Tell Me More – and Responses – Why and How?

Someone from Dawlish has sent me an email saying I’m ‘misinforming folk’ (in my paper http://www.habitude.org.uk/dawlish.htm ). I have come late to engaging with the issue of a new supermarket in Dawlish, and I am aware that I have some catching up to do on the facts and the history and the people, and on the various views, groups and factions that have grown up around the issue. If there is anyone else out there who wants to put me (and others who share the anti-supermarket position) right, please send me an email (better than phoning, as it’s easier to keep a record).

I am against ANY new supermarket in, on the edge of, or outside, the town, as I made clear in a paper ‘Breaking the Supermarket Habit’ which I wrote following the public meeting on 12 February. I took notes at that meeting and was surprised on re-reading them how many good points were made but were ignored in the discussion session – as if many people there had come with their minds made up already. I had gone to the earlier public meeting over a year ago about the same issue, and there was a better discussion at that one, and there was an overwhelming majority show of hands against any new supermarket. It felt as if the town would resist further threats.

I spotted a letter in today’s Observer (24.02.08) which highlights aspects of the issue:

From Simon McAdam, Cambridge:

 

Cheap food – but not at any price

I enjoy Jay Rayner’s food reviews but cannot say the same of his article, ‘Be honest – supermarkets have made out lives better’ (Comment, last week). I have spent the last four years bringing up three small children and understand the challenge of entertaining the children while trying to do the shopping, and a walk to the local park via the shops is usually the most rewarding option for both the kids and me – if there are any local parks or shops left, that is!

I am all for cheap food for the masses but not at any price, and the destruction of communities and the despotic control of farmers and suppliers by supermarkets is too much to pay for ‘an easier life’.

The reference to Rayner’s article points to what I call the ‘supermarket habit’, whereby most people assume that we all shop at supermarkets. Even the Competition Commission, which should know better, assumes that competition means between supermarket chains, and ignores local shops suffering from unfair competition from supermarkets with lower overheads and superior buying clout.

McAdam describes his personal experience, which is one I can relate to, in my case taking grandchildren to Dawlish shops in between visits to the park and the beach. Lovely! I moved here in 1999 and I haven’t wheeled a supermarket trolley since then: the odd item or two maybe, but no ‘weekly supermarket shop’. We don’t need that, living in Dawlish.

Finally, McAdam refers to ‘the destruction of communities’, and of the livelihoods of local farmers and growers. Those who grew up in Dawlish say that 30 years ago there used to be at least three times as many local shops and businesses compared to now. The main thing that has changed over that period is the rise of supermarkets, drawing, apparently, 70% of shopping to the supermarkets in Newton Abbott and Exeter – a figure which, by topsy-turvy logic, is taken to be a measure of Dawlish’s ‘need’ for yet another supermarket, but which will, of course, take the other 30% in addition to sucking to itself a portion of the other supermarkets’ 70%.

The cheapness of supermarket food is a myth; this is only certain lines, such as ‘loss leaders’, or with special offer multiple packs so you buy more than you need. Shopping at a variety of local shops provides economy and choice and friendly service. If we get another supermarket – or maybe two! – Dawlish will be left with charity shops and estate agents, and without the vibrancy of a real shopping experience, the holiday trade will die too.

My critic in the recent email informed me that Tesco owns the One Stop shop with the post office at the back. ‘Thank you, sir, but I did know that One Stop is a Tesco chain, and a ruse to penetrate and take over the local shopping economy – typical insidious and sly Tescopoly tactics!’

In case anyone wonders why I have only got stuck in to this issue recently, this is a long story. I did try to get to know people in the town, and to be of service, when I moved here, but nothing I tried took. I have daughters and small grandchildren 100 miles away and they were a distraction. Also I have friends, contacts and interests in Totnes and Dartington, and in Exeter. Finally I have been absorbed in academic research into the poet and philosopher, Rabindranath Tagore, who warned early last century of the consequences of the kinds of change we have seen worldwide in recent decades. My first introduction to Tagore, through Marjorie Sykes, the Quaker Gandhian, was an essay he wrote in 1928, ‘City and Village’. His life’s work was in rural regeneration combined with rural education including an international university called Visva-Bharati, a ‘world in one nest’. Although he would have been horrified at how far the world has gone towards gross mechanisation and urbanisation (once supermarkets have taken over, we all have become urban, wherever our houses are situated), I know he would share my view that the global ecological and social crisis is an opportunity for places like Dawlish which have not quite yet had all their local trades and businesses destroyed.

We are potentially in a win-win situation. As more and more people realise that it is bad for the planet to fly abroad for their holidays, local tourist destinations will benefit. Dawlish could shed its shabby, downmarket image – those attending the meeting on 12 February made clear they deplore the Bet Fred horror on the corner, and isn’t it sad that new trees and the children’s play area get vandalised? – and the town can become again as it was 30 years ago, when ‘you could get everything in Dawlish, you never needed to go to Exeter.’

Responses – Someone tells me more

Just read your ‘paper’ ref. Supermarkets versus Dawlish. I found it interesting.

