Date published: 2006/06/26
The BBC says:
Shops, employment and the countryside in England all flourish if plans for superstores are refused, a report says.
The findings by the Campaign to Protect Rural England (CPRE) and the Plunkett Foundation are based on the area around Saxmundham in East Suffolk.
Planning permission for an outside town superstore there was refused in 1997.
The report found greengrocers, butchers and bakers have since prospered but a retailers' organisation cautioned against drawing sweeping conclusions.
The British Retail Consortium, which represents stores of all sizes, said consumers are influenced by a range of factors.
"We are delighted that these shops seem to be thriving, but the link between this and the rejection of planning permission is far from clear," a spokesman said.
The report's authors argue the benefits of rejecting the supermarket included small stores doing well, an increase in farm shops and markets, more firms adding choice and value and local stores helping to keep communities alive.
It also ensured local countryside was well managed and served the community.
In the area around Saxmundham, the number of food suppliers rose from 300, in 1997, to 370.
And the number of shops - 81 - had remained constant, bucking the national trend.
Another piece of completely misleading "research". Even assuming their figures are accurate, they prove nothing, because they have not controlled for the zillion and one other possible factors, and they use an extremely narrow definition of what is (allegedly) good and what is (allegedly) bad. Of course the CPRE, like most of the comfortable middle class, hates big business, and that by itself makes the report suspect. On the local television news tonight they found plenty of people (not a random sample of course) in Saxmundham who did much of their shopping at the nearest Tescos (just one not located in Saxmundham itself). And it should be up to the people, not up to the comfortable middle class, whether or not they shop at Tescos (or any other superstore). The CPRE unfortunately is one organisation that does much harm to the countryside, because they try to preserve it as it was back in 1950, and unfortunately it is now the 21st century.
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