'Self-checkouts in shops add to rural loneliness'
James Ackroyd-CooperReplacing supermarket checkout staff with self-service facilities could add to rural loneliness, it is being claimed.
James Ackroyd-Cooper, 53, discovered staff had been replaced when he visited the Co-op in Laxfield, Suffolk, last week, and he said he was concerned about the loss of face-to-face interaction.
Being able to chat with staff could be "really, really life-affirming", and just because you could replace them did not mean you had to, he said.
A spokesperson for the Co-operative Group said many customers enjoyed the ease of using self-service tills but staff were still in the store to provide support.
"I went in to find the two tills that are usually there, of which one was usually manned... had been replaced with two self-checkouts," Ackroyd-Cooper told BBC Suffolk.
"No tills at all. No human being at all, and the setting of this seems completely inappropriate.
"If we were on a main road, in a petrol station... I could kind of cope with it, but it seems so totally inappropriate in this setting where there is a sense of community.
"You often see older people, and my parents are older and I know they don't like struggling with their basket, their bags and scanning everything."
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Ackroyd-Cooper said: "I always chose this supermarket because of the staff who were behind the counter – you got a real sense of welcome in the shop."
He said one member of staff seemed to know about customers' lives and would ask about their families while another always had a joke to tell or a "hysterical" comment about what people were buying.
He said it was clear these people "lived in the community and worked in the community".
"It's really, really life-affirming – that kind of human contact... is so important," Ackroyd-Cooper said.
He called on supermarkets to reverse such decisions, adding: "Just because you can do something, it doesn't mean you need to, or should."
The Co-op spokesperson told the BBC: "Self-service tills provide added ease, speed and convenience, especially during peak times – many customers like the ability to quickly pop into the Co-op.
"Colleagues remain available in store to serve, support and assist customers as required."
The Rural Coffee CaravanGarry Simmonds, who works for The Rural Coffee Caravan, a charity that holds events in isolated communities, agreed that human interaction was "totally essential".
"Getting out there into the rural communities is our daily bread and butter," he said.
"We're an independent charity with four lovely vehicles and we visit these rural communities and we know that isolation in these areas doesn't have to mean loneliness if we come out and see them on a monthly basis."
Automation was "creeping in everywhere", he said, from the loss of rail ticket booths to pay-at-the-pump petrol stations and no milkmen to chat to on the doorstep.
"It leaves people more isolated and not seeing people day-to-day," said Simmonds.
His charity sets up two-hour coffee events in villages which attract stay-at-home parents and home-workers, and "a lot of retired people".
"They all mix together and I don't see phones – they're not on their phones."
The charity has also started an initiative called More Than a Shop, which encourages shop owners to welcome people in for more than just their shopping and allow them to stay longer to make friends and chat to others.
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