True, but tonight, and tomorrow - when over four thousand people are expected to cram into Ilminster's three small streets and watch the age-old lights splutter into life at 7 p.m. sharp and then shop and eat mince pies and drink mulled wine, courtesy of the local shopkeepers - they're important. They're important because they're a real sign that Ilminster is still a thriving market town, with small retailers and a community which is prepared to put itself out to give everyone a bit of fun. They're also a sign of pride, in the shops and in the town. And it is all now at risk if a supermarket is built in the car park off Ditton Street.
Bryan Ferris has been in the vanguard of the war against the supermarket for three years now. He's lent me the enormous Lever-Arch file that he has painstakingly compiled, recording every letter between the planners, the town council, the chamber of commerce and other interested parties. It's gobsmackingly complex, the letters and reports tedious and full of long-winded gobbledegook. There are arguments about whether the proposed superstore will be sited in the centre of the town or to the west, how big will it be, where the car park will be built, how much townspeople spend in the town versus how much they already spend outside it. Fifty percent of the district council think it is a good idea; it is, they believe, what people 'need'. The highways department says that they cannot support the application unless the traffic system is altered, but the proposal will mean that it will be very easy for drivers to find and use the supermarket but much, much harder for them to reach Silver Street. The contents of the pile of documents are so turgid and convoluted that I can see why most people just cave in when confronted by planning departments.
Here's small sample from a document issued by the South Somerset District Council. The meeting was held on 8 June 2005 in the ballroom of the Shrubbery Hotel and its prime purpose was to try to resolve the deadlock about the one-way system. One of the councillors is reported as having suggested that 'perhaps the store could be located in the centre of the site' as he did 'not feel that siting it to the west was friendly to linked trips to the town centre and that better linkages would be achieved by the store being located to the east of the site and the car park to the west'. Councillor Kim Turner, in referring to 'a location for the store to the site, commented that English Nature may object, as such a siting would be against planning policy, it would have to be referred to the Regulation Committee and may be called in by the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister'. Later on in what was obviously a tortured meeting, 'The Planning Team Leader advised that this application could not be deferred on the basis of the location of the store within the site as such a change would need a new application to be submitted.' In the end, after almost four hours of talking, it was decided to defer the decision for two months, pending further reports into the effects of the one-way system and proposals for alternative traffic schemes.
One thing that puzzles me the most is the fact that the entire lengthy process has been conducted by developers acting on behalf of the supermarkets. No one yet knows which one is coming to Ilminster. Waitrose? Sainsbury's? Tesco?
We have a Co-op in the centre of Ilminster, a very modestsized shop as supermarkets go, but in Ilminster terms it is big - the biggest shop in the town. Everyone grumbles about the Co-op: it doesn't stock this or that, it's always a bit muddled and it's not cheap enough. One day in the summer of 2005, Charlie was standing in front of the dairy counter, choosing some cartons of Yeo Valley yoghurt. A woman standing next to him told him he shouldn't buy it here, better to drive five miles to Chard where he could buy it for far less in Sainsbury's.
In the 1950s, traditional Co-ops and small shops accounted for almost 80 percent of the nation's grocery trade. Supermarkets only had 20 percent. Today that is reversed and it is easy to see why. Supermarkets brought a huge range of affordable food to everyone. They were a boon to busy mothers with their one-stop philosophy which provided you with everything you needed for your home and larder. The rows of neat, orderly displays were enticing after the chaos of many small shops. And they were smart, baking bread on the premises to seduce shoppers with mouth-watering smells, arranging flowers and vegetables near the entrance to convince us of the healthy nature of their produce. Sainsbury's even has Jamie Oliver, guardian of our children's healthy eating, advertising its food on TV. But as supermarkets grew and grew and their market share increased, their impact on local towns and communities became anything but benign. In 1998 the Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions (DETR) undertook a nationwide project to try to assess the effect that supermarkets have on regional towns and the results were shocking. 'Large food stores can and have had an adverse impact on market towns and district centres . . . smaller centres which are dependent to a large extent on convenience retailing to underpin their function are most vulnerable to the effects of larger food store development in edge of town and out of centre locations.'
The study looked at specific examples: when Tesco opened a store on the outskirts of Cirencester, the market share of town centre food shops went down by 38 percent. In Warminster, the decline was 75 percent: in Fakenham, 64 percent. In Hove in 2003, the impact of a new 37,000-square-foot Tesco was felt by the local food shops within days of opening. The greengrocer's sales fell almost 30 percent and the post office lost 25 percent of its turnover.
The effect of a huge supermarket on a small town is not simply on the local shops. The New Economics Foundation examined the phenomenon they called 'Ghost Town Britain' and concluded the following:
Suppose a supermarket opens on the outskirts of a town and half the residents start to do one-third of their shopping there. These people still do two-thirds of their shopping in the town centre, while the other half still continues to do all its shopping in the centre. Although all the residents continue to patronise the town centre, its retail revenue drops about 16.7 percent - enough to start killing off the shops. This is a perverse market dynamic: a loss to the entire community that not a single person would have wanted. It is also self-reinforcing: once the down town starts to shut down, the people who might have preferred to shop there have no choice but to switch to the supermarket. What begins as a harmless ripple becomes a powerful and destructive wave.
