By KATH GANNAWAY
ALONG with the certificates of appreciation on the notice board at Seville IGA, there’s a defiant message, or plea, from owner Barry Entwistle.
“With your continued support I intend to fight the conglomerate.”
On Friday, as Mr Entwistle, his wife, Jennifer and the staff faced their last official trading day, the faded poster and empty shelves represent the end of a David and Goliath battle where the giant has won.
When Woolworths opened their doors opposite the IGA in 2014, the predicted decline in IGA business soon followed according to Mr Entwistle.
It was also the culmination of a planning battle with Yarra Ranges Council that started with the rezoning of residential land to commercial, went through a rejected planning application in 2006 by Coles, and ultimately approval for the development of a supermarket six years later.
Independent supermarkets from Mt Evelyn through to Warburton supported Mr Entwistle and the Seville Community’s opposition to the supermarket, arguing Seville’s population of 2500 people was not enough to support two supermarkets, but that it would also impact on business further up the highway.
On the basis of the 2006 decision, Mr Entwistle said he invested $5 million in expanding his business to cater for community expectations, including expanding his liquor section.
When Yarra Ranges Council granted a liquor licence to Woolworths in 2014, it wasn’t only Mr Entwistle who despaired that it was the final nail in Entwistle IGA’s coffin.
Councillors acknowledged that the State Government Panel Report that ultimately supported the second planning application for the development was done on a proposal that didn’t include a liquor sales component.
Woolworths had already started building when they applied for the liquor permit.
“When they (the panel) made their decision, they acknowledged that there was no mention of liquor in any of the economic assessments, and on that basis said they felt the shopping centre could go ahead.
“They said if it had included liquor, they may have come to a different decision,” Mr Entwistle said.
“The council knew that, but voted to give them (Woolworths) the go ahead anyway.”
Mr Entwistle said the heartache attached to the end of an era that saw his grandfather open the first Entwistle shop over 100 years ago, is just part of the story he feels needs to be told.
In an attempt to keep their head above water the family sold the freehold supermarket property, and their home, with their son also putting money into the business.
In their seventies, they say they have lost everything.
“We don’t know where our future is,” Mr Entwistle said on Friday between shaking the hands of well-wishers and making decisions on whether to mark down the last of their stock even further.
The bigger picture is that the Seville experience is not unique, and, according to both Mr Entwistle and Jos Le Bruin, CEO of Master Grocers Australia, representing independent supermarkets, it was not inevitable.
“All the reports that (Yarra Ranges) Council had showed how unsustainable it was to allow that development to go ahead and to just watch from the sidelines is morally wrong,” Mr Le Bruin said.
“A township of 2500 people is going to yield no more than $450,000 a week in grocery sales and in a town like that there is no way you can absorb two supermarkets.
“If it’s about competition, it should have been one of a comparative size,” he said.
Mr Le Bruin said councils when faced with the decision of refusing an application by the big conglomerates such as Woolworths and Coles were scared to oppose them.
“They bulldoze through council and if they are taking them to VCAT they will win every time because they have hundreds of thousands of dollars to do it,” he said.
“What the council said is that we need competition and that may be fair enough, but with all the indicators saying if you allow a store of that size to come into a town like Seville there is going to be one man standing, and there will be no competition.
“Ultimately the biggest price has been paid by Barry and his family.”
The Mail contacted Woolworths for a comment on the IGA closure.
A spokesperson for the company said Woolworths employed close to 100 local and supported the local community and economy.
“We are pleased with the response to the quality and convenience our store has offered our Seville customers in the two years since opening.”
