As Easingwold gets a new supermarket we look at the pros and cons of convenience versus quality

MIDDLE England is the stuff of dreams, of half-timbered cottages and mellow brick houses. As the mid-morning sun casts soft shadows on Easingwold’s unspoiled Georgian streets, this town seems about as middle as England will ever get.

But there are more attractions than the splendid architecture. This town has a singular mix of upmarket delis and shops – so much so that The Independent newspaper has called it an “essential foodie pit stop”.

This is certainly true and some might say shoppers in the town are already spoilt for choice. Yet others reckon there is still room for a supermarket.

Now one has been given planning approval and, not surprisingly, it has caused a stir, especially as it was only a year ago that a similar scheme was turned down. The reason given then was that a supermarket would damage Easingwold’s character and force independent shops out of business.

This was based on recommendations by planning consultants England & Lyle, but the firm’s report also quoted a household survey that makes interesting reading. It asked what people liked least about the town; only 1.5 per cent of respondents mentioned the lack of a large supermarket, while only 6.4 per cent said it could best be improved by adding one.

This doesn’t surprise John Dooley, who runs an upmarket grocery store on Chapel Lane.

“It’s not going to bring any extra trade to Easingwold, I wouldn’t have thought for one minute,” he says.

“But all these other towns have one now. You fight them as much as you can, but they always seem to get their own way.”

The plans by Jomast Developments for a food store, petrol station and health unit on York Road have just been given the go-ahead.

But Dooley’s should survive the competition, if anywhere can, because this shop specialises in things supermarkets don’t stock.

John says a lot of his customers use Tesco in any case. They come here for something a bit different, something a bit better.

“We get people from all over the district, because we have a good reputation and we’ve been here so long,” he says.

That said, England & Lyle’s report did agree with the definition of the catchment area for the previously proposed store and that 95 per cent of its trade would be drawn from it.

This suggests there is a huge demand waiting to be tapped by a supermarket. So why shouldn’t it be?

Mark Taylor, who runs Fine Foods of Yorkshire, rated by The Independent as Britain’s third-best deli, says he is all in favour.

“Because it’s a big change, I think there is a panic on,” Mark says. “I’m not worried, though, Easingwold is a lovely town, but it needs a lift, something to draw people.

“You’ll always have some saying they don’t want it, but get the thing built and you see how many go into it.”

However, the supermarket should work with, rather than against, local traders, he said. Mark would like the site to offer three hours free parking to shoppers, so that visitors could spend time in town.

“When the first application was made for Stillington Road, everyone was up at the Galtres Centre complaining. Not about a supermarket, but the location, because it was unfair on the people living there.

“When they proposed one for round the corner it all went quiet.”

Mark reckons a supermarket would act not as a threat but a wake-up call for residents to use rather than lose their local shops. He also argues that planners cannot keep allowing new houses to be built and expect a village store to serve thousands of newcomers.

At present there is a Costcutter and Co-op. Both are small, but demand is robust. Indeed almost three quarters of spending in the Co-op is on main food shopping.

And there is a groundswell of opinion in town that giving it a bit of competition would be no bad thing.

Vickie Williams agrees: “People can’t afford to drive into York, so they have to shop local,” she says. “The one [small supermarket] we’ve already got is too expensive and they’ve got a monopoly.

“But a supermarket won’t stop tourists coming to Easingwold for the tea rooms and little shops, like they always have. It’s a pretty town; they’ll still come.”

Sainsbury’s in Whitby is one example of a new supermarket that was welcomed and has done little to impact on independent shops.

When it opened in 2012, residents finally had more choice and petrol prices all over town dropped, despite the reasons previously cited for it being so expensive.

However, we don’t yet know which chain is coming to Easingwold, and if it turns out to be Tesco, there may yet be more twists to this saga than an episode of The Bridge.

Only two years before Sainsbury’s opened to cheers in Whitby, objectors signed a 3,700-name petition against plans to introduce a Tesco.

There has been similar hostility in Harrogate, still the only UK postcode without one – but perhaps not for long – and campaigns have been waged in opposition to the company setting foot in market towns up and down the land. Broadcaster Selina Scott famously pitched in when plans were announced for a Tesco in Malton. She called the growth of supermarkets in small towns a “national scandal; one in which our politicians are complicit – too afraid of the powerful supermarkets to stand up for local people”. IT IS not only market towns that are seeing an upsurge of interest from supermarkets. There has been a proliferation in town and city centres too.

York is no different, with mainly Tesco Express and Sainsbury Locals. But do the same arguments apply here as in Easingwold?

Certainly there are similarities, concerns that the historic city could be overrun by inappropriate outlets.

While no one can compete with the purchasing power of supermarkets, does that mean we need one on every street corner? Does convenience have to come before quality?

Not always, as many consumers discovered last year when the horsemeat scandal broke. Those who had fallen out of love with butchers when they fell in love with supermarkets soon scurried back to their family butcher, because, overnight, the reasons for buying cheap food stopped making sense.

David Swain, who runs a butchery stall in Newgate Market, says people want reassurance and that’s what he sells.

“I feel supermarkets have been driving prices down with producers for so long that suppliers have been forced into buying cheap alternative meats,” he says. “You can’t do beef lasagne for 99p.”

The main reason people are returning to family butchers is because they know everything is locally sourced. And for small retailers that is their trump card.

A vast supply network is impossible to police completely, but local butchers know precisely where their meat comes from, how the animal was fed and, as importantly, how it was reared.

So why would you buy meat from a supermarket?

Shoppers ask the same question in Easingwold and are spoilt for choice between S&J Butchers on Chapel Street and Thornton’s on the Market Place, where Ken Thornton is the latest generation.

“There is still a place for us, but a supermarket here is bound to have an impact; they always do,” says Ken.

“I’ve got to be against the idea, but I suppose it’s going to happen. Will we be Okay? If I had a crystal ball… well, who knows?