The Co-op asks us how they can improve their store - let's tell them!

[Barbara]

Given the average age profile in Marple, we had better keep the Funeralcare business!   

[hollins]

If you read the Co-op group's dismal 2013 interim report at
http://www.co-operative.coop/Corporate/PDFs/Interim-Report/2013/Interim_Report_2013.pdf
you find that the only part of the business that is thriving is Funeral Care. Is there a faint irony here?

Time to give a better supermarket a run in Marple, I think.

[corium]

Dave asks

"There are several supermarkets in other places not far from Marple -Hazel Grove, Whaley Bridge, Bredbury, Hyde, Glossop etc - but they have all been established for several years. Where are all these places which have been 'busy getting their own schemes off the ground' during the past two years while the failed Hibbert Lane and Chadwick Street schemes have come and gone? "

I've heard  (& as I said I may be wrong) that a number of new schemes will become public knowledge this year

[TINSLEY]

Please not the class system.

[Dave]

Marple is full of middle class professionals and many retired people who are ex-middle class professionals.

This is indeed borne out by the following information from the 2011 census, taken from the localstats website:

The top occupations listed by people in Marple South are Professional 20.2%, Associate professional and technical 13.5%, Managers, directors and senior officials 13.2%, Administrative and secretarial 13.0%, Skilled trades 11.4%, Administrative 9.6%, Caring, leisure and other service 8.6%, Corporate managers and directors 8.3%, Sales and customer service 7.6%, Business and public service associate professionals 7.3%.

The top occupations listed by people in Marple North are Professional 27.4%, Managers, directors and senior officials 14.8%, Associate professional and technical 14.6%, Administrative and secretarial 11.5%, Corporate managers and directors 10.4%, Skilled trades 9.2%, Teaching and educational professionals 9.0%, Teaching and Educational Professionals 9.0%, Administrative 8.2%, Business and public service associate professionals 8.1%.

[amazon]

It's called quality. Service with a smile and let's not have a conversation with a there'd party at the check out.

Yes agree there .

[Howard]

Not at all Howard. Genuine comment

In that case you're deluded unless you consider "working class" to mean "people with jobs". Marple is one of the most middle class areas you could possibly imagine. There are couple of areas that might be considered exceptions to that classification, mostly around Manchester's overspill council estates. Other than those, Marple is full of middle class professionals and many retired people who are ex-middle class professionals.

[wheels]

Now you're just trolling.

Not at all Howard. Genuine comment

[Dave]

Why do people keep going on about M&S food supermarkets and Waitrose, saying Marple needs one.

I didn't say Marple needed either of those, all I said was:

Now we have blown it with the Hibbert Lane Asda, the only realistic prospect, IMO,would be an Aldi or M&S on Chadwick Street.

...my point being simply that those would typically be small enough to fit within the limited area of the Chadwick Street site.

[Howard]

Sensible comment blue neither of them offer anything to a predominantly working class suburb like Marple

Now you're just trolling.

[wheels]

Why do people keep going on about M&S food supermarkets and Waitrose, saying Marple needs one.

Surely one of those would make the the co-op look like a thrifty option.

Sensible comment blue neither of them offer anything to a predominantly working class suburb like Marple

[TINSLEY]

It's called quality. Service with a smile and let's not have a conversation with a there'd party at the check out.

[Bluezorro]

Why do people keep going on about M&S food supermarkets and Waitrose, saying Marple needs one.

Surely one of those would make the the co-op look like a thrifty option.

[wheels]

Or both as in Hazel Grove

[Dave]

we will see a procession of supermarket delivery vans coming in & cars heading out of Marple to find cheap petrol for the next decade at least.

In other words, things will simply go on as they have done for several years.  Yes, that's almost inevitable now, of course.

However, this bit of corium's post puzzles me:  

Whilst [the Kirkland scheme] plus the Asda episode were going on all the town centres around us have been busy getting their own schemes off the ground making any future new Marple supermarket scheme less viable

There are several supermarkets in other places not far from Marple -Hazel Grove, Whaley Bridge, Bredbury, Hyde, Glossop etc - but they have all been established for several years. Where are all these places which have been 'busy getting their own schemes off the ground' during the past two years while the failed Hibbert Lane and Chadwick Street schemes have come and gone?  

However, corium's conclusion is surely right - that we are now probably not going to get a proper 25,000 sq ft. supermarket in Marple.  And one of the reasons has little to do with Marple:  if you read the business pages in the newspapers, they are full of stuff about how the major supermarket chains are reporting declining sales and profits, and the analysis suggests that this is mainly at their traditional 'big box' stores.  Online sales are OK, the smaller convenience stores (Tesco Express etc) are doing OK, and the 'niche' chains (Aldi, Lidl, M&S, Waitrose) are also doing OK.  Now we have blown it with the Hibbert Lane Asda, the only realistic prospect, IMO,would be an Aldi or M&S on Chadwick Street.