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Hadleigh Entertainments Committee
Well its now October and things now get busy for the committee and its time to ask the question
Coming Events
CHARITY RACE NIGHT
CHARITY RACE NIGHT
Friday 17th October 2008 - 7.30pm start
Venue: Great Blakenham Village Hall, Nr IPSWICH
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Superstores threaten High Street trading
As Hadleigh traders wait for the next stage in the Tesco saga, a group of MPs has warned that consumers and local shopkeepers will suffer if supermarket chains expand unchecked. Once they have saturated the high street and wiped out small local shops, they'll push up the prices, says the Parliamentary Small Shops Group.
The big losers will be convenience stores, such as grocers, newsagents and petrol forecourts, who, says the report, are unlikely to survive as the big four - Tesco, Asda, Sainsbury's and Morrisons - continue to expand.
MPs warn of shops closures and hiked prices
They want the Government to appoint a retail regulator to oversee the retail industry. And they want an immediate moratorium on further takeovers and mergers.
The dominations of the supermarkets will have knock-on effects on local communities...the most vulnerable groups - the elderly, the less affluent and others without transport - will be hardest hit, say the MPs.
They report that between 1991 and 1997, 4,000 food shops closed in rural areas. Local shops have transformed into convenience stores to compete with the superstores. But now the majors are expanding their convenience outlets, again at the expense of the small shopkeepers, forcing them into a "head-on" fight.
And this fight, it predicts, will be waged in the next 10 years. A decade, they say, to save the high street.
