CityCyclingEdinburgh was launched on the 27th of October 2009 as "an experiment".
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I calculate this will result in 8.3 Sainsbury's per square mile in South Central Edinburgh (S. Clerk St, Marchmont Road, Quartermile, Lauriston Place, Bruntsfield, Fountainbridge, Morrison Street and now Earl Grey Street).
Also on 25th April (iirc) there's another one opening at 72-80 Causewayside, formerly the Meadows Hotel/Borough Hotel.
In other words the big supermarkets can provide what the customer wants? Open out side of business hours, short queues, well enough lit to see what your getting and (potentially) better quality goods. Can't see why these little stores have had issues...
@steveo My only concern is the potential deliveries-through-the-front aspect of the application.
Hopefully the new Sainsbury will cause the Tesco a few doors down to be closed, freeing people from the strange damp/rotting cheese smell.
I believe there's another Sainsbury's local opening on Causewayside at the site of the old Borough Hotel. Competition for Tesco on Causewayside although I dread to think what'll happen with traffic flow and bike lane access if people stop their cars to shop as they currently do outside Tesco.
I wonder if the people complain about the proliferation of local shopping by large Supermarket chains are the same ones who complain about the tatty large Merc Sprinter/Ford Transit vans parked permanently outside these family run traditional small independent traders?
@DaveC What about people who don't complain about parking outside small family-run local retailers but do complain about large delivery artics visiting chain supermarkets.
They're cool with me :0)
What about people like La Favorita, who are part of a short family-run chain with shiny sparkling delivery-minis but which whizz around and double-park antisocially?
They're not cool with me. :0)
Not sure about the label 'short'. Height shouldn't come into it. ;0)
Many years ago, just after I moved into the flat I now live in, round about 9pm, I was stricken by an overwhelming urge for a Mars bar, so I sallied forth to my local corner shop - now converted into flats, on the corner of Dalry Road and Murieston Crescent Lane, just past the WAR bridge, and I heard shouting. I went in, and the proprietors, a young couple were yelling at each other, in what I can only assume was their first language - possibly Hindi, I don't know - but as I came in, they seamlessly switched into English:-
"What time did time did you get in last night?"
"Why do I have to tell you this?"
"Why don't you want to tell me?"
"Why should I have to tell you?"
"Do I not deserve some consideration - 38 pence please"
"Why are you always questioning me?"
"Why won't you - thank you - trust me?"
"Because you always ask questions - why do you do this?"
And as I left, carrying my Mars bar, they seamlessly returned to their own language. You don't get a mars bar with entertainment like that - and it's kind of embarassing just getting a mars bar - in a Sainsbury's local or a Tescos express. Ronnie Barker couldn't remake "Open All Hours - the corporate edition"
That's adorable. I love the mixture of the politeness of switching to English and the rudeness of continuing to argue while serving you.
I much prefer local shops and use them a lot although we use a supermarket too - this is because my husband wants to use them. I never did before.
Supermarkets love to boast about the amount of jobs they create and no-one in power ever asks how many jobs will be destroyed by them.
For supermarkets to create more jobs than the other shops they displace, they can surely only do this by being less efficient in employment and therefore requiring more people to serve the same amount of goods (as ultimately the amount of food we need to buy is a relatively fixed function of the overall population).
Perhaps its more jobs but with lower pay? Who makes the profits? the owners. Ownerships has moved from individual local families spending their money locally to large corporates based, offshore in some cases.
@kaputnik, that would be my take on the employment situation too.
However in saying that I would imagine that many corner shops are run by the owner/owner's spouse who will work themselves to an early grave* in order to keep costs down.
A bigger employer might create more part time jobs for more people.
*Sadly that did happen at the shop where I did a paper round. I still recall hearing how the owner and his wife took their young son on an outing one New Year's Day. That was the *only* day off I ever recall hearing about them having in the (fairly long) time I worked there. Pretty heart breaking and tragic.
@Kaputnik - ultimately the amount of food we need to buy is a relatively fixed function of the overall population
I think the West has established that this is actually an elastic (!) variable...
Robert
Alternatively, supermarkets are just making such a bumper profit at the expense of customers and suppliers that they can afford to be less efficient in their employment and as a result pay more people low wages to do the work?
It's a kind of collective effort.
Many of their customers are also their employees.
