We said 'No'to Timpson at Tesco and they listened!

I received a most delicious phone call yesterday from Fuchsia at Shepton Mallet Journal, telling me the news that Tesco had withdrawn their application for a Timpson pod!



As, at the time of writing, I am not aware of any comments made by Timpson or Tesco, I assume the withdrawal of the application is as a direct result of our online petition, set up in July of this year. The power of well over 500 signatures and over 150 strong comments, combined with great local press coverage by Shepton Mallet Journal, a supportive mention by Kevin McCloud in his Grand Designs Magazine and supportive retweets from local business man and creator of Kilver Court, Roger Saul and his other connections, which attracted more and more support.



Our online petition was set up using change.org, the format of their website was extremely easy to use with really useful articles and tips to help us garner extra support.



This is the first time I have ever set up a petition to campaign against an economic injustice, or any kind of injustice and to think it has been successful, is incredible. A massive thank you to you, if you did anything in any way to support this action!



Now to focus on the changing face of our High Street! Together we can make change.





Shepton Mallet shops triumph as application for Timpson at Tesco is withdrawn | Shepton Mallet Journal

Celebrity TV Presenter Supports Our 'Say No to Timpson at Tesco' campaign!

It's about time you had a good old update about our campaign to 'Say No to Timpson at Tesco', isn't it.

In July, James Timpson, the Managing Director of Timpson, gave me a call to have a chat about the situation in Shepton Mallet, where a planned Timpson pod, installed in the Tesco retail park will threaten our high street, even more. I was really looking forward to that chat, knowing full well, that he would of course listen to sense, community duty and ethics, I was looking forward to putting the phone down and rushing to tell Mike Alford, the cobbler's son, the good news. I knew that we would make a difference and I knew that James Timpson would acknowledge that the Townsend location, as an edge of town retail park, would prove to be a valid threat indeed to the high street and I knew that he would reassure me that he would ask Tesco to withdraw the planning application.

Oh, but this didn't happen, at all. Mr Timpson did try to reassure me but unfortunately he tried to reassure me that when he has a shop in a town centre and then he opens one on a retail park, the takings in the other shop, on the high street are not affected and if they are then only marginally so. I pointed out that this was an edge of town retail park, rather than an out of town retail park but he didn't really seem to take that point on board. He also told me that what they were doing was not morally wrong in his eyes. He also said that if Timpson thought for one minute that it would affect the shop already in the High Street, they would not do it.

I asked Mr Timpson, if he would come to Shepton Mallet, to have a look at the situation and to also meet with the shop keepers, to see what they thought and felt about the planning application to put a Timpson pod in the Townsend Retail Park, that invitation was refused, although he said he would maybe pop in for a coffee one day.

To say I was disappointed with that outcome, wouldn't do my feelings justice. I felt very, very wronged indeed. It was good that Mr Timpson took the time to call me and to talk and to be interested but I am afraid he did it just so that I could spread his word of good intentions and he wasn't actually interested in a conversation, or a negotiation about where his Timpson pod could go. I know where I'd like it to go but that's another matter.

I felt that was a blow to the campaign and I hadn't achieved what I set out to do.

The next blow was when one of my new Facebook friends was looking for a job in Shepton Mallet and came across an advert for a trainee shoe repair person, for their branch in Shepton Mallet! I couldn't believe the cheek of it! Can you imagine interviewing people for a position for a job in a pod, that hasn't even got planning permission? Can you imagine doing that? Can you imagine being interviewed for that job, you're skint, been unemployed for ages, spend time, money and hope on sending off your CV and then being interviewed and there isn't even actually a JOB! That is just so wrong.

Then one day, Mike Alford, came rushing into the shop to tell me that the petition had been mentioned in Channel 4's Grand Designs Magazine and that the TV Presenter Kevin McCloud had signed it. It's in the October issue! I am so grateful to Kevin McCloud for supporting our campaign in this way. This has given the campaign a real boost, with front page coverage from Shepton Mallet Journal and they've also printed the link to the petition in the paper, which is fantastic. I can see the petition is now reaching more locals, with more signatures trickling in. At the time of writing we are on 486, getting to 500 would be great!

Please sign our Petition.

Then, after signing our petition please take the following steps to support our campaign:

1/ Please share this petition with your friends, via social media and email.

2/ Please email Tessa Munt, to express your opposition:    Tessa.munt.mp@parliament.uk

3/ Spend at least £10 a week in your local independent shops instead of Tesco! Don't forget Shepton Mallet's Friday Market, with Fruit, Vegetables, Meat, Fish, Baked Goods, Plants and Flowers, as well as our unique High Street!

Timpson Trainee Manager required in Shepton Mallet!

Oh! Someone has spotted a job advert for Timpson in Shepton Mallet. How presumptuous!
Before planning permission has been granted!
Is this the way it works?

