Comment: Supermarket swoop threat to small shops (From thisisoxfordshire)

Comment: Supermarket swoop threat to small shops

10:00am Thursday 29th July 2010 in

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You wait for one, then three come along at once. Although it feels more like four, five or six.

Today we report on yet another plan to open a supermarket in Oxford.

This time Sainsbury’s wants to take over a prime location at The Plain.

The supermarket chain wants to move into the former Threshers off-licence.

It is surrounded by students, school pupils and sits at the junction of three of the city’s main arterial roads.

There is no doubting the shop will be a success and it is better, perhaps, than an empty unit.

But we must again remember the independent traders in the neighbourhood.

This is not exactly the news that they would want as they struggle to stay in business in such difficult times.

Competition is competition and that is fair enough – to an extent.

But quite how a small newsagent in St Clement’s can be expected to compete with a national chain like Sainsbury’s is a little bewildering.