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Aberystwyth is a seaside town of 11,500 residents situated in northern Ceredigion. As with many other resorts in the UK, Aberystwyth had its heyday in the 1920s and 1930s and has seen significant relative decline since then. However it has many advantages, particularly in the cultural sector, including a constituent University of the University of Wales and the National Library of Wales. These two institutions support Aberystwyth’s claim to be the cultural capital of Wales. In the words of the Secretary of the local Rambers’ Association (written in 1992):

(Main and Perrott, 1992)

In terms of the standard of living of its residents, Aberystwyth, and Ceredigion generally, is well favoured by the standards of Mid Wales in terms of income per head and various deprivation indicators (see Morris and Wilkinson, 1995) and the relative levels of house prices. Aberystwyth and the surrounding area has a number of significant local employers including Cambrian Printers, the plant-breeding station IGER, and Coleg Ceredigion, as well as the University, and many small employers in the tourism and leisure sectors.

Aberystywth has traditionally been served by a wide range of local shops, supplemented by two supermarkets: Somerfield and Kwiksave. This report assesses the impact on the local shopping situation of planning decisions taken by Ceredigion County Council in 1994 to permit the building of two retail parks: Rheidol Retail Park, near the town centre; and Parc-y-Llyn, on a site in the Rheidol Valley about a mile from the centre. It focuses mainly on the second of these two retail developments, which was larger and had greater environmental impact.

The site of the 70-acre Parc-y-Llyn development was formerly an attractive area of open pasture land, providing habitats for wildlife and play spaces for local children. The largest site is taken by Safeway, with national chains Great Mills, MFI, Currys, Carpetright, and Halfords moving in shortly afterwards. They were later joined by Allied Carpets, Tiles ‘R’ Us, and the Ceredigion agricultural supplier Country Store (the renamed farmers’ cooperative), along with the inevitable McDonalds ‘restaurant’, including a drive-through fast-food outlet. Although most of these retailers were new to Aberystwyth, Currys has continued to operate a Dixons outlet in the town centre, while the farmers’ shop gave up a site nearer to the town centre.

The planning decision also involved the building of a major new road which cut straight across an attractive water meadow. Despite the existence of a poorly used bus stop, the site is clearly designed to be used by car-drivers. All the stores now forming part of the complex have at least 50 parking spaces, with the Safeway supermarket offering more than 500. Yet 23.5 per cent of the population of Ceredigion had no car in 1991 (Morris and Wilkinson, 1995: 33). These local citizens thus lost significant amenity with little advantage, since bus travel is not really an option for a large-scale shopping trip.

Figure 1 is a reproduction of a map from a local ramblers’ guide on which we have marked the site of the Parc-y-Llyn development. The rambling route marked on this map, shown with hedges either side, is now a featureless two-lane access road linking Parc-y-Llyn to Llanbadarn Fawr in one direction and Aberystwyth in the other.

There was strong local opposition to the retail park, including some strenuous argument within Aberystwyth Town Council. The land used for the development is actually outside the town boundary and within the area of the Llanbadarn Fawr Community Council. Llanbadarn Fawr is a historic site in Ceredigion, and was an important pilgrimage centre for the Celtic Church when Aberystwyth was home to only a few fishermen’s hovels. It was once a pretty village with a renowned 12th-century church to the Celtic saint Padarn, although it is now more reminiscent of a major road intersection with its historic character destroyed by traffic. Photo 1 shows how the building on the Parc-y-Llyn site is encroaching on the church.

When plans to build a new retail site at Parc-y-Llyn were first mooted—in addition to the permission to build the smaller Rheidol Retail Park near the town centre—considerable concern was expressed by local shopkeepers and by the Aberystwyth Chamber of Commerce. Reg Budd, President of the Chamber of Commerce reported in the Cambrian News (6 October 1995) that many shopkeepers in the town were ‘extremely worried’ about the future. Ceredigion development manager Philip Ellis responded that the investment was ‘good news for customers and most existing shops in the town’. But he admitted that ‘Obviously it is going to have a negative effect on some people’.

