The Live Wire



Press Release

BRC COMMENT ON ALL-PARTY PARLIAMENTARY SMALL SHOPS GROUP REPORT

15 February 2006

Commenting on today's announcement by the All-Party Parliamentary Small Shops Group report High Street Britain: 2015, British Retail Consortium, Director General, Kevin Hawkins, says:

"We are disappointed that the Committee has not grasped the realities of modern retailing, nor have they understood all the burdens small retailers face with regulation.

"The Committee is trying to turn the clock back and reverse some well established trends in consumer shopping habits. Over the past 30 years or so, supermarkets and other large multiple retailers have grown and become the dominant form of shopping because they have met the changing needs of their customers. Consumers have clearly voted with their feet.

"Nevertheless, there are still many thousands of independent specialist butchers, bakers and other food shops that are alive and well throughout the UK and most of them will still be around in 2015.

"The secret of success for the small retailer in what is a highly competitive market, is not to try to compete head on with larger rivals, but to offer consumers something different, something better and something targeted very precisely at a particular portion of the market.

"The Committee has entirely overlooked or not understood the critical importance of scale economies, not just in retailing, but in virtually every other sector of a mature economy such as that of the UK.

"No set of regulations can override the drivers of a modern competitive retail business."



Press releases, papers and documents published on this page are the intellectual property of an organisation unrelated to Central Lobby. We promote their parliamentary and political campaigning activities as they are subscribers to the Central Lobby service.

As such, Central Lobby does not edit, endorse, or attempt to balance the opinions expressed on this page. The content of press releases and other such types of content are the responsibility of the originating organisation.

British Retail Consortium

More from Dods

© Dods Parliamentary Communications Ltd