Sainsbury's

Submissions to SLDC Planning are still being accepted I suspect.

There has always been a strong spirit in Ulverston and the surrounding area. It is a people centred town and continues to battle for the people and businesses of the town who, given the chance are self sufficient. It is this buoyant attitude that politicians need to recognise ( and even be wary of). The town attracts people who support it strongly with entrepreneurial flair that will show itself more and more as Ulverston struggles for survival ( The Ulverston Brewery, the Marl International, the LED business  that is now a world leader. Glaxo laboratories that are returning once again.) An increasing number of large companies are attempting to take advantage of imagined opportunities. These they can quickly find are not so attractive as they first thought because of lack of local support so that they pull out leaving gaps in the provision of services. Examples are the Armstrongs Insurance a thriving local business bought up be Swensens only to close shortly afterwards leaving Ulverston without this service. Tesco at the moment are not being supported as well as they had hoped and could close up any day because of the strong competition coming from the community based Coop.

Sainsbury’s supermarket is of very limited value to the town of Ulverston and can cause enormous harm as a result of it’s attempt to gain a foothold. We already have a thriving supermarket with a strong local bias which combines with low cost shops in town to provide and enviable service to the town.

Most of Sainsbury’s appeal comes from sophisticated campaigning which appeals to myths held by some of the public. Ulverston is one of the remaining towns in the country were people value each other highly. With the economic situation even this is being challenged; yet this is precisely when people need to value each other because this is the most important thing in a community: people.

It is a myth that another supermarket is needed in the town for the following reasons:

1. It is not cheaper. Time and time again when the facts are really examined rather than the myths accepted, people find that goods purchased from small well run businesses are cheaper. Furthermore the service comes with a genuine smile based on honest hard work for the community. Local businessmen know how to resource quality products using a network of local suppliers. Butchers can access local farmers with the situation that they even know the animals that have been slaughtered  specifically to provide meat on their counter. Beef that has been fattened with food that ensures quality taste. Where a cheap cut is needed than they again can supply this way below supermarket price. Only this week my family were offered and bought  a pork hock at £1:20 for a kilogramme this gave 500 gm of local meat at a price way below supermarket prices. Vegetables are another case in point where not only prices can be 30% of supermarket prices on the market stalls but local shops provide a far wider range of everyday veg at lower prices than the supermarket.

2. Supermarkets are not need in that most people work either in Barrow or Kendal and shop there. For those that don’t Barrow supermarkets can be accessed by car at £3.50 petrol and with a return journey of less than 40 minutes - a monthly trip being all that is needed. Several local Coops serve the community well with the bulk of products needed that aren’t covered by the local shops.

3. The proposed location is not only dangerous to potential foot traffic but also to car travel being situated where insufficient visibility is available . Through traffic will also cause significant delay on a busy main road, the A590 between the motorway and Ulverston and Barrow.

4. What the new supermarket can offer is free parking at a time when thanks to cooperation with SLDC the car park charges are being reviewed with the criteria that they are set to ensure maximum usage in the town and hence high income rather than a regime over the past twenty years where charges have been in line with the tourist car parks in the Lakes where there is a captured market. Here in Ulverston other towns have benefited from traffic and a thriving market is now struggling in contrast with other northern towns where the town has been able to set the charges to suit the town and ensure that this important resource is used to 85% capacity (Stockbridge Lane by contrast has operated for years at less than 5% and thus bring in only £10,000 per year to benefit SLDC on a car park that was willed to the town for its own benefit..

The high car parking charges have been a nightmare for the trade in the town . Now there is the potential a new era when once again trade will return to the town.

5. The false argument of Sainsbury is glaringly apparent when they state that they will create new jobs. First the numbers are inflated by counting part time jobs but far more important is the fact that for every new job provided it is likely that two will be lost – one to the shops in town but easily forgotten those in the locality that are the suppliers who operate on small profit margins made worse by lower demand these businesses depend on the maximum trade provided by dependable local shops and markets.

6. The last cruel injustice brought to a caring town is that large companies inevitably use many lawyers to take advantage of tax loopholes which in practice the government aren’t able to plug. The small local businessman has no access to these resources of expertise and trades at a disadvantage. MPs have recently demonstrated their frustration with Starbucks, Google, Tesco who pay little to no tax.

Why Sainsbury’s ?  Prominent tax campaigner Richard Murphy, from Tax Research UK states that very few companies are completely "clean": the Co-op bank has an offshore banking arm, the BBC's use of freelance contracts has been attacked. The Guardian Media Group itself has been criticised for holding some of its assets through companies in the Cayman Islands and Luxembourg. It is human nature to take advantages where they are available.

“Starbucks is a nice easy target at the end of the road, and Murphy says the fact the Daily Mail is calling for a boycott shows which way the tide is running. But the problem of tax avoidance is deep-rooted and ultimately only politicians can change the landscape. Their Faustian pact with multinationals has to end. This is about much more than where we buy our morning latte.”

We call upon this planning committee of politicians to support the underdog. The repercussions amongst local people at the sense of injustice will be enormous if they don’t . They have a very strong sense of justice.

The Future

It is important to consider the likely possibilities if a supermarket was accepted. The management of a large proportion of the trade with then pass to remote executives that will have no allegiance to out town. With transport costs rising steadily and the principal of operation of a supermarket being based on the use of wide road networks then supermarkets situated away from the national networks will be the first to be discarded when it is recognised that economy of travel is paramount. Thus the Furness , stuck out on a limb will be very vulnerable.

By contrast local traders with their detailed local knowledge build close links with local suppliers and keep transport costs down. This enables the low costs of food that local shops enjoy.

The successful future surely in difficult times is for trade to remain in the hands of small family businesses who have  a strong feeling of loyalty not only to their customers but also to the farm suppliers they use. Unlike Nationally based companies like Tesco and Sainsbury’s food is not shipped from even Europe whilst fuel prices permit this. Surely this model of supply cannot continue at a time when the worlds resources of fuel are having to be shared amongst  counties like China with their the rapidly expanding fuel hungry middle classes .

No, keeping trade in the hands of canny local businessmen is essential for a town which can take care of itself and could easily be abandoned by remote executives in London or even in Europe – in Germany and Bonn in the future. Here low cost and well managed car parks will be essential not only to local traders but also to SLDC as a sources of income (one lost to the SLDC if a supermarket is in charge).