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Local ShopsOften shop rents are too high for new or small businesses to start. Councils should have some shops for rent at low cost. This would help to keep alive village life in rural areas. If you look at the number of vehicles at any one time visiting an out of town superstore and consider the amount of energy and the build up of exhaust fumes, surely it is more environmentally sound for one large lorry to take the supplies to one village shop where local people can go to buy them. Costs could be kept down by a number of different means like making village shops a Zero Rate Zone if their income is less than the VAT exempt rate. The village shops themselves would need to be large enough to carry the stock and choice required. Grants to enlarge village stores could be used and local shops could also become online collection centres.
Superstores destroy every business by selling everything; they give no back-up service with repairs. Their petrol sales will destroy rural retailers. Country folk will have to go to town for food and fuel creating what we are trying to prevent. i.e. traffic pollution and parking. Will prescriptions be available locally, or will we rely on going to the nearest town? With the closing of some of our high street shops, eg: Woolworths and M&S, some of these could be used for ongoing farmers markets
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