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« Goodbye Woolies | Main | Gold Star Service »

Saturday December 20, 2008

Finger of Fate

Said finger seems to have singled out the village of Banstead to be at the forefront of the defence against the Great Downturn. Our local Waitrose supermarket there has been rased to the ground last Friday night by a huge fire; it was a remarkable event in the village. It took 15 hours to put out the blaze and the High Street was closed for almost a week.

I was ignorant of the fact all week, since I went elsewhere to shop in larger towns (Christmas shopping). All week I meant to pop into Banstead and failed to do so; I can't imagine how stunned I would have been to see such a sad sight without being pre-warned. In fact, I still have not plucked up courage to go and look. George says the saddest part is that it still has the basic shape of a supermarket (so not quite rased to the ground). However, they estimate it will take up to two years to rebuild.

WaitroseFire.jpg
[This picture submitted to a local website by Nicola Court]

So - it is a very sad event for the locality, and much speculation that it will add to the pressures on the local shops to try and retain customers without the draw of a major supermarket in the village.

[Waitrose (Mr Thompson) wrote to their customers (me) "apologising" for the fire and giving me vouchers to spend in other stores - it is so devastating (in the context of the comfortable environment in which I live) - I felt it would have been more appropriate for me to write a sympathetic letter to them! To everyone's relief, it was only property that was damaged - no people.]

Posted by Christina at 2:28 PM. Category: Oddments and stray thoughts

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