Trouble in store if supermarkets abandon our town centres

Small retailers often thrive on the pull of bigger shops, says Iain Gray.

I USED to be a city boy. For years while we lived in Edinburgh my wife, who grew up in a market town, hankered after living somewhere smaller. Not me. As usual she was right and I was wrong. Two years ago we moved to Haddington and love it.

One of the advantages is the convenience of the High Street. I can walk from home to shops where I can get almost anything. And on the way I can drop into a Tesco supermarket. Once a month there is even a farmers' market with local produce straight from the producer. It really is the best of all worlds!

That is why shoppers and shopkeepers alike are campaigning to "keep Tesco in town".

The supermarket chain wants to relocate its Haddington town centre store west to a new site on the edge of town.

Local people's concern is that the closure of the Tesco branch in the town centre will dramatically reduce footfall in the area, turning Haddington into a "doughnut" town where the major shopping facilities are out of town, and the town centre goes in to decline. When Tesco moved out of Dalkeith town centre, the vacant premises was split in two, and the range of groceries available to local shoppers was greatly reduced as a result.

The redevelopment plans for the town centre Tesco site would replace a major supermarket with a number of smaller niche stores – but Haddington already has those, a great mix of convenient, unique and sometimes idiosyncratic shops who fear for their viability without an anchor to keep shoppers in the town centre.

I met last week with members of the Haddington Business Association. Its members are mainly local independent traders based in the centre of Haddington and I was happy to give my support to their campaign to retain Tesco's store in the town centre. Some of the smaller shops are also parts of national chains, and at least one of them, Mackays, has also supported the campaign.

This is not an anti-Tesco campaign. They have served the town well for many years, they are an important employer and it is a complement that local people want them to carry on doing what they do.

This campaign is driven by the importance people attach to the town centres of our smaller towns and villages. During the Scottish budget debates Labour argued for a Town Centre fund. This would provide £50 million for town centre renewal. It would come under local control and fund things like the purchase of run-down properties so they could be put back into use. It would be the small town equivalent of the Scottish Land Fund for community buy-outs, and could be a powerful tool in sustaining the very heart of communities all over Scotland.

The old cliché "use it or lose it" was never truer than when it comes to our town centres.

• Iain Gray is MSP for East Lothian