Tesco is back in the news this week with two new stores opening in Oxford, and plans for a large new store in Faringdon causing some consternation.

The Faringdon proposal has inevitably produced a mixed reaction in the town. Traders fear the supermarket in Park Road will take shoppers out of the centre and threaten its survival.

But Tesco says it has research that shows that eight out of ten people in the town travel outside Faringdon to do their main food shop.

You only have to look at the number of people who pack into these new stores to realise that there must be some demand for them.

The store chain says that by encouraging people to stay in the town for their food shopping, trade for existing town centre shops could increase.

Whether or not that is true, people in the town need to think about their existing shops and how often they use them. A lively mix of independent stores is what every town says it wants, but only by local people making a conscious effort to spend money in those shops have they any chance of surviving when major retail chains arrive.