Local shops are our lifeline in tough times

WE live in Dinas Powys and are so fortunate to have a few local shops. I won’t name them, they’ll know who they are, the butcher, greengrocer, paper shop and the local, small Nisa who have all provided us with a service that is second to none, delivering our orders regularly to our doorstep.

I’m sure that there are other communities who can echo these experiences round the country but there also many more who can’t.

This is not meant to be a criticism of the large supermarkets, especially those workers on the shop floor, the drivers and those behind the scenes in the warehouses who are working their little socks off. But as we know, there have been times when they just haven’t coped when house deliveries and certain goods have been well nigh impossible to get.

I was a child of World War Two and used to shop in our local town where there were about three butcher shops, an equivalent number of greengrocers, two fishmongers, a bakery and all this obviously prior to the growth of the supermarkets and their lower prices undercutting the smaller businesses. I hasten to add, though, I believe that in this global society we live in now there is a need and room for them.

If there are future lessons to be drawn from this crisis, one of them must be for communities to support local businesses and to persuade government and councils via grants to encourage a resurgence of these local shops for normal, good times and also when difficult times strike us. They are our lifeline and salt of the earth.

Arwel P Williams Dinas Powys