WHISPERING SMITH: Can the lows of our high streets be reversed?

It’s not that the goods are better in the giant stores, or that the veg from the greengrocer in The Arcade is in any way inferior to that offered by, say, Waitrose or the other big stores, it’s just that awful word “convenient”.
You visit one of the big guys and you can buy everything you need in one hit, from a carrot to a colour television! I always try to buy as local as I can, but when enjoying my free parking in Sainsbury’s, or my free cuppa in Waitrose, it is so “convenient” to do the rest of one’s shopping there, as well.
I don’t know if the average consumer will ever be persuaded to go back to trudging from store to store, lugging shopping bags around town on a wet afternoon.
Perhaps the answer is for the new town centre officer to produce a study on what isn’t available at the big stores, bring down the business rates and encourage smaller, more upmarket enterprises, the sort often found in other small county towns.