Why this picturesque Scottish town needs to spark national fightback against out-of-town shopping

Hot and running late, I eventually told him to get lost. Later, I discovered he was the boss of CNN. Lesson learned. And that is the important thing. Our experiences should make us better moving forward. We can learn from past mistakes.

When they come to write the history of urban planning in this age, one thing is clear, out-of-town shopping developments have been a terrible mistake. We imported them from America without realising the devastating impact they would have.

Every corner of Britain now has these concrete behemoths, choked with cars and offering an utterly soulless shopping environment. Meanwhile high streets stand empty and decaying.

Many butchers, bakers and grocers are gone

With the push to reduce car journeys and revive urban centres, you would hope a lesson has been learned. That is about to be put to the test in Dumfries where supermarket giant Sainsbury’s is bidding to open a new store. The company wants to convert a giant retail unit abandoned by Homebase when that company went into receivership.

It’s situated at the Cuckoo Bridge Retail Park which sounds quaint but the last cuckoo flew this nest a long time ago. Instead it’s home to an endless procession of cars and a fast-food restaurant, discount store and drive thru coffee shop. In other words, all the usual dreary suspects. It also has an existing Tesco superstore.

Many of the butchers, bakers and grocers where my mum shopped in Dumfries when I was a child have now gone. The combination of one-way streets and out-of-town shopping saw to that. But recent years have brought regeneration with a community benefit group breathing new life into the town centre by redeveloping empty high street properties.

That is backed up by planning conditions now limiting Cuckoo Bridge Retail Park to the sale of ‘non-food bulky goods’. In other words, no supermarkets. Sainsbury’s application directly challenges that and promises that approval would "enhance convenience for shoppers, foster healthy competition, increase consumer choice, and contribute positively to the local economy".

A challenge for all Scotland

In other words, the usual word salad written back in corporate HQ in central London and applied to every tricky application. In reality, convenience would be shops in the town centre where there is public transport, shoppers already enjoy competition between Aldi, Lidl, Morrisons, Spar and Marks and Spencer, and with the drift to self-service, the economic impact from jobs created would be minimal.

Sainsbury’s also claims to have carried out an assessment which concluded their plans would not have "significant adverse effect on the vitality and viability" of Dumfries town centre. Well, they would say that, wouldn’t they?

With expensive lawyers to push the case for the development, the easy route for Dumfries’s councillors is to approve the application and mumble about “job creation” and “economic benefit”. But that would show no lessons have been learned and planning conditions exist for the big boys just to push them aside.

What happens to the high street is a challenge all over Scotland. The solutions aren’t simple but more out-of-town shopping is definitely not the answer. Over to you, Dumfries.