I blogged a few weeks ago about my concerns for the High Street of my home town Malmesbury since planning applications were put in for large stores there by both Waitrose and Sainsbury’s.
keep smiling Justin
Despite all the assurances that Sainsbury’s had made about how they would compliment the towns current retail offering I was not convinced (I just don’t believe or trust them). And it appears now that I am likely to be proved correct if comments allegedly (according to the Telegraph) due to be made by Sainsbury’s chief executive Justin King prove correct.
He is expected to say this week that the high street should be shrunk! And also to describe them as a poor second to out-of-town centres and claim that people did not have time to potter between the butcher the baker and the grocer – probably because they aren’t there anymore Mr King – and who is responsible for that?
Just to rub salt into the wound he is also expected to deny that supermarkets were to blame for the decline of high streets and suggest that “Where high streets are in trouble it is usually because they are not providing what the local population wants.”
Well done Mr King – that statement is up there with ‘the cheque is in the post’ and other similar comments!
So perhaps now the people in favour of the application by Sainsbury’s in Malmesbury will see exactly what the rhetoric from Sainsbury’s is – just that – enough to get the application through , and then change their tune!
I accept I don’t live there anymore, but I do feel responsible for the town I grew up in and don’t want to see it go the way of so many other. Let’s hope that Mr Kings comments can be classed as up there with Gerald Ratners comments in 1991 – that would have a ‘positive’ effect in helping Malmesbury escape the Sainsbury’s effect!
UPDATE – It appears that the ‘leaked speech’ was either wrong or pulled as the final speech did not cover these points at all. Pulled due to the bad press or just never there – who knows?