I ... would just like to clarify a few points; DARE arose following massive potential development being put forward in the Draft Local Plan several years ago. It was obvious that we were being expected to take far more development than was required for ‘our own needs and that of our hinterland’. In fact it has subsequently been clear that we were being required to supply housing for Teignmouth as well!

We did our best to research the matter in a hurry and held meetings to inform the local community of the danger to Dawlish. The result was television coverage of our delivery of a very large ‘Valentine’ to Teignbridge District Council containing thousands of objections to the various proposals.

The Draft went away but as TDC became more and more behind with their plans, they decided to shift to the in-coming sustem known as the Local Development Framework. Unfortunately they are still getting further and further behind and the only Plan in place is the 1996 Local Plan. This is very out of date and for example does not include requirements with regard to Flood risks and higher percentages of Affordable Housing and further energy efficiency requirements. In addition TDC has got so far behind that the next stage, known as the Specific Sites Allocation, has been put even further back which was what developers were waiting to see published,so that is why all kinds of developers are now homing in on us ( and no doubt other parts of Teignbridge).

DARE is very determined not to become politically involved in any way, we are simply concerned with the overall development and prosperity of the Town. However we are aware of Government legislation and Council Planning obligations which affect us and we try to make the public aware of such matters as and when applicable.

DARE does not proffer a view on any particular proposition such as a Supermarket. What we try to do is to sift through all the jargon and precis the subject matter so that it concentrates on what affects Dawlish either directly or indirectly and how Planning legislation comes into play. We then stage our own ‘surgeries’ and invite residents to have a look, digest and then, being better informed, we hope that they will take part in the process.

In particular we keep a close eye on the Teignbridge Planning process which now involves the Local Development Framework. The old-style process was the Local Plan but the new system is designed so that once in place it will speed up all planning matters. In the past when an applications were made, residents could object, sometimes ending with long-winded and costly Public Enquiries. This new system is designed to involve the public at each of several stages so that once the Framewrok is agreed planning applications will more or less go through. We find it very difficult to get people to understand this and this is why we constantly try to get them to take an interest and to take part. What an individual decides is a metter for them, including the members of DARE, but we try very hard to put the jargaon into ‘bite sized pieces’ rather than the kind of overwhelming ‘Bumph’ which TDC puts into their own obligatory displays/consultations. There are many other things which DARE studies including Coastal Management. Flood Risk Assessments/ Housing Market Assessments etc., etc., All of these affect the development of the Town.

You may or may not be aware of the Nathaniel Lichfield Retail Study carried out in 2003 on behalf of TDC. This was commissioned because the Council was, as part of the stages of the LDF) to prove a ‘Need’. You will find this on the TDC website. Follow Planning and then ask for the titles as above. You cannot download this but you can read it through. It costs £40.00 for a copy ( which is one of the many reasons why DARE needs members). In the case of Dawlish it appears to have involved 128 interviews.... The Visitor survey was conducted more or less out of season and not on every appropriate day of the week.......

However this is the survey that all the developers are now using to find statistics to support their case(s).

The ‘leakage’ of 70% referred to was the same as that identified for Teignmouth but the recommendations were quite different!

The report states that it should be up-dated every 5 years.

It states that any recommendations should not come forward before 2016.

It was also based on projections for 2009 and I wonder whether the population and residential development has increased in the intervening years to support the recommendations?

I suggest that you would find this report interesting since it also includes reommended sizes for a store and maps of potential sites........including part of Sandy Lane.......a report produced for TDC.who own that particular bit of land.........

Hope you find this fun.

If you know anyone with the time and interest and even with some kind of experience of statistics/planning/ surveys/ legislation/ publishing/ accountancy/ websites/ P.R/delivery or anyone with a love of Dawlish and the time to study material and come up with some insight, we are always open to serious of offers of involvement.

Regards Y

My reply to Y:

Thank you very much for this background, which – probably not surprisingly – is similar to what X [also of DARE] told me this morning over coffee. I was awestruck by the depth of X’s knowledge, and impressed by his devotion to Dawlish. The trouble is, anyone who sticks their head over the parapet gets criticised – I note you say ‘DARE is very determined not to become politically involved in any way’, but life is political, and ‘the personal is political’, wouldn’t you agree?, so whereas I expect you mean that DARE avoids being ‘Party political’, and fine! (our democracy is a sham anyway, in my view), but one is being political just by caring and speaking up: ‘To Dare to care’ takes courage and commitment – and selflessness. I mentioned to X a book I’ve read recently: Zizek’s Violence, and he writes of ‘systemic violence’ as colluding with the system, so all these people who shop at supermarkets with no ethical awareness, and say they have no time to shop locally or to cook (but plenty to watch rubbish TV), they are being violent.

Breaking the Supermarket Habit – starting in Dawlish – but why? and how?

