Bishop’s Stortford Town Council staff told to shop local instead of on Amazon

Bishop’s Stortford town councillors have called for a ban on staff buying from Amazon for council purposes.

At a meeting of the finance and policy committee, as members scrutinised the council’s spending, Cllr John Wyllie called on staff to “shop local”.

He said: “We seem to use Amazon a lot and it’s a company I do not like very much.”

The Conservative said the council had a policy to patronise the town’s traders rather than online vendors, which should be adhered to whenever possible to ensure businesses which employ residents were supported.

Labour’s Cllr Yvonne Estop backed his stance and said: “I see no reason to use Amazon for anything.”

The council’s chief executive, Huw Jones, agreed that the best value did not always mean the cheapest items and that “we should practise what we preach”.

In the last quarter, the council has bought items including ice scrapers, saw blades, cleaning materials and even coffee from the online retailer – the world’s largest e-commerce and cloud computing company – founded by Jeff Bezos.

Mr Jones admitted: “Hand on heart, it’s been probably a matter of convenience.” He and chief finance officer Mark Westwood agreed to remind staff of the shop local policy.

Cllr Estop said: “Amazon is the reason shops close. We do not want to give them any succour at all.”

Amazon started trading in the UK in 1998. In 2023, its total revenue was more than £27 billion. Sales have doubled since 2018 and the UK is Amazon’s second largest market in Europe after Germany.

From 2014 to 2023, Amazon claims, it has invested more than £64bn in UK operations. Last September, Chancellor Rachel Reeves trumpeted a planned £8bn investment from Amazon Web Services to support around 14,000 jobs a year across the country.