How refreshing to read a sensible piece on the role of the large chains on the high street. I simply cannot understand the objection to being able to shop for food, medicines, fried chicken or coffee and be sure before you leave home that the items you are looking for will be in stock, the shop floor or food preparation area will be clean and my shopping will come out at a reasonable price and well within the use-by date. Whilst I acknowledge that some local retailers excel in their specialist areas and provide a level of personal service that the large chains, by their very nature, cannot compete with, (I can easily imagine my local butcher “saving favourite customers the best bits of rump”) I disagree with the idea that homogeneity is to be avoided for the sake of it, the notion that if a large company is doing well, offering quality products and expanding then there must be something inherently evil about it.

Chris Grounds, New Malden,

Vicky- Croydon still has those shops and the town is still loathsome. Are you suggesting it has changed since the early 1990's?

Penny- groups of youths accumlate by the dozen outside and inside McDonalds in Chatham high street and this is theme is repeated up and down the country. The downmarket restaurant has become synonymous with the very term 'chav'. How on earth will this improve the perception of your local area?

Darren Pipe, Greenhithe, Kent, U.K

So you think that a McDonalds, Starbucks, and Tesco will actually enrich your local community and rectify the feral atmosphere at a stroke? Well, guess what? It won't and your comments are incredibly naive and demonstrate a lack of aptitude for commercial awareness.

A McDonalds franchise will give the miscreants another place to loiter, cause nuisance, and litter, and bringing the usual problems of obesity and food poisonging with it. Far from regenerating a local area, a new tesco store will force the local grocer and butcher to the wall. Starbucks will retail sub-standard lattes and force the local cafes to the wall (and you perversely suggest they actually help independents? Please explain how).

I agree with your assertion that chicken shops look similar, but that's because they too are often part of larger international franchises (Chicken Cottage is a perfect example), so symptomatic of the same problem.

Darren Pipe, Greenhithe, Kent, U.K

Cafes and supermarkets - interesting choice of subject area.....

Could I suggest a little test? Would Sanghera like to conduct an objective comparison of the quality of cafes in Tesco Extra stores versus a Proudfoot or Booths' independent supermarket.

The conundrum for Joe Public, as things stand, is that many will never have the opportunity to make this comparison - because the 13% buyer price advantage of Tesco, means that they have an unassailable financial competitive advantage in buying sites.

It appears Tesco are out-sourcing the cafes in their new department stores - Begs the question why talented independents shouldn't be better at running a large number of attractive 'quality price range and service' supermarkets too - given access to goods at similar input prices?

Question is - Will the Competition Commission rise to the fundamental challenge of ensuring market conditions that facilitate real long term choice or continue smitten by Big 4 lobbying

A Costain, Hoylake,

I agree with much of what you say, standards in many independant retailer are very poor, as to the cause never mind the cure, we must look at retail rents and greedy (large landlords) having owned a small retail office equipment shop providing good service levels, it was all but impossible to make a living, customer would come in having bought from the likes of staples for advise on how to use the product! refuse to help them, they'll not come back, help them no money in that! and they'll still go back to Staples because there a few quid cheaper! Sorry but we have the high street we deserve, overseas its diffrent the concept of family changes attitude to retail ownership. In Italy a serving job in an eatery is seen as a good and often male job, here in the UK its seen as a puff's job, thankfully we have had a large influx of Eastern Europeans who do understand customer service and will work (well) for our minimum wage, little wonder Brits that can, retire abroad, i will be

Philip Jowett, Swadlincote East Mids, UK

Joking aside, I'm sure Waitrose would be a lovely place to live,
Why do we want our high streets full of "....dozens, if not hundreds, of individually-run shops...?" Consuming in these shops doesn't eat up the worlds resources any less just slower. We should just be buying less and using things better, longer, and repairing what we have.

Stephen, London,

I get better meat at the butchers and only marginally more expensive than the supermarket. Also more control on how its cut or sliced. Ditto at the bakers. Surprisingly the greengrocers seems to have more variety, unless you are the sort who wants things out of season. On the rare occasions I go to a supermarket I wear out my shoes wandering around the warehouse trying to find things, then have to wait quarter of an hour while a couple of families put their weeks shopping through the checkout.

