ACS

On the eve of the Queen’s speech on 3rd December, Gordon Brown explained his agenda for the coming year, in a policy document entitled Fair Rules for Strong Communities.

Based on the premise that ‘our society is strong when communities are strong’, Fair Rules for Stronger Communities sets out a comprehensive series of reforms covering welfare reform, crime and policing, children and young people, business rules, immigration and communities, which are designed to bring people together and steer the country through the global economic downturn.

It is reassuring to see that the importance of community has its place at the centre of the Government’s plan for the future. Retailers trade at the heart of communities and we have a vested interest in them being strong and thriving. Having taken our lead from the Prime Minister here is our agenda for local shops in strong communities:

Crime

Communities are undermined by crime and we know that retailers suffer from this. Theft from a shop is one of the most frequently committed crimes and yet it is massively under-reported and the seriousness of it is played down. The most recent solution to the problem, the on-the-spot fine, does not seem to be working. The number given out has risen dramatically, tripling in three years to over 200,000. However only 60 per cent are paid and we know that some people are receiving these fines over and over again, with no change to their behaviour. We want Ministers to review the sanctions for shop theft and get them working.

Shop crime reduces the ability of retailers to provide better services to the community; and the same criminals stealing from the shop are often blighting the community in other ways. Stopping shop theft should be central to tackling crime in the community.

Tobacco and Alcohol

Retailers are too often caricatured as the villains of the piece when considering alcohol and smoking problems in communities. This is a perception that must be challenged. Instead of seeing the local shop in terms of the irresponsible minority, the starting point has to be the vast majority of responsible community retailers that are the first line of defence in preventing under age drinking and smoking.

Every year retailers refuse millions of young people who are not old enough to buy alcohol and tobacco. They also work with police, parents and local authorities to develop local solutions to problems. It is this approach that is to be encouraged and that will achieve the objective of reducing harms in the community far more effectively than an adversarial approach.

Fair Competition

A recent academic study commissioned by ACS looked at the role of the local shop in the community. It throws up a number of interesting insights but perhaps one of the most telling is that the evidence shows that people want a local shop within five minutes walk of where they live. We also know from separate research that one fifth of people don’t have one and that the ongoing trend is a decline in the number of local shops.

Government has a role to play in ensuring that communities thrive economically. To do this they have to make sure that the way the grocery retail sector operates is fair. The dominance of the major supermarkets, especially their aggressive expansion in large and small format stores, makes trading a challenge for smaller operators. In 2008 there was a major investigation; it recommended important measures that will make the market fairer. These include new rules on planning and a new regulator, the ‘Grocery Ombudsman.’ Bringing these measures in will make communities stronger and should be a priority.

Planning for economically strong communities

Communities are created by effective planning, whether they are brand new, as is the case with the thousands of new housing estates planned for coming years, or well established neighbourhoods. Planning policy is vital. That is why the Government’s commitment to town centre retail policy has to be robust and that they have to make it impossible for large developers to force their will on communities when it comes to out of centre retail development. It also means that local Councils have to be given the skills and resource to plan positively for economically diverse and successful communities.

Strong successful local shops play a major role in developing strong communities. The Government's ambitions and our own have never been closer and that is the message we take into 2009.
 

We wish all our members a prosperous new year.