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The government must provide a "level playing field" if small businesses are to be allowed to flourish and town centres to recover, according to a leading business organisation.
The Federation of Small Businesses (FSB) has emphasised that existing regulations and company legislation designed to ensure a "fair market" for small retailers need to be more effectively enforced.
Matthew Knowles, spokesman for the FSB, said: "Its on a very unfair playing field… I think if we found the government providing a level playing field for all sizes of retailer, then the town centres would recover and there would be a flourishing of smaller businesses."
He continued: "[This] would help the consumer side of things because it would provide them with a lot more choice."
The FSBc comments follow the recent publication of a government white paper proposing the removal of the "needs test" in town planning.
It is to be replaced by a form of "impact assessment" for local authorities to use when deciding on applications for large developments such as supermarkets.
Mr Knowles said that the abolition of the needs test would make it far harder for small businesses and those individuals looking to achieve company formation to compete against larger stores.
He emphasised: "The needs test has to stay. Its very, very strange that the proposal now is to get rid of that.
"The vast majority of places in the country have at least one large supermarket very close to them and it hasnt done a large number of those places very much good at all."
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