Royal effort

The Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea has taken to heart the difficulties of small independent shops in its patch.

It has backed some of the ideas of the commission it set up under Sir Terence Conran to look at what might help. For example, free 30-minute parking slots at local shopping areas - subject to the constraints of off-street parking - would go some way to compensating for the free parking that shoppers at big supermarkets enjoy.

The borough wants a shopping tsar appointed to promote a good retail mix. There is a limit to which the council can, for instance, oblige private landlords to hold down rent increases on the Portobello Road, but it does encourage them to tailor rent increases to a shop's increase in turnover. It has also adopted better practice for its own tenants.

Other measures are in the gift of Government, not town halls. But this is overall a genuinely worthwhile attempt by the council to help stem the tide running in favour of big, homogeneous chain stores. The recommendations ought to be studied, and followed, by others.