More reasons to shop in Whitefield
It was great to see the new Morrison’s supermarket open at last in Whitefield today. For some reason I found myself compelled to go and have a look, despite needing no groceries whatsoever. I was like a lemming - a blank-eyed automaton switched to shopping autopilot until at the checkout purchasing several completely unnecessary items.
Obviously there were a billion other people there as well, as if convinced by an unseen retail deity that bargains were afoot inside the shiny new palace of meaningless expenditure. The car park was like something out of a disaster movie, with traffic heading in all sorts of directions extremely slowly indeed. Everyone in western Europe seemed to have descended on the store, but inside they seemed to be coping remarkably well, even if some idiot (me) left his Switch card in the Chip and PIN machine and head to run back like a galloping horse and prise it back from the jaws of waiting identity thieves.
I have read a couple of local politicians wax lyrical about how wonderful the new shop is. But frankly, it’s a supermarket and as such is completely identical to every other supermarket in Britain once through the threshold and into the strip-lit crammed-aisle cavern inside. Just stare at the shelves and fill your trolley, there’s a good drone…
Outside it looks lovely mind, and the fact that it’s next to the road rather than set back half a mile from it means that it stands a better chance of not going bust than the shops that were there before.
In all seriousness, it’s a real boon for Whitefield, and it adds greatly to the Elms Square area which has benefitted a lot from regeneration in recent years. Now we’re spoiled for supermarket choice, with a Sainsbury’s, Asda and Tesco all within a couple of miles. Someone should shout “House!!” and walk off with the jackpot now that Morrison’s have turned up as well.
Obviously I’m going back to Asda from now on. I don’t like change. But it gives me somewhere new to stop off and buy an unnecessary fattening snack on the way home from Council meetings. Thank God it shuts at 8 most nights…
Rick
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