Then you have the free delivery model which utilises retirees itching to drive around to help out for a few weeks. (As seen on threads passim)
Then you put in the economics of property and rental holidays on new locations.
Eat your way healthy! Shop your way happy! © George Stairwell
LB rents from Scotmid so we are all connected in some way to this glutinous glut of food retail.
That has to be the best autocorrect error ever?
I doubt that supermarkets are 'less efficient' in their employment.
The reason that they can say they are creating 'more' jobs is that they are probably counting all the back office staff & delivery drivers as well (some of which have probably been counted multiple times across multiple store openings).
Perhaps its more jobs but with lower pay? Who makes the profits? the owners. Ownerships has moved from individual local families spending their money locally to large corporates based, offshore in some cases.
But who owns the corporations? Our pension funds do. Where does pension money get spent? Pretty much the same places that local shop owners spend it.
Obviously there are other institutional (and individual) owners, and obviously this whole post is a mass simplification, but it's just as simplistic to imagine that money spent at the supermarket disappears whereas money spent in a corner shop is used to save orphans.
Personally I find the density of mini supermarkets to defy all expectation. However, there are plenty of upsides - we could regulate supermarket deliveries quickly and conveniently by applying pressure (of whatever kind) on just a handful of businesses.
What's easier? Charging Tesco/Sainsburys et al. £5k per HGV delivery unless they do it overnight, or regulating a thousand corner shops?
@Dave
Why do you want to "regulate supermarket deliveries quickly and conveniently ?"
Not speaking for dave, but the vehicles used to restock are unsuitable for city centre streets and ashould be confined to long distance routes and the ring road, with modern vehicles designed for busy narrow streets used for the final miles of delivery. As in utrecht for example. this would lower pollution and make our streets quieter and safer.
If I'm having a reasonably coordinated week then I try to do our main shopping by filling bike panniers two or three times a week on my way home from work.
Spoiled for choice really, in that my commute gives me a choice of Gyle, Hermiston Gait, Chesser, and Longstone supermarkets. (As someone else said, I'm not sure how all these large supermarkets in Edinburgh are sustainable.)
I like my local shops but sadly they are usually closed by the time I get home during the working week. Still, we try to buy fish, veg etc locally at the weekend (and *cough* takeaways..).
The existence of home delivery aside, I think that the necessity of food shopping is one of the main drivers (no pun intended) of city car ownership - and here's a contentious statement - possibly as powerful as the commuting 'requirement'.
A car lets one person go and get the weekly food shopping for their family unit, and that's the problem. The weekly 'family' shop is an awkward beast - it's usually a bit too big for one person to 'carry' on the bus (or the bike if they consider it). So the car becomes the default answer to reaching the 'cheapest' prices in large superstores and thus the weekly supermarket pilgrimage is born. The irony is of course that the cost of car ownership is not considered as an offset against accessing the cheaper shop prices, whereas I think most people would make the calculation for offsetting cheaper house prices vs increased commuting costs, they just don't consider it for shopping.
Splitting the 'weekly shop' is pretty easy and it's a short hop from accepting that food can be bought *during* the week to accepting that, actually, you don't need to make a weekend pilgrimage after all.
EDIT: I should probably clarify that I don't consider Sainsburys Local or similar ilk to be 'local shops'...
@Snowy
That's one of the principal reasons behind the idea of the city car club - that occasional need to haul more than a bike* can carry.
* the sort of bike ridden by normal people, with two panniers at most. Not Dave and his Carry Freedom.
Clothes not food -
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Sales via its online and catalogue business, Next Directory, grew by more than 12%, with sales at its stores growing by 1.7%.
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Splitting the 'weekly shop' is pretty easy and it's a short hop from accepting that food can be bought *during* the week to accepting that, actually, you don't need to make a weekend pilgrimage after all.
Indeed. The problem is, most folk do those trips in their cars too. If you have a car, you tend to use it. If you don't, you can't. Simples.
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Figures compiled by the Scottish Green Party show, per head of population, Edinburgh has the highest number of Sainsbury’s and Tesco local stores of any city in the country.
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Also -
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Following customer feedback, a convenience store offering items such as milk and bread is to be opened for those who wish to pick up some essentials after jetting back in from their fortnight in the sun.
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Apparently Aldi have bought the land that the new portobello high school was to be built on, not sure how that could happen?
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