Local Shopping in Hampton

Written by Vincent Cable MP and published in Online Exclusive on Thu 1st May 2003

Policy decisions are currently being made that would transform - and undermine - local shopping centres. Hampton village and, even, more substantial shopping centres like Hampton Hill struggle to hold onto food shops in the face of competition from the superstores. Another group of small community shops - chemists, sub-post offices, newsagents and general stores - is now under pressure for other reasons.

The issue facing community chemists is a challenge from the competition authorities (the Office of Fair Trading) to scrap the current system of licensing, which distributes them on the basis of need. The alternative is to move to a competitive free for all. In this environment chemists would gravitate to big supermarkets or inside large doctors surgeries; the local community chemists could close. Their users would lose access to medical advice without the need to visit a doctor and an important plank in the NHS would be weakened.

There are two local chemists in Hampton and I have received a petition from Hampton and other residents expressing their worry about this service and have raised the issue in parliament with my opposite number, the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry, Patricia Hewitt. She has agreed not to press ahead with the changes without considering the wider health impact. I am confident that the community chemists can now be saved.

The future of local post offices is much less hopeful. A third will close in the next few years because of the massive loss of income - about 40% - from the changeover from pension and benefit book to automated payments into bank accounts. There are three sub-post offices in Hampton - Station Road, Priory Road, Nurserylands - as well as Hampton Hill and there will be pressure from the Post Office to close one of them. The position is being made worse by the bureaucratic obstacles which the government is putting in the way of pensioners who want to continue using the post office through a card account (they can have a card which can access cash through a PIN number but have to fill in lots of forms to get one). As the following exchange in parliament between myself and the Deputy Prime Minister show, there is a real problem.

Local newsagents' problems are less publicised. But they are at the mercy of monopoly distributors who are squeezing them through high carriage charges. There is a danger that several will stop stocking newspapers. My colleagues and I have taken up the newsagents' case and there is now a proposal from the Office of Fair Trading to free local newsagents from monopoly control.

Lastly, some local small shops regard their lottery terminals as a lifeline. This income source is under threat from Camelot which is cutting off the smaller outlets. I have raised this issue in parliament with the Culture Secretary (responsible for the Lottery) in order to establish that the issue has important implications for small shops.

The shopping centres around the Hampton area are fragile. How these issues are resolved will determine whether they have a future.

Extract from Hansard

Dr. Cable: I congratulate the Deputy Prime Minister on his successful intervention in the Department for Work and Pensions, which has reduced the number of bureaucratic obstacles facing pensioners opening a Post Office card account from eight to seven. Is he aware that that Department subsequently got its own back by requiring the Post Office to issue a banning order on leaflets from Age Concern, which offers advice to pensioners? Will the Deputy Prime Minister kindly intervene again?

The Deputy Prime Minister: I am grateful for the hon. Gentleman's remarks. He makes a fair point that the postmasters felt that there was too much bureaucracy in the development of the new card system.