So it was announced earlier this week that Morrisons have had a terrible trading period and the man at the top has done such a poor job that he is leaving, however the other side of this story was that they are closing down 10 loss making stores and one of those is Broadfield!
Firstly I feel this is a huge blow to the town as Broadfield is one of the more accessible parts of town via various bus routes for people who wish to go shopping without going to the town center and with Tesco and Sainsburys larger stores not the most accessible from the Broadfield/Bewbush side of town its a great location. Also do not forget that Morrisons spent a significant amount of money in 2014 to acquire and redevelop the service station at Broadfield and operate that as one of their own Petrol Stations and Convenience stores (the future of the service station is still not confirmed). It seemed to be a key thing for Morrisons to secure a service station (as they do love a money off coupon for fuel! And so do we as Customers!) surely it is to far away from the new store in the town center to still be useful as a Morrisons?
Now the most important part of this story is that Morrisons are not quite as cutting edge as they think as this is a clever little trick they stole from Sainsburys! For those of us old enough to remember many years ago Morrisons, Iceland & Superdrug at Broadfield Barton was one big Sainsburys store and was fantastic for people, when they constructed the current Sainsburys at West Green the Broadfield store was promptly closed down (sound familiair?) It seems that Morrisons used Broadfield to test the demand for them in the town then constructed a new Superstore, I would like to say I have used Morrisons at Broadfield and the Service Station but not the new Town Center store as I use Broadfield out of convenience if I am going to a larger store I would go to Sainsburys or Tesco before Morrisons.
Now the final part and the bit that makes me angry about the whole thing is as I have pointed out this is a situation which has occurred in the past so what have the people working for the good of this town done to stop this? As far as I can tell absolutely nothing! Here is where common sense comes in you see having had this happen in the past surely the council could have negotiated that in order to get planning permission for the larger store Morrisons needed to commit to keeping Broadfield open for a certain period of time afterwards, its easy to work out that if you build a new store for a certain period after opening that people will try the new store out but then will probably return to their usual shop of choice. My theory (and its just that a theory) is that the council were so desperate to redevelop the area in the Town which Morrisons is now located on that they just wanted to get it done rather than worry about peoples needs!
Firstly I feel this is a huge blow to the town as Broadfield is one of the more accessible parts of town via various bus routes for people who wish to go shopping without going to the town center and with Tesco and Sainsburys larger stores not the most accessible from the Broadfield/Bewbush side of town its a great location. Also do not forget that Morrisons spent a significant amount of money in 2014 to acquire and redevelop the service station at Broadfield and operate that as one of their own Petrol Stations and Convenience stores (the future of the service station is still not confirmed). It seemed to be a key thing for Morrisons to secure a service station (as they do love a money off coupon for fuel! And so do we as Customers!) surely it is to far away from the new store in the town center to still be useful as a Morrisons?
Now the most important part of this story is that Morrisons are not quite as cutting edge as they think as this is a clever little trick they stole from Sainsburys! For those of us old enough to remember many years ago Morrisons, Iceland & Superdrug at Broadfield Barton was one big Sainsburys store and was fantastic for people, when they constructed the current Sainsburys at West Green the Broadfield store was promptly closed down (sound familiair?) It seems that Morrisons used Broadfield to test the demand for them in the town then constructed a new Superstore, I would like to say I have used Morrisons at Broadfield and the Service Station but not the new Town Center store as I use Broadfield out of convenience if I am going to a larger store I would go to Sainsburys or Tesco before Morrisons.
Now the final part and the bit that makes me angry about the whole thing is as I have pointed out this is a situation which has occurred in the past so what have the people working for the good of this town done to stop this? As far as I can tell absolutely nothing! Here is where common sense comes in you see having had this happen in the past surely the council could have negotiated that in order to get planning permission for the larger store Morrisons needed to commit to keeping Broadfield open for a certain period of time afterwards, its easy to work out that if you build a new store for a certain period after opening that people will try the new store out but then will probably return to their usual shop of choice. My theory (and its just that a theory) is that the council were so desperate to redevelop the area in the Town which Morrisons is now located on that they just wanted to get it done rather than worry about peoples needs!
Last time I looked this was a free, democratic country. That means that private companies are able do as they please in their business. What's wrong with 'testing the water'? Seems like sound business sense to me, as disappointing as that is obviously is to you.
ReplyDeleteWhat the people of Broadfield need to realise is that Crawley doesn't revolve around them and their need for a cheap supermarket. Perhaps if the staff had been more interested in the customers instead of talking amongst themselves, there were more than 2 checkouts open during busy periods, the security stopped shoplifters instead of chatting outside, and the store HAD been profitable it may have been a different story.
The positive in this, if there is one, is that the hoards of Morrison fans have at least shown any prospective supermarket that there is a demand for a larger cheap convenience store attend site.