A month later shopkeepers were complaining about their loss of trade following the opening of Safeway. The local butcher in Chalybeate Street, Rob Rattray, said that he had no passing trade and that the town centre was dead. A nearby baker agreed, and called on the council to take urgent action. The general view of traders before and after the development of Parc-y-Llyn was that their trade would be detrimentally affected and that many of the more marginal retail concerns would be destroyed. Now, four years after the opening of the Parc-y-Llyn retail park, it seems timely to investigate the impact it has actually had on economic life in Aberystwyth town.

Negative Impacts of Out-of-Town Retail Development

Concern has been expressed anecdotally about the impact of out-of-town retail developments on life in the town centres; there is also a limited academic literature. A report carried out for the Department of the Environment (BDP Planning, 1992) identified three types of impact resulting from these developments: economic, social, and environmental.

Economic Impact

The planning preference for out-of-town retail developments is part of a more general economic policy that held sway during the years of Conservative government from 1979 to 1997. The economic ideology pursued by these governments held that market competition was the ideal form of economic life, and that it would ultimately ensure the best outcomes for ‘consumers’ (rather than ‘citizens’, as we once were) as well as for producers and retailers. It was argued that to resist competition, even when it came from a vastly larger and wealthier competitor, was to become weak and flabby. Such unfit and unhealthy economic specimens would never survive in the ‘competitive jungle’, and hence assisting business was really only to encourage inefficiency.

The outcome of this policy has been successful advances by multinational corporations across Wales to such an extent that the large yellow plastic M atop the McDonalds 'restaurant' at Parc-y-Llyn is one of the first sights to greet the visitor to Aberystwyth. Economic planning has been reduced to little more than institutionalised job-seeking, with little attention paid to the impact of these jobs on social and cultural life in Wales.

This history of pro-market economic policy is an essential backdrop to discussions of retail policy in Ceredigion and Wales. With the advent of the Welsh Assembly we must hope that a more sensitive approach will be taken to economic development. The Assembly must acknowledge the unique culture and identity of Wales and economic and planning policies should include this as a fundamental component. Some gestures in this direction are made in Labour’s economic strategy document Pathway to Prosperity, but even the title of this report makes clear its central orientation. If the culture of Wales values locality and community then this needs to be taken seriously by economic planners.

The economic impact of the building of the Parc-y-Llyn retail park in Aberystwyth would seem to be shown by the large number of smaller retail businesses closing in the town centre. The local paper, the Cambrian News, published a survey on 6 May which found that:

11 shops in the five main commercial thoroughfares are currently closed and boarded up. And a survey of Estate Agents in Aberystwyth shows an additional nine existing businesses are up for sale and a further two available to let . . . Units which used to house the Balti Garden Take-Away, Little Ones, General Accident and His and Her’s Salon, all in Chalybeate Street; TSB, in Great Darkgate Street; Radio Rentals, Karoo and Benetton, in Pier Street; Ceridwen Healing and Beauty Centre and Cardiau KC in Market Street; and the Ideal Bakeshop in Terrace Road are all currently empty (Andrews, 1999).

Academic findings on the issue of economic impact have been mixed. A study of the development of out-of-town superstores in Cardiff (Guy, 1995a) found that direct impact is difficult to demonstrate. Such studies find it hard to distinguish between closures resulting from competition with large-scale retail developments and closures as a result of internal reorganisation or natural wastage in the retail sector. However, in the case of Aberystwyth, many of the firms now threatened with closure are long-lasting family firms who have only one premises. If such shops close as a result of reduced trade it is hard to ignore the impact of Parc-y-Llyn.

This conclusion is shared by a survey of retail development in Cardiff (Guy 1995b) which notes that ‘The latest phase of grocery store development in small market towns does however present cause for concern, as these towns are heavily dependent upon shoppers purchasing food and grocery items’ (p. 177). A table from the same article indicates the impacts of out-of-town retail outlets of different types on economic life in the town centres (reproduced as Table 1). The table indicates typical impacts of four different types of development: superstores, retail parks, regional centres, and factory outlet centres. Small towns are defined as having fewer than 20,000 inhabitants; large towns are those with between 20,000 and 40,000 inhabitants. As the table shows, the impact of three out of four of these types of large-scale, out-of-town retail facilities on a town even twice the size of Aberystwyth is serious.

