A representative of the independent retail sector is dismayed at supermarket tactics over the Competition Commission inquiry into the grocery market.
Christine Fisher of Greengrocers’ Campaigner sent a third submission to the CC early in November requesting a reply that has not yet been received and confirmation of recent press reports that Tesco has submitted 10,000 pages as its preliminary dossier.
“If Tesco really has put in a preliminary dossier of 10,000 pages - then I want to get my MP involved to try and do something about it,” said Fisher. “This seems to me like Tesco trying to bog down the system - they can afford to pay the legal fees and keep it all going interminably. Any submissions of modest length - like mine and most others - would then be in danger of simply getting overlooked or forgotten in the struggle to cope with Tesco.”
A spokesman for the CC said: “We have asked for a lot of detail and I would not be surprised if the Tesco dossier was that long as it is quite a thick document, but we have not counted the pages and I don’t know where this figure of 10,000 pages came from. Nor is there any suggestion that Tesco is trying to clog the system.”
The CC has already announced a one-month delay to its reporting schedule so that provisional findings will not be published until June and an “emerging thinking” document will not now be available until next month.
Meanwhile, David Croissant, founder of the small business campaign website The Shoppers Bible, has called upon the major multiples to end parking policies aimed at closing local shops.
Supermarkets on the outskirts of towns across the UK frequently only allow two hours of free parking, which Croissant says is a ploy to make it difficult for shoppers to shop in town as well as the supermarket.
“This issue has been ignored by all leading supermarkets despite respected organisations such as Friends of the Earth bringing it to their attention and it just goes to show that all the recent talk from the supermarkets of their commitment to supporting local businesses and communities is a token gesture with no real meaning,” he added. l
