Politicians have warned that the dominance of large independents and multiple retailers will force small and independent retailers off the UK high street by 2015.
High Street Britain: 2015, a report published by the All-Party Parliamentary Group for Small Shops, claims that smaller retailers are being squeezed out by larger rivals and supermarkets and "unlikely to survive" the continued growth of their rivals. It predicts dire social, economic and environmental consequences for local communities.
The report includes figures showing that half of the 278,630 shops in the UK are managed by a sole trader; and 103,000 have fewer than five employees. The retail sector provides one in every nine jobs in the country and is the biggest labour provider in rural England.
"The erosion of small shops is viewed as the erosion of the social glue that binds communities together," said the report. "Ethnic minorities, immigrants, the elderly and those living in deprived areas are expected to be the worst affected."
Group member Philip Hollobone, MP for Kettering, said he shared the concerns of smaller retailers, that they will no longer be able to compete against bigger retailers if current trends continue. "As consumers, we may be benefiting in the short term from the low prices and the attractive offer that supermarkets can present to us, but in 10, 15, 20 years time, the prices we pay for our... supermarket goods, may actually be rather higher than we would wish," said Holloborne.
The all-party group has made a number of recommendations to halt the slide, including setting up a retail regulator, suspending further mergers and takeovers in the sector until its future is decided and introducing a code of practice for retailers.
In response, the British Retail Consortium accused the group is "trying to turn the clock back". Kevin Hawkins, the BRC's director general, said on the BBC news website: "The secret of success for the small retailer... is to offer consumers something different, something better and something targeted very precisely at a particular portion of the market," he said.
Former Asda chief Archie Norman believes regulatory restrictions would not succeed. "Of course we want to see competition and enterprise, but the way to do that is to make it easier for small enterprise to set up, to encourage families to set up new shops, and to compete, and to give local councils the capacity to protect some streets for small enterprises," he told the BBC.
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