Bryan and Elizabeth couldn't cope with a loss in revenue of 16.7 percent. And neither, I suspect, could John and Mary Rendell, or Aaron Driver in the wine shop. The fate of the baker is also vulnerable as would be the Ilminster Pharmacy, which sells a fabulous range of attractive soaps and smelly things to buy for presents, as well as carrying out all a chemist's expected functions. Attached to the chemist is a small health-food centre, run with engaging directness by Peter Green, who always has an answer to your problems and good advice as to what remedy might be suitable. They also have a small therapy unit in the back where a team of excellent local therapists, trained in sports massage and reiki, offer treatments. According to the New Economics Foundation's report on the effects of supermarkets on local pharmacies, they don't stand a prayer when the big boys come to town.
The judging is now over and Bryan and I are standing outside Lane's Garden Shop early on the Friday night, waiting for the festivities to begin. We've each got a mug of coffee in our hands and we're looking at the window that Elizabeth has created depicting The Secret Garden. She's used a mirror to represent a pond which reflects the multicoloured kingfisher perched on a branch above and it is obvious that it must have taken hours to make. Tonight is important for the Ferrises: they need to sell well to get the Christmas season off to a good start, their cash tills ringing before the inevitable slump in January and February. I've spent much of my working life reading statistics and noting their often gloomy outcomes. But now the numbers have names and faces on them. They're where I go on a Saturday morning to stock up on food, vegetables, bread, toothpaste, soap, a new book, a locally reared chicken, the morning newspaper, light bulbs, potting soil and so on. I can buy pretty much everything I need along Ilminster's high street and there's always the Co-op for 100 paper, bleach,
diet tonic and fizzy water. I'm well aware that I am in a minority: I'm middle-class and reasonably affluent and I don't have to watch every penny. For so many, supermarkets have revolutionised the way they shop and the ease with which they can. But they come at a very high price to local communities, all too often eradicating a way of life in their wake.
I don't know quite what the tipping point would be for our town - just how many shops would have to close before it would become a pointless exercise to shop in the high street because you just couldn't get all you needed. But if the greengrocer, the baker and the pharmacy were forced out of business, that would probably be enough to persuade Charlie and me to drive over to Chard (or Yeovil, or Crewkernel and load up the car from Tesco or Sainsbury's. But the loss of the small shops doesn't just drive shoppers like us out of the town; it also has an enormous impact on the economy of the local area.
It has been calculated that every £10 spent on a local food initiative - a shop, or a farm shop, even a direct-to-your-door vegetable box scheme - is worth £25 to the local economy. Small businesses use other small local businesses - the local locksmith, photocopier, accountant, and lawyer - and this keeps the money spinning round. Ten pounds spent in a supermarket produces only £14 of benefits to the wider local community. Supermarkets literally vacuum the money away from the local area: they stock almost no local products, so small vegetable growers are left without outlets. When small shops close down there is obviously a loss of jobs, and although some will find work at the supermarket, by no means all do. The National Retail Planning Forum researched the effect supermarkets have on local employment in the retail sector. In a 1998 report they said that the opening of every superstore resulted in the loss of 276 full-time local jobs.
In the autumn of 2005, there was a flurry of newspaper reports saying that the Cornish WI had told its members to boycott the supermarkets. The WI were concerned about the closures of village shops and small retailers and at their meeting on 18 October in Truro, Nan Collier, the local president, had announced this initiative. It seemed extreme for the WI to be calling for an outright ban and indeed, so it was. What Nan had in fact asked was that members take positive steps to support local retailers, not actually stop shopping in the mega stores. But such is the charged state of the supermarket in country minds that a sub-editor on the Western Morning News headlined the story 'WI Orders Boycott' and it was enough to guarantee national coverage.
Supermarkets are one of the twenty-first century's bogeymen. They break so many rules that they've become the target for environmentalists, foodies, animal lovers and anyone who cares and is concerned about the plight of the countryside, the farmers, food miles, agri-business and globalisation. There's been a great deal of research on what happens to market towns when supermarkets open, but a new study undertaken in East Suffolk between 1997 and 2004 shows what can happen if, as rarely occurs, local protesters have their way and a mega store is stopped in its tracks.
In 1997, one of the big chains applied for permission to build a store outside Saxmundham. To discover what effect this might have on local food producers and the local economy, eighty-one food shops in seven market towns and nineteen villages in the immediate area were asked to take part in a survey organised by the Campaign to Protect Rural England (CPRE). The shops were sourcing food from 300 local or regional food producers: sixty-seven of the eighty-one shops said they thought they would be forced to close if the superstore opened. All the producers who were interviewed said they had started small and depended on other small outlets for their survival. The producers and the retailers also supported a wide range of other businesses, such as builders, electricians, banks and accountants. After planning permission was refused, the local food economy continued to flourish.
