What could our shopkeepers learn? (Debate)

Thu 30 Apr 2020, 11:10

To try to answer the original question, what might the shopkeepers learn? As others have pointed out, they are too small – even collectively but especially the Co-op – to provide even for all of our food & domestic needs, however you choose to define ‘needs’.  Then again, who says they have to?  If everyone in Charlbury & surrounds shopped in them all of the time, they’d never have enough loo paper even without Covid19! 

The historic town centre is full of dwellings with names which begin “The Old….”  and we continue to lose former retail premises to other uses.  Consequently we have virtually no provision for things like hardware, stationery, electricals, garden stuff etc, so have no choice but to travel elsewhere for them.  But then, the ‘high street’ everywhere is suffering and town centres are going to have to rethink their roles post-Covid.  So what of Charlbury? 

 I won’t venture into the ‘personal behaviour’ minefield – though for sure some rethinking needed, especially by the mostly villainous supermarkets and processed food producers (though Conservative governments are notoriously anti-regulation of business so don’t hold your breath).  If the goal though is – at least partly – to ‘reduce the need to travel’ then ‘the offer’ locally has to be more comprehensive and the choice wider.  That in turn means initiative, imagination – and of course investment.

 I wasn’t here when the present Co-op was built, nor do I know the ownership etc of the Spendlove land (though there could be alternatives) but here’s a suggestion, really more a musing on a rainy morning: 

 How about something more on Continental lines (yes, I know….!), maybe a 2 storey building with an enlarged supermarket covering basics and domestics on the ground floor and a range of ‘stalls’ on the first floor?  Back to the butcher, the baker, the candle stick maker – and maybe the Deli for produce (so more space for the café side in the OBH) a ‘general store’ for hardware, stationery etc - but under one roof, maybe not all open all of the time, maybe ‘branches’ of other stores in Witney or Chippy who can ‘get things in’ quickly; a couple of spaces for mobile shops like the fish lady and maybe deliveries and even a lift home (in an electric vehicle of course) once you’ve done your shopping – lunch or a coffee in the deli while you’re waiting.  Combine it with a car club and reduce parking pressures in the centre…

Like I say, just a suggestion.  Now, who’s got a couple of million handy??