Our Keep Trade Local campaign was founded after the House of Commons All-Party Parliamentary Small Shops Group estimated that by 2015 there will be no independent retailers in the UK. That equates to the closure of 50,000 businesses. At the moment there are around 2,000 shops closing each year. Obviously, you don't get to the 2015 figure with just that number, but quite soon we will reach a tipping point, after which it won't be viable for wholesalers to supply the diminishing number of small stores. At that point we'll lose a huge number of businesses.

At the Federation of Small Businesses (FSB), our objective is to secure the future of small shops across the UK, and to safeguard the choice and competition that people expect in a marketplace. On one side, you've got what we perceive as unfair competition from supermarkets and large chains. On the other, you've got a failure on the part of local authorities and the Competition Commission to appreciate the problems small independents face and their failure to accept the role these retailers play in communities. When a shop closes down you don't just lose that store. The diminished footfall has a knock-on effect for all surrounding businesses.

The FSB already has examples of members buying their products at supermarkets because they sell items cheaper than wholesalers. We are calling for the prohibition of unfair pricing advantages such as below-cost selling. In other European countries, such as France, this practice is illegal and you have both a thriving supermarket sector and thriving independent retailers. We want to help those communities to fight out of town developments, where it is not in their interest for them to be built. However, it's important to see that this isn't just a campaign against supermarkets. What should be tackled instead are the planning decisions made by local councils. Where permission is granted for an out-of-town development, this should be subject to space for small retailers being granted.

We've been pursuing the issues in a number of ways over the past two years, largely through trying to influence decisions of the Government and the Competition Commission. Their recent inquiry only focused on supermarkets and the grocery market, whereas this is a much wider issue. We are gathering signatures on a petition that is logged on the Downing Street website. We've had an overwhelming response so far from people who really care about these problems. I'd urge readers to sign the petition, and also to write to their MPs to support the Retail Development Bill, which is going through Parliament at the moment.

You can sign the petition on the Downing Street website by visiting http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/keeptradelocal/