Adrian, Bridgwater, UK

Your correspondent perhaps has a jaundiced view of what the 'small' and/or 'independent' shop can be. My memory goes back some 20 years further than his ot my mother shopping in Oxford when there were still names that could have come straight from the pages of Nancy Mitford - Elliston & Cavell; Grimbly Hughes; the Cadena; Fullers - and Sainsbury's had a single frontage on the High street with shiny tiled floors and marble counters behind which stood - and served - assistants in white coats and white hats; and in all shops, both these and their lesser brethren, service was friendly, efficient, and polite. But councils have so increased business rates that in many places only building societies, estate agents and chains can afford the locations that the these shops used to occupy, and the modern independent small shop is all too often exactly as your correspondent describes because nothing that puts effort into appearance and service rather than raking in cash can survive.

David Kirwan, Sale, Cheshire

I shop daily(with my trusty bicycle to help with the weight )at Tesco,M&S or S'bury's but try to use the corner shop once a week(so they stay open.I might need them in a food emergency)However I really hate the way it's not just 10p more(which of course I'd pay) but 30p+( and £5 more in the case of a bottle of cherry brandy at Xmas!)Greedy or what?

HD, WsM,

I know where you are talking about Sathnam and get truly fed up with the boarded up shops or shops selling really cheap tat. Groups of youths accumulate on the pavements like it was their club room. The only chains that invest are low-end takeaways and betting shops. How happy would we be for a Tesco or even MacDonalds to invest in our high street.

Penny, London,

he is not helping to sell his flat, by showing up all the disadvantages of the neighbourhood.haha.

anthony qong, london, uk

The small independent retailer has been knocked out by a combination of factors, chief of which is the universal business rate but others include exhorbitant high street rents, the power of mass-ordering by the giants and the cost of labour.
We all like the idea of small speciality shops selling (occasionally as the demand is not usually high) such things as silver-backed presentation hair brushes or replacement parts for long discontinues appliances - but the above factors make it uneconomic for them to be sold in high street shops.
Times change and shopping too : the place to buy such things nowadays is on line.

Lewis Thomas, High Wycombe, Bucks UK

Re "awful" Starbucks & Co, it wasn't so long ago that the only coffee in the average high street was instant swill.

Even Bicester, a town that's mostly so dull it beggars belief, now sports a Costa Coffee, providing good coffee, china cups, easy chairs, free wi-fi and newspapers to read.

Now come on -- that has to be progress, at least for the likes of me!!

David Jefferis, Brill, UK

Tesco's every time! I'm fed up with having to queue for each and every item at the Farmer's Market, hanging around while they relearn how to use the scales for each purchase, having to endure the first three chapters of every trader's autobiography before the goods are handed over and having to show the certificate that I'm married to my own sister before I get change. Take it all away!!!

John Ledbury, Kings Lynn, England

I remember early 1990's Croydon with its remainder bookshops and pound stores and a choice of eating at Pizza Hut, McDonalds or the BhS cafe. Who can possibly hanker back for that compared to how it is now?

And Martyn, have you ever lived in Europe? Come to Germany and find little on offer other than Aldi etc. The UK has many food markets but the "that lovely French market we always shopped at" Brits head right past the likes of Islington, Croydon or York markets to Sainsburys.

Vicky, Germany,

Shouldn't that 'homogenousness' be homogeneity ?

Anthony Price, TRURO,

Sathnam Sanghera should buy a couple of return tickets from a low cost airline to any medium-sized European town and wander around their shopping areas.
Virtually everywhere, except in UK towns, there will be dozens, if not hundreds, of individually-run shops - displaying the choice and business knowledge of their proprietors in attracting customers, rather than the whims of some distant central buying department.
There will be a proper market hall too, selling fresh-caught fish, local meat, vegetables, cheeses etc. on six days a week and cheaper than the supermarket - not just an occasional farmer's market.
And why drink a bland coffee out of Starbuck's awful cardboard cups when you can go elsewhere for one served in a proper cup, with the flavour the locals like and at a third cheaper?
As in so many areas of life we have thoughtlessly allowed our towns to be stripped of their individuality. The tragedy is that it can never be recovered.

Martyn L, Wallasey, UK

I agree with your correspondent. We suffer from a form whimsical romanticism that portrays every dingy, dog-eared convenience shop as the abode of a sort of noble-savage - the independent shopkeeper. Most are more savage than noble.

John, Oakham,

I think you should move to Waitrose

Stephen, London,

"Frankly, large parts of the country would love to have their problem" - exactly. The problem is a lack of quality independent shops, not a lack of independent shops per se. The best shopping cities are not those with just the same old high street names. The best shopping cities, like Norwich, have these but lots of good local shops too.

Sam, Albany,