In August an article was published in a number of national newspapers about the rise in our high streets of the number of shops belonging to chains and the consequent demise of independent local businesses.

The New Economics Foundation (NEF), an independent think-tank, believes that once-distinctive and attractive towns are losing their character. Identikit shops owned by powerful chains are suffocating independent retailers and high streets, especially in larger towns, are becoming homogenised. They are turning into "Clone Towns". NEF carried out a pilot survey of randomly selected towns to find out which ones had already achieved "Clone Town" status. Guildford, a "clone town" is 70% dominated by chain shops. Gloucester and Bury St. Edmunds are two other "clone towns". At the other end of the scale is Lewes in East Sussex with around 70% local businesses.

In the newspaper article, NEF announced the launch of its "Clone Town Britain" campaign. They asked people to carry out a simple survey of 50 shops in their town’s High Street or equivalent, and then to send them the results supported by photographs. Survey forms were obtainable on their website. Such premises as banks, building societies, post offices, public buildings, council and government offices were to be excluded from the survey.

The Farnham Society conducted a survey for Farnham. Our 50 shops were those on either side of The Borough and extending along the north side of West Street up to the entrance to the Lion and Lamb Yard. Each was listed as either independently-owned or belonging to a chain and also allotted to one of 25 different types of shops/other kinds of premises so as to establish the degree of diversity. Following a prescribed formula, a score was arrived at. A score of 5 to 25 indicated a "clone town", 26 to 35 was borderline and the higher the score between 36 and 60, the more independently-owned shops predominated. Farnham "High Street" had 36 chain shops and 14 independently- owned i.e. 72% chain dominance. The score was 18.8 which, based on our "High Street", makes Farnham, not surprisingly, a "clone town".

Following on from this, the Society decided to spread the net wider and extend the survey to all the shops and other premises located in all the shopping streets, lanes and yards in central Farnham including as far west in West Street as The Guitar Village and The Bishop's Table and as far east in East Street as Stagebeat and The French Trading Co. Using the same formula, we were hoping that with more independently-owned shops, the result would be reversed.

A total of 244 shops and other premises were included in the survey of which 93 belonged to chains and 151 were independent local businesses. As expected, The Borough was predominantly chain shops (29 chain; 13 independent). Downing Street, including Upper Church Lane, was predominantly independent (14 chain; 35 independent). The most common types of shops were:-

Using the same formula as that used for the national survey, our resultant score was 33.5. This puts Farnham in the borderline town category which, in the words of NEF, is a town "showing a significant displacement of local independent outlets".

Food for thought?