Emma Brooksbank: Unequal rights in advance of the superstores

The Tescopoly website contains hundreds of similar stories, but the threat to Malton is particularly dire since it is its own district council which is selling the town and its people down the river.

Ryedale District Council owns the town’s main car park. It has sold it for development into a superstore, subject to planning permission.

Who is the planning authority? Why, Ryedale District Council!

And it is perfectly legal for it to award itself planning permission, and to do so while the community and its various bodies have made their wishes crystal clear – no to a superstore but yes to a small food store, a few other shops and more parking at the old livestock market.

And then there is another superstore application known to be looming, on the Malton showfield. In 1998, a government study found that when a large superstore is built on the edge of a town, other shops can lose up to 50 per cent of their trade, resulting in the closure of town centre retailers, increases in vacancy levels and a general decline in the quality of the environment of the centre.

The prospects for small shops were dim enough during the boom years: as supermarkets muscled in, independent stores in the UK shut at the rate of 2,000 a year between 1997 and 2004. In the present recession, small shops struggle to survive even without the threat of a giant on the doorstep.

Were a superstore to be built at Malton, much of what is special, precious and distinctive – the wide diversity of shops and lively, busy community – would inevitably fall under its shadow.

As the first wave of customers are lured away from the independent shops to shop in a superstore, the income of the small stores declines and the quality and range of their produce falls, driving more customers into the arms of the superstore. From that point on, collapse becomes unstoppable.

Superstore operators often make questionable statements and there is no legal requirement for their claims to be truthful. At Machynlleth, a small market town in mid-Wales, Tesco claimed in its application that the new store would “provide a minimum of 140 additional full and part time jobs”, although previous research by the National Retail Planning Forum had shown that large outlets cause an average loss of 276 jobs.

The net loss is unsurprising since independent shops employ five times as many people per unit of turnover, and every £1 spent in a local shop selling local produce puts twice as much money back into the local economy as £1 spent in a superstore.

The dependency on one store which may have destroyed other options does not necessarily provide either sustained employment or broad training opportunities.

Ten years ago, Tesco applied to build a store and petrol station on the edge of Castle Douglas, in Scotland.

Despite a petition against Tesco signed by 1,200 local people, permission was given in 2005. However, Tesco was forced to downsize from its original plans and limits were placed on what it could do. It was denied a butcher, café and petrol station, and limited to 15 per cent non-food floorspace. Residents of Castle Douglas remain vigilant. Tesco’s resubmission for a petrol station in 2008 was rejected. It has recently applied for an extension to the superstore.

In Todmorden, West Yorkshire, Sainsbury’s’ application for a store was opposed by 3,450 people, approximately a quarter of the town’s population.

In August, planning officers recommended approval, but Calderdale Council refused to grant it because of concerns about the impact another supermarket would have on existing town centre shops and businesses.

In Sheringham, Norfolk, Tesco began seeking planning permission in 1996 to build a store, against very determined resistance.

In March 2010 the application was rejected for the third time on the basis of “detrimental effect on the character and appearance of the town and the impact on the viability and vitality of the town’s retail core’”. Plans for a Waitrose instead were approved. Tesco refused to give up and its resubmitted plans were finally approved last October by eight to seven votes, a pretty galling outcome after the 14-year fight.

Developers can keep appealing and resubmitting, employing vast funds to get what they want. Objectors, by contrast, have no right of appeal. The inequality means that a small market town like Malton would scarcely stand a chance. It is only by incorporating suitable planning policies into a Local Development Plan that it is ever possible for a council to resist an application for a superstore.

This is not going to happen in Malton where the council itself is pushing for a superstore!

• Emma Brooksbank is co-author of the draft Malton and Norton Neighbourhood Plan.