Table 1. Out-of-town shopping development impacts on town centres

Even within the pro-growth, pro-market economic policy of the Conservative governments there was an understanding that large-scale development could threaten the viability of market towns so cherished by rural Conservatives. Former Secretary of State for Wales John Redwood made clear his view in the Western Mail (23 November 1994; ‘Centres of Opportunity’):

Thriving and attractive town centres are an important part of my vision for the future of Wales . . . Present Government guidance already provides a base for restoring the fortunes of our towns. This supports choice for shoppers but encourages new development in and on the edge of town centres . . . I am planning to strengthen the guidance documents as they are in England, to underline the importance of successful town centres in Wales . . . Out-of-centre food supermarkets should not be allowed if they are likely to lead to the closure of general food shops in the centre of smaller towns.

This realization by the Welsh Office had little impact on Ceredigion County Council's decision to grant planning permission for the Parc-y-Llyn development, however, although it was exactly the sort of development Redwood was worried about.

The economic impact of the Parc-y-Llyn retail park, and the growth in the number of national or international chainstore branches in Aberystwyth, has been exacerbated by the local rating policy, an issue explored in more depth in the case-study of one street presented below. A less direct impact is likely to have been through the siphoning off of money from the local economy to the head offices of the superstores. A proprietor of a local shop is likely to spend a large proportion of the profits of the shop in the local economy. The situation with supermarkets is entirely different. Although some jobs are created they are generally poorly paid; the profits of the company are paid to managers and shareholders who live outside the locality and spend their money elsewhere. This is one of the many ways that local economies are undermined by the movement towards globalisation as discussed in Douthwaite (1996).

The perspective of the Ceredigion planning department should also be given consideration. The permission to build on the Parc-y-Llyn site was influenced by a fear that there was ‘leakage’ of retail activity outside the borders of the county, to Shrewsbury in the north-east and Swansea in the south-west. Both these towns have major shopping centres, although they are more than two hours’ travel from Aberystwyth. With the ease of transport of the personal car many shoppers now choose to travel considerable distances to do their shopping. Shopping is now seen as a leisure activity in itself, so that these distances form part of a ‘shopping trip’ rather than a more practical outing to make necessary purchases.

Part of the reason for the granting of planning permission from the County planners’ perspective was the need to keep shoppers in the county and therefore to provide the sort of ‘shopping experience’ that shoppers have learned to expect from advertising. Local shops are seen as dated and uninteresting, and although their prices may match those of the superstores their range certainly cannot. This seems part of a pattern of responding to the globalising economy with a submissive panic, rather than defending what we value in our own traditional ways. As consumers, once we have seen the shopping mall in the advertiser’s fantasy we believe that it is what we must have, and the planners are forced to follow the agenda set by the corporations in spite of the economic and social costs.

The other side of this argument is that what we value about traditional ways of shopping is easily taken for granted or neglected. An example might be the social contact provided by a mother with small children as she buys her bread at the baker, compared with the alienation of a trip round a supermarket with small children in tow. On the other hand the costs of a globalised consumption system—the exploitation of child labour employed in the production of many of the goods sold in the ‘malls’ or the environmental impact of the transportation—are incurred far away from the point of sale and easily ignored by the final consumer. The consequences of the global retail system and the various levels where they are experienced are illustrated schematically in Table 2. The table makes it clear that the advantages of such a movement are experienced locally whereas the disadvantages can be kept out of sight, usually overseas.

Table 2. Level of effect of some consequences of the globalisation of retail

Ceredigion County Planning Department have responded to concerns about the loss of trade in Aberystwyth town centre by carrying out shopping surveys. Although the results of these surveys are not available to the public an employee of the Department told me unofficially that the surveys show that the number of shoppers in the town is the same as it was before the opening of Parc-y-Llyn. The problem with the surveys is that they measure ‘pedestrian flows’ (the technical term for people walking up and down the shopping streets) but do not measure the amount of money these pedestrians spend, which is of course what really matters to the retailers.

Perhaps the best evidence of the impact of the out-of-town development is the number of empty premises and the accounts of shopkeepers, reported below.

The social impact of any economic development is always complex and difficult to assess. What is obvious, however, is that the running down of the once-proud centre of Aberstywyth town is demoralising for its citizens. The classic case of such urban decay resulting from major retail development is that of Dudley in the West Midlands, which was one several small towns blighted by the Merry Hill regional shopping centre. It has been estimated that Dudley lost some 70 per cent of its non-food retail trade as a result of competition from Merry Hill (Tym et al., 1993). According to one account ‘the town centre now has many vacant properties and a rash of ugly "cheap shops"’ (Guy, 1995b, p. 175): a depressing warning of what could happen in Aberystwyth.

