shops compete with M&S, Brantano and Next around the corner? How would pet shops compete with a Petsmart.

Retail parks are nothing but parasites sucking the lifeblood out of the local community; the money spent in retail parks disappears straight out of the county. Recent studies in Britain indicate that large retail stores have a negative net effect on retail employment up to 10m away. As national retailers are more "efficient" in their use of labour, they employ far less people than smaller or specialty retailers and pay lower wages. Rather than boosting wages the dominance of national retailers in the local economy can actually have a depressive effect on local earnings. They also impact on indirect local employment as new buildings, fittings and maintenance are usually carried out by central contractors, and their produce comes from central distribution centres, rather than local producers, suppliers and wholesalers.

Cornish people are always going on about Cornwall having a distinctive character yet they seem intent into making Cornwall a clone of the rest of the country. If we are not careful there will be a thriving retail park on the outskirts of Hayle sucking money out of the local economy while Hayle is dominated by boarded up shops, charity shops and estate agents. The tourists will stop visiting because Hayle will look like any other depressed, post-industrial, neglected run down town with nothing to commend it and its unique Cornishness which they all crave will have been buried in concrete as it prostitutes itself in the name of retail therapy.
 

This article was submitted by 'Sandsifter' who as asked that we do not publish his real identity. We welcome your articles on this or any other topic  that relates to Hayle. All submissions will be considered for publication no matter what viewpoint you may have, See the CONTRIBUTE page for more details. For shorter comments why not visit our DISCUSSION FORUM