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Parasitic charity shops now responsible for potholes 4

Fundraising | Celina Ribeiro | 7 Aug 2009

Charity shops have had a rough week. First Oxfam is accused of being so successful a second-hand book seller in Salisbury had to close up shop.

But now, Independent columnist Mary Dejevsky has weighed in with an argument that accuses charity shops of “parasitic”, quasi-cartel behaviour. Someone should tell Deidre behind the counter.

Dejevesky's argument proceeds thus:

Charity shops in rich areas are AOK. They are rare and stock good-quality products – however, by doing so, they reflect and build on the inherent inequalities in society.

Charity shops in poorer areas are bad, bad, bad. They “cluster… whole rows of them, cheek by jowl”, apparently. And as a result of this clustering – in areas where other businesses already do not want to open up, she claims (thus the “parasite” tag) – businesses don’t want to open up. Because businesses don’t want to open up in areas in which they already didn’t want to open up, councils will pay less attention to maintenance. And so businesses don’t want to open up.

And thus, charity shops “make poor areas poorer”.

Yes. The argument uses the same reasoning of lace curtain racists complaining about the influx of migrants; A few nice ones are fine in nice areas, but masses in poor neighbourhoods are a danger to us all.

I live in an area of north London which has an overpopulation of gastropubs, Scandinavian design shops and couples with prams most likely designed by a Nasa scientist on a sabbatical. In this neighbourhood, which locals like to refer to as a ‘village’, there are four charity shops. A “cluster”, if you will. And yet, Starbucks has not yet boarded up its doors nor has the organic grocer cleared out its shelves, leaving rotting piles of tofu on the pavement. Nor has the council stopped mending the potholes.

I have seen no greater concentration of charity shops in any deprived area of the country than I have seen in posh little (actual) villages and leafy, café-strewn parts of London. Charity shops, in whatever postcode they are located, serve what demand there is. If they didn't service a need - council rate subsidies and all - they would not be there.

It requires quite a suspension of disbelief to accept her suggestion that the presence of a charity shop on a high street would prevent Tesco from opening up a supermarket or an independent carpenter from setting up shop.

Dejevsky's is an argument reeking of the snobbery of someone who likely imagines what shop fronts look like in ‘icky’ parts of town rather than actually gets out of the black cab there.

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