The more abstract social impact is related to the importance of consumption as a strand of our identity. Elsewhere I have argued that, with the increase in unemployment and homogenisation of work-roles, our identity is founded more strongly on our consumption than our production (a development of ideas taken from postmodernist theorists such as Baudrillard; Scott Cato, 1998). This suggests that our identities are reinforced by our purchasing when it takes place in local shops, whose owners may be friends or acquaintances. This is in stark contrast to our shopping experiences in branches of national or international chains, where the staff no longer have time to establish personal relationships, and where uniformity predominates over personality.

A contrast between the social role of local and external shops is provided by Photos 2 to 4. Photos 2 and 3 show local fish and vegetables shops in Aberystwyth town. The pride and commitment of the shopkeepers is clear from the attractive way they display their produce. This creates a completely different atmosphere to that in Safeway (see Photo 4), who first moved into the Ceredigion area with their superstore on the Parc-y-Llyn estate. Although we may know many of the staff in these shops personally, policy decisions are made far away, and the lack of trust in the local community is demonstrated by the fact that this photo was taken clandestinely, after staff at another store, Somerfield, had refused us permission to take photographs.

Another useful perspective on the loss of community resulting from the move towards out-of-town shopping can be gained from comparing the role in the local community of a self-employed shopkeeper and an employee of manager of a superstore. For perhaps a century local businessmen, frequently shopkeepers, have been the backbone of civic society in our market towns. Through organisations such as the Round Table, the Chamber of Commerce, and the Townswomen’s Guild these people have put their energy into improvements in their town. A natural step for many shopkeepers, once the success of their business was assured, would be to stand for election to the local council.

Superstores with head offices in distant cities cannot have the same commitment to a local community. Their managers are aware of this lack and respond to it by running competitions for children and subsidising local good works carried out by others. When Warrington-based Safeway opened at Parc-y-Llyn the store organised a competition offering prizes to children who provided artwork ‘depicting their favourite food’ (Cambrian News, 10 November 1995). Retail operations director Brian Hunter, based at the Warrington HQ, ‘presented a £300 cheque to the Aberystwyth Royal British Legion’ and £250 to Aberystywth Rotary Club. Does this sort of activity indicate a deep commitment to the people of Aberystwyth or a cynical PR exercise to deflect negative criticism?

The Parc-y-Llyn development has unquestionably had a deleterious impact on the environment of the Aberystwyth area. What was once an unspoilt water meadow is now under tarmac, with consequent loss of wildlife habitats; a green wedge between two heavily developed areas has been destroyed. The site itself is environmentally vulnerable, since it is the floodplain of the River Rheidol and is therefore liable to flooding when high tides coincide with heavy rainfall. While this may affect the shops themselves, it is more likely to have effects elsewhere, since many houses have also been built in the floodplain and have flooded frequently in recent years.

Aside from the impact of the site itself there has been a consequent increase in traffic levels in Aberystwyth, and the need to build a new road, which is already frequently blocked. Since attracting shoppers from rural Ceredigion in to Aberystwyth as a ‘regional shopping centre’, dissuading car-based consumers from travelling further afield, was one of the reasons given for the granting of planning permission, this traffic growth was foreseen and inevitable.

In 1994 concern about the transport implications of out-of-town shopping led the government to issue a guidance note to insist that such retail developments should be accessible to non-car users. These were supported by the House of Commons Environment Committee, which suggests that this was an environmental concern rather than a concern about citizens access rights. Such a policy can never be credible as more than an environmental fig-leaf: out-of-town shopping centres exist because of the obsession with the private car. They are always built with acres of free parking space, and easy parking is always sold as one of their main attractions. However many buses run to these sites it would always be less environmentally destructive to walk to the corner shop.