We need to up the ante now please!

Please write a personal comment on the Mendip District Council's website about this planning application, it really does have to be BLOCKED!

1/Please go to Mendip's website.

2/ Use the simple search.

3/ Put this reference number in: 2014/1326/FUL

4/ Select search.

5/ Choose to make a comment on the application, you will have to either log in or register, in order to do this.

If any of these instructions don't work when you do this, please feedback and tell me how to write it more clearly. Thank you.

The link for Mendip District Council's website.

TESCO, 'Every Little Helps' so go on then, help!

I am just a shopkeeper with two shops and one of the most important things for me in business is ethics and sustainability, in fact, all my business decisions are taken with that in mind, in balance with the economics. I am not one for taking a business decision just because it would be good financially, it has to be sustainable and ethical and I have to be able to sleep at night and to know that I have helped my community and contributed to it in a positive way. Why can't Tesco do that?

It's no secret that Tesco are struggling, especially after the news that their CEO Philip Clarke was ousted after poor financial results. I believe #Tesco is suffering financially because they are too aggressive in upscaling their retail operations, at the expense of local communities and local long established businesses. Surely they must realise that economic times are extremely difficult. In their rapid diversification, they have not chosen the best option, this aggressive way of doing business destroys the economy of the local community, it directly takes the pounds out of the pockets of the very people, that Tesco need to be cash rich, their customers!

Someone needs to make Tesco see logical, economical sense:

In the short term profits rise with aggressive trading but in the long term, agressive trading destroys the health of the very economy it relies upon for it's success.

If I could have a chat with the Chairman of Tesco, not the CEO, as he is leaving and not with the incoming CEO because he'd be new to the job, this is what I would like to say:

'When Tesco decides to really give back to the community, when the relationship is truly symbiotic, instead of stifling, then you will see sustainability in your business.

When you give a percentage of your profits to your community, you will see that the community will choose to support you.

Think of sustainability and success in business, as being like the water cycle, if there was someone at the top siphoning off a large percentage of water for themselves, then the amount of water in the cycle would decrease and they too, would not be able to enjoy the resource of plentiful water, as the water cycle would have been destroyed, it would no longer be sustainable. That is what is happening to our economy, you are hoarding the finances, not sharing and that is why your profits will fall and fall. It is due to greed and faulty thinking that you have got yourselves into this mess. 

At the moment Tesco, I can't afford to support you. If I support you, then that would mean I would be supporting your plans which have already caused devastation across the UK's High Streets and supporting the planning application for a Timpson pod, which you have recently put in. This Timpson pod would offer, shoe, watch and jewellery repairs, as well as key-cutting and dry cleaning, all services which we have firmly established by family businesses, for years on our High Street.

Putting a pod like that in place will decrease footfall in the town center and be a kick in the guts for small businesses on the High Street, my customers. If you take money from my customers, I don't have money to be your customer!

Do you get it now? Do you understand why your business is now failing too? Tesco, you are busy destroying the circular economy, when you could actually be responsible for making it stronger and healthier.

Think about it, giving more to your local community financially, not just with tin collection schemes that customers pay you for and then you donate to a local charity and make yourself look generous when you've added 30% of your own goods on top but by encouraging local businesses to thrive, by really teaming up with them and working together towards mutually beneficial ways of trading. Do that and then you will see Tesco thrive again.

So, Tesco, if you want to know the secret to true economic success, it is sustainability and sharing.'

Seeing as it's not very likely that the Chairman of Tesco will have a chat with me. I appeal to you, to please help me to stop Tesco's planning permission from going through.

Please join my Say No to Timpson at Tesco campaign, by clicking on the link below and signing the petition  it brings up and sharing with your friends too. Thank you.

Say NO to Timpson at Tesco!

You can also log an objection to the planning application, directly to Mendip Council, using this link:

Application Objections

#Tesco Expansion Plans with Timpson, Threaten The High Street and Not Just in Shepton Mallet!

Tesco have teamed up with Timpson and plan to provide Dry Cleaning, Watch and Jewellery repairs, Engraving, Shoe repairs and Key Cutting Services at their Shepton Mallet store. This is the information that I learnt today, from a fellow trader on the High Street, in Shepton Mallet.

To be honest, the Tesco here in Shepton Mallet is a sore point with the locals, many people actively refuse to step a foot inside the store but many people that live in Shepton Mallet, work in Tesco and visit the High Street too and the site does provide a couple of hours free parking and it doesn't mention you have to be their customer in order to park there. So, as in many situations there are positives and negatives and many mixed feelings.

I decided to Google about the Tesco and Timpson situation and have found out that there are several other places that have had exactly the same kind of planning permission application! Applications have gone in for Shepton Mallet, Bridgend, Cheltenham and Royston and I discovered those after just a five minute search, so there are bound to be more coming our way, across the UK. Looks to me like Tesco is trying to cope with a shrinking market. Yes, people have less money, the economy is down, they too have to find ways to increase their profits.

