When a corporate shoe repair chain wanted to open a location in a Gloucestershire, town, locals rallied in a signature-gathering campaign to protect their local cobbler.
An example of small-town sanctity, the petition to reject the corporate newcomer was promoted on social media and collected a total of 1,000 signatures from people in the area, including the local Parliament member.
A UK grocery chain Tesco had submitted a planning application to open a new Timpson store, which is a UK chain that for 160 years has offered dry cleaning, watch repair, key duplication, photo printing, engraving, portraiture—and shoe repair—all at one location.
Alan Macdonald has run Macdonald’s Traditional Cobbler for 30 years, and lamented that the new Timpson store would be placed across the street and make it “difficult” for his business to continue.
Villagers in the town of Bishop Cleeve launched a petition to block the supermarket’s planning application according to Macdonald’s worries for his cobbler shop.
Resident Gemma Surman decided to start a petition asking the supermarket to withdraw the planning application. When the application was due to be discussed at a parish council meeting, Tesco confirmed it would not be progressing without specifying if this was due to the petition.
Macdonald said that even beyond just his own concerns, the planning application got some 80 objections from locals.
“It is a weight off my mind. I don’t make a massive amount of money here,” said Macdonald in his Gloucestershire twang with a dash of Glaswegian. “Even a small amount of my income that disappears would make it very difficult to survive.”
Alan’s grandfather opened a cobbler business in 1930s in Mary Hill Road in Glasgow and before passing away in his 70s and leaving his son, Alan’s father, to take over. He remembers helping his father as a youngster in the shop.
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When his dad’s business fell over he decided to join the family trade in 1995 and open a shop in Bishop Cleeve. Like Timpson’s, Macdonald offers watch repair and key duplication.
“I’ve become part of the community now and it’s a lovely place to live in. People are so supportive,” he said. “All I can say [to the community] is thank you so so much, and it means that I can never retire!”
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