Small is Flexible Subdivided shops have nothing to hide. The business owners I interviewed operate within the legal stipulations of the flexible A1 retail lease, which allows for selling food products, setting up salons, and selling other product and services under a single lease (Planning Applications UK, 2012). For example, Arun, a Pakistani-Canadian business owner has used the flexibility of the A1 lease to experiment with business offerings at his two locations on Rye Lane (Figs. 30 & 31). In 1999, he purchased a storefront that previously housed a video arcade to open a fish store, periodically carrying fresh produce and groceries based on the season and then in 2011, installing a glass counter to sell mobile phones and calling cards. In 2004, he bought a neighboring storefront to open a beauty supply business. In 2012, he decided that the beauty supply sector was over saturated and he put this 2nd property on the market. After selling off the remainder of his stock, he cleared space for independent stylists and beauticians to rent chairs and tables by the week. This temporary salon covered his overhead costs as he awaited a property buyer. Arun is now planning to build an import business from the office at the back of his fish-grocery-phone store. While independent businesses demonstrate resilience as small and temporary, the Council is planning for big and permanent. In the guidelines of the AAP, the Council proposes restricting the subdivision of new larger retail properties to be developed at the Aylesham Centre, Copeland Industrial Park and other commercial sites along Rye Lane (Fig. 45) (Southwark Council 2012, p. 34). By courting chains to take residency in large retail units, the Council hopes to capture the purchasing power of the 84% of Southwark residents who currently shop for clothes, music and other goods beyond the borough (ibid). This strategy reads as uncannily myopic. During the August 2011 London riots, while independent shops were for the most part spared, the stores looted on Rye Lane were its chains, such as Clark’s Shoes, Curry’s Digital, Blue Inc. Clothing and Gregg’s Bakery.12 To support the AAP’s objective of countering deprivation, building community and promoting local prosperity, a new cohort of chain stores will not help diminish the economic development or social inclusion gap. The resourceful spatial and social strategies of small businesses should be drawn upon to generate a more appropriate plan.
Grocery Mobile Money Internet/PC Repair Clothing/Accessories Fig. 22 Floor plan of evolving business offers at the shop where Umesh’s money transfer booth is located (Author, 2012).
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