So what's wrong with supermarkets anyway?

Supermarkets are seen by many as the ‘deliverers' of some of the worst aspects of our modern capitalist system, and the ‘cheap' food that they've turned into a national obsession comes at a high cost to us all.

Local businesses vs Clone Town Britain

Our aim as a group is to help protect and expand Chorlton's great variety of locally-based, independent businesses. This has to involve limiting the growth of supermarkets and chain stores - after all, supermarket expansion relies on new customers taken from existing shops in the area, and it usually seems to be the smaller and independent shops that suffer. Supermarkets have grown at a direct cost to these businesses - it's no coincidence that during the period that supermarkets have grown so huge in the UK we have lost around 50 small businesses every week. The All-Party Parliamentary Small Shops Group reported in 2006 that independent convenience stores were unlikely to survive by 2015.
Read the full report here.

• How to Oppose (pdf, 153 KB)
• The New English Planning System (pdf, 656 KB)
• Space Invaders poster (pdf, 218KB)

The potential local impacts of the Chorlton Tesco are numerous, and most are issues covered by local and national planning guidance. Here is the local case against the Chorlton store. For more detail, download our full report to the planners.

The 16 month campaign against the Tesco Express in Chorlton is over, after the Planning Inspectorate found in favour of Tesco at an appeal hearing in July 2008. Despite opposition from hundreds of local residents, independent retailers, councillors and the local MP, the national Planning Inspectorate has overturned the decision by the Manchester City Council Planning Committee to refuse the application.