My latest for Comment is Free, which has just gone live, begins like this:
They're on my east London patch all the time: large vans, often unavoidably double-parked, emblazoned with the legends "Sainsbury's", "Ocado" or "Tesco". From these emerge men bearing heavy plastic crates who head for the neighbourhood's smarter front doors. Home food deliveries by supermarket giants are part of life's routine among the local, over-busy affluent. I wonder how many of these are opposed to the arrival of a Tesco Express just down the road, even as employees of the same company or others like it to unload produce into their halls. Maybe quite a few.
The opening of a "local format" store by one of the supermarket giants in my corner of London creates a fascinating test case in the debate about their effect on local economies. The Assembly's planning and housing committee produced a report on the issues last July, which called for the Mayor to do more to protect small, independent retailers. More on that here. My Cif piece is here.
