It appears that Next want to build a large store in Cressex. They have presumably decided on this location because of the comparative ease of delivery and customer access that might not be available anywhere in the town centre.

The owners of the Eden Shopping Centre are planning apparently to contest the granting of permission for Next to do so, presumably on the basis of some clause in their original agreement with Wycombe District Council to build Eden. I cannot think of any other possible grounds for contesting the application. Whatever the end result, a cash strapped local council will be obliged to expend tens of thousands of pounds of our money defending their decision to permit the development. If they lose and Next move elsewhere a whole raft of jobs will go with them. The town centre problem is not going to go away. I tour the country regularly and am now sadly used to seeing a rising percentage of shops and offices on High Streets boarded up as a result of the changing social and financial environment. And of course once that becomes a familiar sight, people are less inspired to visit somewhere shabby and unloved.

Eden itself has several empty units now, which they do their best to make look attractive, unlike most high street closures, with bright hoardings and advertising. But they are, nonetheless, compelling evidence of the drop in demand for what those shops once sold.

I don’t know what the answer is. We all mourn the closure of the local owner-operated shops we loved in our childhood, but we still only notice they’ve gone when we need something quickly and don’t want to drive the few miles to the supermarket that gets the majority of our cash.

We have closed those shops by not using them and then whinge when they aren’t there anymore.

It is a transition that I suspect we may to endure until we decide what it is we really want. But the clock can’t be turned back for all those small businesses that have been absorbed by the ever expanding and seductively price-cutting giants.

The small newsagent’s days are numbered, I suspect. They cannot survive on newspapers alone and everything else they sell is festooned around the tills at the supermarket. When you can no longer walk to get your paper, it’ll be too late to do anything about it.