I however, envisage the High Street going into decline, with the footfall falling even more than it already has done, over the past year that we've been here. It is distressing to hear of shops, beautiful, quirky independent shops having to close, not because they have failed but because it is unsustainable to continue renting on the High Street, so the business runs but online, or from home.

Incredibly, as I was writing this piece, a couple walked into our shop, in Shepton Mallet and needed a refreshing and revitalising cup of tea. As they sat down, we chatted together and I mentioned that I was writing a blog about Tesco and Timpson teaming up. The gentleman, Simon, mentioned that the managing director of Timpson was his God Son. He told me that James Timpson started off, originally, as a shoe retailer but stopped that and moved into repairs, he went on to say that they were good employers and re-trained ex-offenders, so they could have a secure job and re-intergrate into the community. As he mentioned this, the humanity behind the business came into focus, there's a real man with his dreams and visions and his chance to contribute to our society and he's doing it successfully.

Where does that leave us? Where does that leave our much loved High Street, which quite honestly, if it was loved so much, would be used more? What if they were to actually open on the High Street? Maybe we should thank our lucky stars that they are targeting customers for the retail park and they are not plonked on the High Street, I am really not sure what to think. I know the High Street is definitely changing, do we embrace the change, or do we fight for what we know, love and enjoy? If we know we love and enjoy it, then we have to use our money not to 'Support' local businesses but to keep them there and to enjoy them. If you love a local retailer in your High Street, don't keep walking by the shop, thinking that you'll go in there one day. You have to change your habits and make buying things in there a part of your routine. I say that people get the High Street that they deserve, it's the consumer that has the final say in the changing face of market towns. If you shop mindlessly, then you will get an impersonal High Street full of chains.

The way I see it, Shepton Mallet has a wonderful High Street of quirky, independent shops, the Townsend Retail park is an altogether completely different experience, based more on the idea of convenience. The two concepts can live side by side and thrive. I like the idea that I can shop late if I need to at Tesco and pick up a last minute item, or a magazine, they do Sushi and no one else here does, that is very convenient. I've heard it said that when they first applied for planning permission, they said it would be a food only store, I'm not sure if this is the correct information but if no limitations are put on their trading what is the next thing they will do? They are expanding because their market is shrinking. Is their market shrinking because local businesses have closed because Tesco haven't really contributed enough to the regeneration of Shepton Mallet Town? Does that mean that the owners of the small businesses that have closed, can't employ anyone, so unemployment is higher, the town looks more desolate, people have less money, when one trader goes, then there's a knock on effect, for all the traders in town.Traders lose the cross promotion with other businesses and miss out on business from each other in a circular economy that makes sure the money is kept locally. The reason why communities are breaking down and High Streets across the UK look run down is because some landlords keep rents artificially high and because retail parks do NOT contribute to the community enough!

I've been told that there was a promise by Tesco when they first came that they would make sure that the town had maintained hanging baskets of flowers on the High Street, even if there wasn't a promise, why don't they sponsor something like that? The amazing Tesco staff collected over £800 to support Collett Park Festival 2014 but it was Tesco, the company that was asked if they would like to sponsor the festival, amazingly the company itself didn't come up with a bean! Tesco show a lot of support for the community but I'm not sure if it is support from their profits, or whether they profit from the support. Take for instance the Happy Landings Collection point in the store, you buy dog food, or toys, from Tesco and put it into their collection point! I can understand why people feel angry, 'Every Little helps' we just didn't think it meant, every little business and every little contribution from the public and from the staff, helps Tesco to create more profits, diverted away from the community to individuals! Tesco started from a market stall in East London, five years later the name Tesco was formed and the company grew and grew and grew. That entrepreneurial spirit is bound to be admired and respected by most small business owners but when it comes to ethics and morals, it does seem that things have got out of hand.

I feel if Timpson can contribute massively to the economy of the town they are in, if they offer a very basic shoe repair service and recommend the local cobbler for complicated repairs, if they pledge to help and support our town and really give something to the community then they will find their place. At this stage, I personally do not feel that I can support Tesco's application for these new services because of the devastating impact it will have on our Town. I believe that because of this negative impact, that the outlet will not succeed because the local economy will be driven down even further and again the market will shrink and again Tesco will choose to dominate another service and again they will cause the shrinkage in the economy and so on like a spiral, down and down. It is for this reason that I feel I have to oppose the planning application for this outlet.

Please join my Say No to Timpson at Tesco campaign, by clicking on the link below and signing the petition it brings up and sharing with your friends too. Thank you.
Say NO to Timpson at Tesco!

You can also log an objection to the planning application, directly to Mendip Council, using this link:
Application Objections