CLONE CITIES

English Heritage says retailers should tone down their signs to prevent their brands from dominating the streetscape. Will the companies listen? Every town centre in Britain is different... if you raise your sights above street level. But keep your eyes on the shop windows and frontages that jostle for bypassers' attention, and you could be forgiven for believing that one High Street is much the same as another. The same brands dominate: Starbucks, McDonald's, WHSmith, Carphone Warehouse, HMV, Currys, Marks and Spencer, Waterstones, River Island... such names are fixtures the length and breadth of the country. Thanks to the corporate identity gurus, their logos are instantly recognisable to one and all. Few would deny firms the right to market themselves, but have big and brash brands led to things getting out of hand?

English Heritage, the government body which conserves historic sites, thinks so. Chief executive Simon Thurley says the fascias above the shops can be too bright and detract from the character of the buildings. In short, it's not so much the shops themselves that are turning our High Streets into clone towns, but how they present themselves from the outside. "We get a lot of letters about how aggressive some of these signs are," he says. "Regular shoppers know where the supermarket is and don't need to be told so vigorously." Some companies had acted to address this, he admits, pointing to McDonald's in Bath as a good example of a building sensitive to the area. But Mr Thurley named Tesco as one of the offenders, saying it sometimes used a large white background on signs in a red brick town.

Tesco, which recently accelerated its opening of small stores in High Streets, says it is prepared to be flexible. "We have a corporate image and a corporate look and we need to retain some consistency around that," says Tesco's Richard Anderson. "We are also willing to speak to local people and authorities to adapt that." Brockenhurst in the New Forest, Hampshire, was a case in point, he says. The signage was "deemed a bit too much" by locals so Tesco is changing the white face to off-white, with less window stickers. Councillor Ken Thornber, leader of Hampshire County Council, says the sign was too brash for the street. "It was both large and bright, not like the signs other shops have, and entirely intrusive. When companies come into traditional villages, they have to be very careful they don't overwhelm other shops in the locality through the brashness of their signs."

There's also a fear that Tesco's presence changes the nature of the street anyway, and could drive out other shops, says Mr Thornber. This wider concern echoes one raised last year by the New Economics Foundation (NEF), that the UK is turning into a nation of "clone towns". While many acknowledge the benefits to consumers in having huge retail companies conveniently close by, others say there is a cultural cost. NEF policy director Andrew Simms says the signs are part of a deeper problem. "The aesthetic impact really does matter to people if you live in an identikit environment, because people draw their own identity from their environment and it's rather depressing to travel from town to town and find they're all the same." The change in character can also affect tourism, he claims, because what visitors consider uniquely British is being lost.

Even if stores use signs sensitively, there are still economic and social implications of the chain store phenomenon, he says. Cash spent in independent shops is more likely to stay in the local economy, he says, and these businesses also operate as 'social glue'. "The shopkeeper becomes the holder of memories and knowledge for the local community," he says. History suggests local resistance to corporations moving in can be futile. In 1992, the vocal residents of Hampstead in north London lost their battle to stop a McDonald's restaurant, but only after an 11-year fight. But design is subjective, and its impact on a town's character is not something everyone agrees on.

Residents in the historic market town of Bury St Edmunds in Suffolk are divided over a new £80m development, led by a shopping centre and Debenhams department store. The developers, supported by 15 out of 16 councillors, say its architects studied Bury's 11th Century street patterns for its designs. But Anthony Platt, of campaigners Group of 32, says locals are 'absolutely aghast' about what is being proposed. "It's been described as beach huts on stilts. With their uniform roof lines, they have nothing to do with Bury. They could be anywhere," he said. (Source: BBC News)