Dear Spurtle
I was rather dismayed to read in Tuesday's edition of the Edinburgh Evening News that the displacement of independent stores by national supermarket chains (selling the ubiquitous, national range of products) continues unabated. The long-standing Peckham's store in Bruntsfield is to become yet another Sainsbury's Local store.
According to the article, we can look forward to many new Sainsbury's local stores.
At end of he day, it is up to us (Joe Public). In the future, our neighbourhoods could easily have numerous identical stores only differentiated by their colourfull logos. In fact it could almost be similar to what the old Eastern Bloc communist states had to experience: a range of identical shops, without, of course, the queues and perhaps a wider range of products.
As your newspaper has advocated many times, we need to use and experience the variety of our local independent shops or lose then for good.
Regards
John MacDonald
(Jamaica Street North Lane)