Cumbrian supermarket burns down. Residents now have a 50-mile round trip...

[mabh]

Yup, I know this seems small fry compared to a lot that's going on, but after the Morrisons in Penrith has burned down (no-one hurt, thank goodness), 20-30,000 people now have to drive 50-70 miles to do their weekly shopping.

You'd think Cumbria would have had enough already, wouldn't you?

I'd shop online but this area is also a concentration of rubbish internet connections - I have 45kbps dial up...

I usually scoff at people who say that rural life is horribly inconvenient.

Today, and for the next few months, I agree completely.

Maybe this also shows that having only a single food supplier in a district and no real local shops is perhaps not a brilliant way to organise food distribution in sparsely populated areas?

Miggsie, it sounds like you know about Penrith's recent planning history. I won't bore you all with details, but there have been plans to add another supermarket and selection of national shops for a while. It fell fowl of the credit crunch when the backers withdrew and since then, the council has been tying itself in knots trying to come up with an alternative.

There has been a very vocal, but minority, campaign against another supermarket in town (apparently we should have a 'super market town, not a supermarket town ).

Only this week, Sainsbury finally withdrew (as far as I can work out) from the process as something strange with legal contracts has happened.

It seems very strange coincidence that this is the time that our other supermarket has burned down. There will be a lot of speculation about arson.

That's a real bugger. Hope some smaller producers are able to somewhat fill the breach.

Oh no, that will hit so many, especially with christmas and the weather that will be with you shortly,50miles in the snow is a massivething.

And I presume there will be elderly people,and just general non drivers.

Si there anyone with a better connection you would trust with your card details (parents etc) to do an order for you if you email your list to them?

Penrith has very good local shopping though, and generally the independents have such a hard keeping going in the face of competition from the supermarkets. Good for them to have a bit of a break. Agree that 'super market town' is a hideously naff term, but Penrith is that!

I don't really understand the reference to arson mabh - who do you think would benefit from burning down Morrisons?

Sympathy appreciated, folks.

Zoya I like Penrith, too - hey! I moved here. But the local shopping just isn't going to replace the supermarket, is it?

The parking is going to be a huge problem, as well, isn't it? Where is the volume of cars that normally park at Morrisons going to go?

Carlisle, of course.

So.... Penrith used to hang on to 65% of the food money spent by Penrithians, and just 33% of the non-food money.

Which, I suspect, will go down as a result of the lack of a supermarket, as people do their bits 'n' bobs shopping near their alternative (Carlisle) supermarket, so the independent shops will have more of a problem, not less.

The fact is that people here earn one-third less than the average wage, and cannot afford to do their weekly shop in the independents.

they can't afford local shops but they can afford to run a car and drive all the way to Carlisle? sorry not convinced

Well you've hit the other point, there Zoya - lots of people will struggle to afford either option.

I suspect Tesco might put a bus on and/or we'll be getting a lot of vouchers from Tesco and Booths over the next couple of weeks!

And we'll be seeing a lot more Tesco delivery vans, for those with broadband!

I would love to think that people will go to all the separate shops in town, but the reason that supermarkets now have most of the food spend in this country is that people now expect to be able to shop like that.

Please understand that it's not that I'd like to see the small shops suffer, but they will. Idealism just doesn't trump reality.

It'soften not that simple anyway

It may be different in oher alces but localshops rarely reflect true need- most areas now have plenty of peoplewith reigious and cultutral diets, health needs /allergies, vegans etc

basesing it on the shops we had growing up (here we only have shops that sell touristy tat- plaster cherubs, anyone? , baguettes and over priced blue fairy cakes) its not going to be easily available.