‘Oppose the new supermarket in Dawlish to save the planet!’ will, indeed, inspire some people; those who have elaborate lifestyle regimes to minimise their impact on the planet, earnest lobbyists for sustainability – telling us we must reduce our carbon footprints before it’s too late. There are those too, who equate Tesco with Tescopoly, the economic juggernaut, evil sibling of America’s Walmart, bent on destroying every rival retail business to become a gloating bloated parasite, consuming the hapless consumers’ hard-earned wages.

But what about all the people who feel they have no choice but to do their weekly shop at some supermarket – those who have got into the supermarket habit because it seems to offer cheapness and convenience? Tell them to oppose a new supermarket for the sake of the planet and – not being daft – they will feel manipulated into feeling guilty because you are telling them, in effect, that they are destroying the planet already. And mention Tescopoly or the Walmart effect and they will dismiss that as sloganeering, and they’d be right, won’t they?

It is depressing to be told that it is a bad thing to shop at supermarkets – so most people won’t be told that; they will take no notice, walk on by your Tescopoly-screaming stall. I agree with the man who wrote in a draft article I was sent recently: ‘[T]he environmental movement is in danger of shooting itself in the foot by its approach to the global warming issue. If we are not giving positive messages we are giving negative ones. There is no in between other than no message at all.’ He compares the climate change threat to the threat he grew up with: ‘the threat of annihilation from the atomic bomb,’ which could ‘creep menacingly back into [his] consciousness.’ Now there is the new threat, threatening to take over our existence. Which makes one wonder, which is worse, the future threat or the immediate one of being forced to change our lives to avert it, to save the planet for our children and grandchildren. Oh, please!

On the other hand, life would – or could – be better without supermarkets. They are nasty places, aisle upon aisle of taste engineered convenience food and snacks. Waxed and gleaming and shrink-wrapped fruit and vegetables and meat that one cannot imagine growing on a tree, in the ground or being part of an animal. Shelves of confectionary extruded in zillions of unnaturally coloured little nasties which children get addicted to.

This garish display has no connection with ‘super’, as in superior or excellent, or ‘market’, as in a place where people bring their wholesome produce from their gardens, kitchens and workshops to exchange with each other.

A focus on community, on re-localisation, is the win-win approach, because people’s lives can be better if we re-build/grow community (and the fact that it also reduces dependence on fossil fuels is a bonus that need be mentioned only to the minority engaging with climate change).

Ok, that’s the preamble, in which I was trying to say there’s another way of looking at ‘Breaking the Supermarket Habit’. I’ve stood up at a couple of public meetings on the new supermarket in Dawlish issue, and declared that I haven’t pushed a trolley around a supermarket since I moved to this town in 1999. Since then I’ve talked to quite a few people, and some are curious about how I manage that. Now, again, I want to say that I don’t blame anyone living in Dawlish for shopping at one of the local supermarkets – I actually don’t know which ones there are, or where exactly, although I have driven past, I think, Sainsbury’s at Kingsteinton, near Newton Abbott – and yes, I do drive, but also use public transport whenever I can. I would say, though, that I hope you patronise the local shops in Dawlish as well, as much as you can. 70% of shopping may be done outside our town, but do let’s hold on to the 30% that’s here.

But – for those who are curious – this is what we do. We buy some essentials in bulk from Traidcraft, who are based in Newcastle and deliver all round the country. Oh, dear, transport miles! But the goods are fair trade and/or recycled and/or organically grown. So we get their ground coffee, which is scrumptious!, also marmalade, some pasta, sugar, loo roles, tissues, chocolate – again scrumptious! But these deliveries are not weekly, maybe monthly, but anyway, not very often. And it occurs to me there’s potential for a Dawlish Traidcraft drop to keep the journeys down. Most people do a main weekly shop, and we have a weekly organic veg box from Rob and Ben’s. The box comes to Poppadom’s and we buy a lot of stuff there, like organic tinned tomatoes – because our home grown tomato crop failed last year – whose didn’t? We do grow quite a lot of food: potatoes, loads of salads, chilis, cucumbers, and so on. We drink a lot of herb tea and that comes in packets from Poppadom’s, also things like beans and lentils, sometimes biscuits, chocolate. Oh, and also Ecover washing powder, washing-up liquid, dishwasher tablet – dishwashers are bad for the planet?, well views and measures differ. Also I get some stuff from Riverford Farm Shop at Staverton since I do voluntary work near there every week – and I drive! We also get some lovely food from Dawlish’s two delis – I keep forgetting the names of their shops, but it’s Carol: for lovely cheeses and smoked salmon paté, and Charley’s olives are legend, and I cannot resist her chocolate brownies – and I order Brixton fish from her. We don’t eat meat, mostly I cook vegan main meals, so not much dairy or fish – and I do believe this country needs to produce more of the food we consume, and I believe vegan-organic, or stock-free, is the most sustainable method of cultivation.

This country and the world are going to be changing, for the better in all sorts of ways, not just in reaction to fears for the planet, but because small communities are more friendly and alive than those horrible sheds, pretending to be shops or markets. Dawlish still has a lot of real shops and so is in a position to lead the re-localisation movement.

So, don’t be fearful for the future – it’s going to be good!

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