As well as the impact of the cars of the individual shoppers, there is also the extra freight generated by large superstores, who operate a national network of supplies. Supermarkets have a set of criteria they use in choosing suppliers, largely concerned with uniformity and bulk, and this encourages them to favour large-scale wholesalers, no matter how far they may have to send their produce. In September 1994, the SAFE food alliance carried out research in three central London supermarkets and found green beans that had been transported 3600 miles from Kenya, apples brought 4700 miles from the USA, carrots brought 5100 miles from South Africa, and onions brought 12,000 miles from New Zealand. This was at a time when all these vegetables were available throughout Britain (Douthwaite, 1996, p. 282).

Because local shops do not have access to these international trade routes they are much more likely to buy from local suppliers. Because they only need to provide stock for one shop they can also buy produce from smaller suppliers who are ignored by the supermarkets. This means that the out-of-town retail stores are also undermining the agricultural sector in Wales, for example selling New Zealand lamb when Welsh farmers are going bankrupt. A local butcher is much more likely to sell Welsh lamb. For more consideration of the possible beneficial links between the productive and retail sectors of a rural economy see Pretty (1999).

The lowest-impact method of food supply is provided by box schemes, a system of distribution pioneered by the organic agriculture sector, an example of which is the scheme run by the Treehouse vegetarian shop and restaurant in Baker Street, Aberystwyth. In such schemes an organic producer provides a selection of fresh, organic vegetables, usually her or his own produce supplemented by some imported produce to provide variety. In such a scheme packaging is also minimised. Although most of the operators of such schemes are committed to reducing ‘food miles’ the limited capacity of the organic sector here in Wales makes some importation of organic food inevitable. This suggests a way forward where ideas about expanding the organic sector to improve the viability of Welsh agriculture (Lampkin, 1996) could be combined with indigenous retail outlets to provide a more environmentally friendly system of food distribution in Ceredigion.

In order to examine in more detail the impact of the Parc-y-Llyn development on economic life in the town of Aberystwyth we provide a detailed analysis of one of the main shopping streets: Chalybeate Street. The analysis includes an assessment of the business rates payable on the properties in the street as well as reports of interviews conducted with local retailers.

Chalybeate Street is a typical shopping street in a small town, with a mix of retail outlets. The shops include a flower shop, a butcher, a greengrocer, an ironmonger, a specialist tea and coffee retailer, two ladies clothing shops, a babyware shop, a TV rental shop, a film processing and computer retailer, an electrical shop, two estate agents, a carpet and furniture shop, a bistro, a cafe, two take-aways, two hair salons, a General Accident office, the Welsh Pony and Cob Society head office, and the Cambrian News advertising office. The street also contains one empty shop; four of the outlets listed above have vacated since the rating list was printed, and the cafe is soon to open, after the previous tenant shut up shop.

Recent discussion about the viability of local shops in Aberystywth has focused on the high rates payable. Although an analysis of the rateable values of the shops is interesting, it is hard to compare with these with rateable values of shops on the Parc-y-Llyn retail park and assess whether the comparative charges by the local authority are appropriate. However, some comparisons are attempted both with Parc-y-Llyn shops and with shops at the Rheidol Retail Park which is some five minutes walk away from Chalybeate Street, near the railway station.

One of the major threats posed by supermarkets is that they sell such a large range of foods that they can threaten the trade of five or six separate town-centre retailers. In Chalybeate Street we have no grocery shop, but we have a butcher and a greengrocer whose joint rateable value is £12,200. This compares with a rateable value of the German-owned superstore Lidl, which sells vegetables and meat as well as a wide range of groceries, of £60,500. The ratio of rateable values is approximately 5:1, although it is hard to believe that the two local shops have a turnover equivalent to a fifth of that of the supermarket. Iceland does even better, with a rateable value of a mere £38,400, some three times that of the two specialist shops.

Another illuminating comparison can be made between the small furniture and carpet shop Geraint Furnishings in Chalybeate Street and the three massive Parc-y-Llyn competitors: Carpetright, Allied Carpets, and MFI. The shop belonging to Geraint Furnishings is rated at £10,650; Carpetright has a rateable value of only £55,900; MFI has a rateable value of £111,500. The two out-of-town stores have massive floor areas and it is impossible to conceive that the town-centre shop has a turnover in the same league. Pressure on this shop, and another furniture retailer in a nearby street, must be immense.

