Labour leader Ed Miliband says people should have more say over the 'Tesco-isation' of Britain's high streets
Ed Miliband has expressed concern at the "Tesco-isation" of Britain's high streets, saying residents should have more of a say over the spread of supermarkets in their areas.
The Labour leader, who has expressed similar views before in a Guardian interview, said he would like to see specific policy changes. His remarks follow street riots in Bristol last week that police linked to a Tesco supermarket.
In private Miliband has been ambivalent about the spread of supermarkets run by the big four, arguing that they may in fact help revive high streets in inner cities.
But speaking on the BBC Politics Show, he said: "I think local people should have more of a say over what happens on their high street, and that's one of the things that we're looking at.
"I think it is a problem that people think the character of their local high street is being changed and they have no power against big corporations in this country. Absolutely I think that is an issue."
Asked if Labour would prevent more supermarkets on the high street, he said: "I think that is an issue, yes and it is something that we're looking at ? It's about local people. It is about planning."
Miliband and his advisers are cautious about being seen to take on big supermarkets, partly as they were given a clean bill of health by successive competition commission inquiries instituted under a Labour government.
Labour also has to make a judgment on whether the big four dominate simply because they are popular and more efficient, or because they can stifle competition and choice.
Some of the objections to the way high streets are changing come from the Blue Labour thinking now gripping parts of the party, which advocates a more conservative approach on some issues, to win back working-class voters.
Similar thinking has emerged from ResPublica, the thinktank run by Phillip Blond, one of the leading thinkers behind the Conservative's big society.
A report by ResPublica last month called for changes to local planning laws. It suggested a levy on the big supermarkets that could be redistributed to small shopkeepers, possibly through rate relief. It also suggested allowing communities to designate retail mix in neighbourhood plans, and a community right to appeal
Blond said last month: "The number of traditional grocery stores has been declining over many years. In 1950 there were around 90,000 butchers and greengrocers. By 2000 this figure had plummeted to fewer than 20,000. The number of bakeries has fared only slightly better declining from around 25,000 to 8,000 over the same period.
"The rise of these vast supermarkets, with the infrastructure needed to sustain them, a bias in the planning system and their enormous purchasing power has crowded out competition. These developments have made it impossible for small retailers to grow. We now have a situation where it is unimaginable that a small family-owned shop could grow into a retailing powerhouse like Tesco, or Sainsbury."
The report itself argued: "Britain every year is less and less a nation of shopkeepers ? assets and ownership are concentrating, finance has become the preserve of the City of London and high streets have converged as though by centralised design."
It adds: "When we talk about rebalancing the economy, what we are really talking about is shifting back the locus of ownership and economic control to communities. The goal and evidence of a genuinely new economic settlement, of any political stripe, must be the end of this declining trend in popular ownership. The challenge of the next settlement ? in the retail industry as in the economy at large ? will be embedding the small and the local owner into our economy, without compromising competitiveness or consumer benefits."
Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2011/may/01/ed-miliband-supermarket-policy
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