It's a British high street ritual these days: signing the petition against the supermarkets. We usually perform it in a charming deli-café amid the scents of cappuccino and croissant. There are preserves and pickles in retro glass jars on the shelves, smiles on the well-spoken manager; you may hear the hollow ring of an almost empty cash register. And in the distance, a sound of thunder, as the great British supermarket mammoth comes stomping up the street, treading on the dreams of small retailers.

Most traditional high streets in Britain are gone now - a sad thing but, for all our nostalgia, we clearly didn't really care about them. Or we'd have fought for them. As Mark Smith, at the butcher George Bower in Stockbridge, Edinburgh, said to me last week: “Everyone comes in and says what a shame it is about Sainsbury's moving in, how it will spoil the street and the independent shops. But they still go down to Waitrose at the weekend.”

Stockbridge is Edinburgh's poshest inner-city village, and it has one of the most glorious shopping streets in Britain. There's Bower the butcher and game dealer, Ian Mellis the cheesemonger, Armstrong's for fish. The last is one of my favourite shops in the world: Armstrong's smokes its own cod roe and in season stocks three kinds of fresh crab. But all three of them are strong contenders for any list of Desert Island Grocers.

There's a patisserie, an independent wine merchant and three delis: in all, 11 specialist food or flower shops, employing some 50 people. Raeburn Place, Stockbridge, is like a high street from the 1950s - except that no one then had heard of jamón serrano or ciabatta. Needless to say, this is all now threatened with extinction.

I signed the petition against Sainsbury's in Mohammed Akram's Costcutter, a buzzing long-hours grocery shop with a post office attached. Sainsbury's is expected to complete its acquisition of the ex-Woolworths, just a few doors down, in the next few days. Because it is taking over an existing lease there is no planning permission required. So the petition (now of 5,000 signatures) is the only way for Stockbridge to express its worries about the disaster about to visit the community.

Mohammed is phlegmatic: “I've been here since 1975; I've seen them come and go, the supermarkets. But it's definitely going to hurt.” I would be furious if I were he. The arrival of a Sainsbury's Local “convenience store”, offering petty savings to people who mostly don't need more convenience, does nothing for anyone except Sainsbury's executives, who won't discuss the matter with me. There is a Co-op and a Waitrose in the same street, and two further Sainsbury's, one of them a huge supermarket, a Tesco and a Morrisons less than a mile away.

Two days ago I heard a Sainsbury's executive boasting on the radio how its profits have “rocketed” this year: the very next story told how small businesses and shops are closing all over Britain because they can't afford the rents. You'd think John Humphrys might have made the link.

Why do we let this vandalism happen? Streets such as Raeburn Place are national treasures - they should be preserved. But this is no isolated story. All over Britain the supermarkets are using the recession as an opportunity for expansion. And central government still overrules local planners. In Berwick-upon-Tweed, where, say campaigners, there is more square feet of supermarkets per head than anywhere else in Britain, Hazel Blears, the “Minister for Communities”, recently approved a vast new Tesco. Why? Because choice and competition are good for consumers.

But the supermarkets' marketing squabbles- 10p off this or that, the chance to choose between Jamie Oliver's logo or Delia Smith's - are an illusion of choice: you end up with identical shopping baskets. A genuine choice is between real shops and big money-generating boxes.

It's pretty obvious that the saving of high streets is up to us and our willingness to curb the supermarket habit. Mark Smith, who does his best trade in December, says: “People have to remember a proper shop is not a puppy. We're not just for Christmas. You have to support us all year round.” But he doesn't hold out much hope. Nor do I. I asked one smart Stockbridge lady what she thought about Sainsbury's invasion. “Well, it's a shame for the area,” she said. “But at least it's not Tesco.” For more information, see the Facebook group Keep Stockbridge Local.

alex.renton@thetimes.co.uk

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