 | No to out of town Supermarkets |
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 Morpeth is a great place to live, work and shop. It’s place at the heartof Northumberland and it’s role as a county town should be cherished and
nurtured by the people whose job it is to be its current custodians. The
last few years have been times of challenge for Morpeth but, despite the
floods, there has been a recovery in the town’s fortunes. There is a
real risk that the renaissance of Morpeth would rapidly come to a halt
if permission were granted to build two supermarkets away from the town
centre.
Of course there is a need for people to do their supermarket shop and
people in Morpeth should not be denied access to good value but out of
town supermarkets would carry a high price for the town centre. There
are also practical problems with the plans: how many additional
articulated lorries would ply the roads from the A1 each day to deliver?
How would traffic at the junction next to the station worsen? How would
the prospective tenants of the new Mall feel about the prospect of two
out of town supermarkets?
The decision about whether to put supermarkets out of town is one which
will have irreversible consequences for Morpeth. This isn’t an
experiment to see how it might go and then we can change our minds in
the future - once the shops, skills and crafts are lost they will not
come back.
There are too many market towns in Britain where crafts and trades have
succumbed to the advance of out of town generic shopping. If we don’t
make a stand here and prevent the plans for out of town supermarkets
going ahead then we are opening our arms to a Morpeth which will
increasingly look like every other town, boasting uniformity above
choice and craft. Morpeth’s strength lies in its diversity and wide
appeal. Morpeth’s traders and their customers deserve a level playing
field and out of town supermarkets would not provide this.
We would urge everyone who feels strongly that Morpeth’s strengths
should not be sacrificed to object to proposals for out of town
supermarkets.
Campbell Storey & David Towns
 
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