[andrewb]

I ask this question as i've come across it quite a lot recently.

With the influx of chain stores and supermarkets, the homogenising of towns across the UK is well under way. Many, many towns are exactly the same, and I'd argue that although supermarkets bring jobs, and hence putting money in to our community, is that really the case? How much money do we lose from our town being just another chain store location?

I had the delight of wandering around the North Quarter (or at least thats what I think its called) in Manchester. There were a lot of independent shops all selling unique things that I hadn't come across before. It was really interesting unlike the countless clones of chain stores in Manchester town center.

Is it really to our benefit that supermarkets (namely Tesco) have so much power around the country? Forcing local shops to close, paying farmers a pittance, importing goods from around the world as they're cheaper than our homemade alternatives?

Tescos and other such companies have considerable influence in many places of power. They employ just under 300thousand people, thats a considerable amount of bargaining power with any government.

Do we really want a further expansion of profit driven supermarkets and unattractive, uninteresting clone towns?