Seven years later, the CPRE went back to see what had happened to Saxmundham in its years without a mega store. They found that fourteen of the eighty-one shops had closed, but fourteen new ones had opened, including five with post offices. All the market towns still had their butchers, bakers, fish shops and greengrocers. There were more farm shops and more farmers' markets. Local and regional food suppliers had increased from 300 to 370. All the butchers had taken on more staff. In every area the rural food economy had flourished, providing greater choice and diversity. This diversity had attracted tourists who were fed up with the cloning of our towns, so restaurants, pubs and B&Bs were thriving. A local meat market meant more cattle and sheep grazing in fields, which also attracted tourists. Additionally, the local food economy had provided a seed bed for new businesses, and local shops continued to provide a meeting place for the elderly, the infirm and the young who can't drive.
One of the most significant findings of the survey was the increasing demand for local and regional food. If there's a TV programme exposing illegal practices in the chicken industry, local butchers are always overwhelmed by demands for local birds. The more food is identified by its region, the greater confidence it inspires. Knowing that our vegetables and, in time, our pigs will wind up on tables within a few miles of our farm brings a real sense of responsibility. Supermarkets source only 5 percent of their food locally (though recent surveys suggest that 70 percent of buyers would like to buy locally), and I can't imagine that the bosses in the southeast of England lose much sleep if there's an outbreak of salmonella in the northwest.
Just as darkness falls, the Ilminster shopping evening gets under way. Up at the Meeting House, Bryan is organising and judging the children's fancy dress parade. In the market square, a children's orchestra is playing carols. A brightly lit teacup roundabout is parked outside the Co-op and hamburgers are cooking on a huge open barbecue. At 6.30, the Dazzling Sapphires, a cheerleader group of local schoolgirls, brave the cold in tutus and tights to pirouette down the street. They are followed by Santa Claus, who is followed by the fancy dress brigade. There are Red Riding Hoods and Captain Hooks, Oliver Twists and dashing White Knights. Mr B, dressed in top hat, grey waistcoat and pinstriped trousers, calls the crowd to order to present the prizes. Local MP David Laws congratulates the winners of the windows competition and then the vicar, Alistair Wallace, wearing full black robes, a wide-brimmed black felt hat and wire-framed glasses, and looking as though he has stepped straight out of the pages of Trollope, awards prizes to the children. The winner is fiveyear-old Callum Elsworth, splendidly dressed as Asian, with a eat's mask and plenty of yellow ribbons for his lion's mane. Down below the small stage, his parents, grandparents and an apparently endless stream of cousins and aunts clap their delight.
It's easy in our current climate to romanticise a town like Ilminster. Locally, it is reckoned to be a 'nice' place, unlike nearby Chard and Yeovil, which both have problems with binge-drinking and drugs. Certainly in a time when the home news agendas are dominated by stories of binge-drinking teenagers throwing up in gutters, violence on inner-city estates, failing schools and fractured communities, the cosiness of a small market town getting together to celebrate Christmas on a Thursday night is wholly seductive. But it is narve to think that everything in Ilminster conforms to an idealised image of community life, embedded in families and annual festivals which mark the regular turning of the seasons, connecting us to nature's cycles. There's unemployment, illness, divorce and every other pitfall that is so much a part of the human lot. For a few short moments that evening, however, I get a sense of something else which all too often seems to be missing, certainly from my own life in the hustle of the city: a community which hangs together, bound through geography and common purpose, one which knows how to celebrate small but pivotal achievements.
But I find myself wondering as I walk up the hill back home towards the Dairy House: if the supermarket came and the shops started closing, if Lane's Garden Shop went bust and the baker and the chemist, would there be a Christmas shopping evening? No one's going to bother to come if there aren't any mince pies or glasses of steaming mulled wine being handed out for free to anyone who asks. Who on earth will be interested
in a Tesco Christmas window?
I also realise that, in concentrating on the town, I've been ignoring all the reports I've read on farming, in particular on small farms. They're closing at a steady rate, right across the country, and why should I assume that somehow we can avoid becoming yet another statistic, a casualty of the war of the countryside, every bit as much as Bryan might well become a casualty in the town? It wouldn't bankrupt Charlie and me if our farm collapsed, but I find it hard to contemplate just how much failure would hurt. For David it would be a disaster. There are so many things that could go wrong: what happens if the chickens carry on laying only twenty eggs a day? We've already had one sick pig: Guinness's foot got infected and required antibiotics and visits from the vet. The bills soon topped the amount she had cost us as an eight-week-old weaner. What will happen if chicken flu strikes? Or if Dillington House stops taking our vegetables, because they run out of patience at our inability to supply all they need on a regular and reliable basis (as happens to small producers who attempt to supply the supermarkets)? Our friends all too often refer to our farm as a hobby, but I realise that has changed. It's not just a hobby any more, it's something that matters very much to Charlie and me and our life together. Somehow it has to succeed.
I keep my fingers crossed that the luck of the Tailor of Gloucester won't desert this town - or our farm.
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Trees Are Excellent Listeners
Spotted Pigs and Green Tomatoes Page 5