An interesting perspective is provided by calculating the average rateable value of all the retail premises in Chalybeate Street. There is quite a wide range of values: they are fixed according to the amount of floor space available to the shop, which is not necessarily a good guide of the amount of trade likely to be undertaken in the premises. However, the average yields some interesting information: of the 25 shops that are listed in the Ceredigion Rating List for March 1999 the average rateable value is £6996. In 1999/2000 the rate in the pound was 44.3p, which means that the costs of the rates for the average shop in this typical street was £3099.23. If we divide this sum by the number of weeks in the years we find that shopkeepers would be liable to pay rates of £59.60 for each week of trading. This is a large chunk to remove from any business’s income.

The rateable value of the Safeway superstore, which includes a petrol station and a huge car park, is £399,000; that of the Somerfield store nearer the town centre is £150,000. These figures are useful for reference purposes only, since we are not in a position to assess the levels of the stores’ profits precisely. However, some idea of the significance of this level of rateable value (and the consequent rates payable of some £170,000) can be gained from the claims made by the Chamber of Commerce that on its first day of trading Safeway took £91,000. Although a spokewoman for the company was not prepared ‘to disclose any trading figure’ she did agree that the figure claimed ‘sounded about right’ (report in Cambrian News, 17 November 1995). These levels of takings are clearly in a different league from the sort of sales made by town-centre retailers; although the rateable values are comparable in scale.

In addition to carrying out a rates comparison we also talked to shopkeepers in Chalybeate Street and canvassed opinions on the effect on trade of the opening of the Parc-y-Llyn and Rheidol Retail Parks. The shopkeepers were divided as to the importance of price differentials in explaining the loss of trade to the superstores. Some claimed that they could compete on price, but given the vast bulk of stock ordered by the stores it seems evident that they can buy wholesale at much lower prices. Although the town-centre shopkeepers may be able to compete on prices this can only be achieved by cutting their margins.

The Chalybeate traders agreed that the charges levied for parking in the town centre, and the lack of adequate parking facilities, created an unfair advantage for the out-of-town retailers. This is an issue which must clearly be addressed if Aberystwyth town is to survive. At present the town council is considering a plan to reorganise parking in the town, although the proposals to introduce residential parking schemes and pedestrianise some main streets, while welcome on other grounds, might reduce town-centre trade even further. Some services must be introduced to assist shoppers to come into town and to carry their purchases. An idea which has been investigated in some depth by the Chamber of Commerce is the development of a tram system linking the town with the nearby Park-and-Ride facility. As well as assisting movement into the town this would also add an attractive tourist amenity.

According to the traders in this one Aberystwyth Street the outlook for the town is gloomy. The attitude expressed was one of depressed resignation, with many retailers admitting that they could not afford to trade for much longer. It is important to carry out a more thorough comp-arison of rate and profit levels between town-centre shops and out-of-town retail outlets, although this is difficult due to confidentiality considerations. Whatever such a study finds, if the accounts of town-centre retailers are taken at face value the future of Aberystwyth appears grim. And the many empty shops in Chalybeate Street and elsewhere tell their own story.

The rating system for business that is currently operated by local authorities across Wales was established at a time when most retail outlets were family businesses, with a single shop in one town. Conceptually business rates pre-date the chainstore and the supermarket. The theoretical basis for rate charges on businesses is that local authorities provide the businesses with services. The shops provide a service to the community, where the owners of the shops also live.

This local rating system was under the control of local authorities who also made planning decisions for the benefit of their residents. However, as part of the attack on local government of the Thatcher era, the Unified Business Rate was introduced in 1990. This established a single rate in the pound payable by all businesses throughout Wales (a separate rate applied in England). Although local authority Valuation Offices are still responsible for setting the rateable values of their businesses, the introduction of a single rate has limited the flexibility of local authorities in poorer areas to encourage business growth by keeping rates low. In a marginal area of West or North Wales a local council that had control of the rating system might decide to reduce rates for certain types of business, or for smaller businesses, on the basis that the survival of the local economy is more important than local authority revenue. After all if the local economy dies, council services become irrelevant, since there will be nobody left to use them.

The UBR has severely restricted what councils can do in this respect, although Ceredigion County Council have made some efforts to help small businesses. The smallest of the rateable premises in Aberystywth—those with a rateable value of less than £10,000—are eligible for some relief on the payments due, known as Small Heriditament Relief (SHR). This was introduced in 1997 to mitigate to some extent the effects of the Unified Business Rate. It provides the smallest business concerns with some relief based on the difference between the rate in the pound for 1996/7 and 1997/8. The difference between these two rates in Aberystwyth was 0.009p and this is known as the small heriditament factor. This is multiplied by the rateable value of the premises to calculate the level of SHR.

