Is the Co-Op in trouble?
I ask this wide ranging question due to a minor matter which the Co-Op has failed to resolve over more than 3 months now. This, together with the lack of any meaningful communication (other than apologies), has made me wonder.
On 7th May this year I reported a small problem to the Co-Op, with regard to their Town Green/Aughton shop, and as I type the problem is still unaddressed despite my continuing to raise it with them on 4 or 5 occasions. The problem? A bollard, which protects the cycle rack outside their shop from vehicles that can and do block it from being used by cyclists.
It’s happened before but repairs have previously been reasonably swift. In reality it’s not vehicles knocking the bollard over but teenagers rocking it until it eventually became detached from the ground. A more substantial bollard is required so it’s no surprise that having re-fixed the old one a while back in exactly the same way that it’s happened again.
If this was just an ordinary for profit shop who’d had to install a cycle rack as say part of a planning permission then I’d get it. They probably wouldn’t care less, but this is supposed to be an ethical business mutually owned by its members, like me. The Co-Op should be promoting environmentally ways to access their shops not effectively doing pretty much the opposite by ignoring requests to fix a small matter like this.
Yes, I’m disappointed that this matter has seemingly been ignored and that nobody has given me an explanation as to why it hasn’t been addressed, but at the same time I continue to pick up vibes that suggest the Co-Op is really struggling to address local shop-based issues. Could the issues raised by ‘The Grocer’ be at the heart of the issue?
I have no issues with the staff in the shop I use most frequently, indeed they’re always helpful and polite, even when I have a grumble about this matter. No, the problems seem to be further up the management chain, a chain that is supposedly accountable to the members of the Co-Op!
Is this mutual business in danger of arriving at a similar position to Lancashire County Cricket Club where their members are in dispute with their own committee?
What’s going on at the Co-Op?
