During the past 12 months, small business groups have stepped up their attack on supermarkets' increasing dominance of the high street. Nick Goulding, chief executive of the Forum of Private Business, argues the case for why that pressure needs to intensify in 2006.
For the remake of the classic film King Kong the filmmakers located their monster gorilla on a tropical island. They had no need of such an exotic location: King Kong, in the shape of Tesco, has been rampaging through UK high streets for some years now, crushing local shops, squeezing suppliers in his mighty fists and leaving a trail of retail devastation wherever he plants his feet.
This Kong of the retail world has a huge appetite. Tesco takes one pound from every eight we spend in the shops, and last year rang up a profit of just under £2 billion with a turnover of £34bn.
What's more, he's putting on weight and muscle at an alarming rate. The company presently has 1,779 stores and 185 development sites which, if they were all developed, would lift its share of the UK grocery market from 33% to 45%. It's extending its territory throughout the suburbs: the 600 Tesco neighbourhood convenience stores are predicted - by Tesco - to double in number over the next 10 years. And this ubiquitous retailer doesn't just flog food: you can be clothed by Tesco, borrow money from Tesco, ring your friends on a Tesco phone package, live in a Tesco mortgaged house and pay your bills with a Tesco credit card.
Does it matter? You bet. Tesco and its cousins Sainsbury, ASDA and the other big retail chains, are taking over the traditional high street. 'High street' conjures up a vision of interesting, quirky little shops, like Hugh Grant's travel bookstore in the film Notting Hill. But at the Forum of Private Business we calculate that competition from the supermarkets and retail chains has led to 20,000 small shops and suppliers going out of business since 1997. And the Grocer magazine reports that a leaked Tesco document on plans to expand a store in Kent, reveals that this would take about £300,000 worth of trade from local shops.
The quiet death of the high street means that more and more of us are now living in 'cloned towns', virtually indistinguishable from one another. The bookseller played by Hugh Grant did the sensible thing and married rich Julia Roberts just before the final credits. In the real world, business owners lose their businesses, their staff lose their jobs and consumers lose the rich diversity, fresh foods and wide choice of the traditional high street.
Ah but that's competition for you, say the big boys. But competition for the retail giants means exploiting a tax loophole by importing CDs, DVDs and video games from Jersey without paying VAT. It's costing the Treasury £80m a year and means that the price you pay for a Tesco CD is less than the small retailer pays to put it on the shelf.
Then there's the plight of the small businesses supplying the supermarkets. Remember that famous film poster with a giant Kong holding a small, blonde figure in one fist? Tesco and the other supermarket giants have their small suppliers in a similar grip.
Recently a leading accountancy firm reported that supermarket bullyboy tactics were increasingly driving small and medium-sized businesses into bankruptcy. And a few days ago a Northants farmer had 6,000 litres of milk poured on her fields as part of a farmers' protest against the rock-bottom prices paid by the supermarkets.
Tesco, and the other retail monsters, are on the march and coming to a high street near you. It's time for the government to launch a formal inquiry in the dominance of the retail giants and slash them down to size before they do any more damage.