An example may help to clarify the extent of this relief. If we take a shop with a rateable value equivalent to the average calculated for the premises in Chalybeate Street—£6996—then its rates payable for 1999/2000 are equivalent to this value times the rate in the pount of 44.3p:

Rates payable = £6996 × 44.3p = £3099.23

The heriditament relief is calculated at the rate in the pound fixed in 1997, i.e. 0.009:

SHR = £6996 × 0.009p = £62.96

So the actual net rates payable can be calculated as:

£3099.23 - £62.96 = £3036.27

While this relief is no doubt welcome to small businesses under pressure, it is tiny when compared with the size of the rate bill itself.

This local business taxation system is out of date in an economic structure where the majority of spending is in branches of chains whose head office may be far away in the UK or overseas. Thus the link between shops and the local community has been broken and the rates are now a fee paid by national megastores for the right to make profits from consumers in a locality.

Since the link between service and rates has been broken it seems logical to find a new basis for taxing local businesses, and that this basis should be their rate of profit. We further recommend the use of local business taxation as an instrument of economic planning as well as a simple source of revenue. Since the purpose of local taxation is to improve the quality of life of local citizens, if they would like to see local shops remain then the rating system should be used to achieve this. As Reg Budd pointed out early on in the argument over Parc-y-Llyn ‘There’s no point talking about pedestrianisation at this stage. We might not have a town or customers to pedestrianise it for’.

In his analysis of the scope for expanding and strengthening local communities Richard Douthwaite (1996) presents a bleak picture of the situation facing local shops:

Local shops have a crucial role to play if a district is to achieve greater economic self-reliance, and it is unlikely that they will be able to do so unless they are locally owned. This is because the big chainstores do their buying centrally and will not be prepared to stock very different sets of supplies in each of their outlets. As a result the preservation—and in Britain, where so many villages have lost their shops, the re-creation—of locally owned retail businesses has to be given high priority. The city of Canterbury does not have a single sizeable shop that is locally owned, while Dorchester, Thomas Hardy's archetypical market town, retains only two (p. 314)

It seems clear that without a coherent economic planning policy in favour of locally owned business, and without financial support, this sector is in terminal decline.

So what can be done to save our town centres? First, of course, we need to establish that this is what the residents of the town wish to see. The Council should begin by conducting a survey of attitudes to the town centre in general, rather than specific shopping surveys. If Aberystwyth residents value their town centre and wish to see it supported then we have several policy options to suggest.

One possibility is encouraging the growth of services other than direct retail in the town centre. Supermarkets are using an expansion policy based on extending their services into non-retail services such as banking, canteens, pharmacies, and even potentially voting. In the case of the Parc-y-Llyn development one of the town’s GP surgeries is presently building a new premises on the site, which is another blow to the town and also to the many elderly people who are unable to drive themselves to the out-of-town site. Town councils could respond to this superstore strategy by providing more services in town centres to give residents other incentives to come into town.

Recycling is a good example of a service which supermarkets tend to monopolise in the UK, although in other European countries recycling facilities are found on the street. Another example of a town-based service is the growth of electronic village halls, where people who do not have the benefit of their own link into the world-wide web can use internet and other computer facilities. Aberystwyth has a well-frequented Web Café in the centre of town, shown in Photo 6. Because the clientele of the web café tend to be young people, this may be setting positive habits for the future of Aberystwyth.

The town centre is the heart of community life. Without thriving shops in the centre of Aberystwyth the town will die, and the community will be lost. In Wales we are fortunate in having preserved the character of many town centres but we now need our local councils to act with vision to draw up policies that will protect our towns against the pressure of global economics. The following section makes recommendations which we feel represent some first steps towards the protection of Aberystwyth town centre for future generations.

Recommendations

Andrews, R. (1999), ‘Traders Slam Road of Ruin’, Cambrian News, 6 May.

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Douthwaite, R. (1996), Short Circuit: Strengthening Local Economies for Security in an Unstable World (Totnes: Green Books).

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