It would be nice to know where Neil Lee goes for his messages. Perhaps, somewhere in Britain there is some little Shangri-la, where he picks up a bag of floury rolls, warm from the oven of a village bakery, selects a bag of freshly-picked locally-grown vegetables from the greengrocer and pauses to chat with an aproned butcher or fishmonger, before sauntering home to a cosy cottage with roses around the door.

His report for the Work Foundation, published today, has an upbeat message: towns and villages are starting to fight back against the progressive homogenisation of the High Street, the process summed up by the term "clone-town Britain". Communities across the land have been rebranding themselves in an attempt to buck the copycat trend of recent decades, he claims. Many Scots will be surprised to read this, not least of them the Federation of Small Businesses in Scotland, which revealed earlier this year that 1600 local shops have closed in the past six years and the survivors, wreathed in double yellow lines and penalised by disproportionately high business rates, are struggling to compete with cut-price out-of-town supermarkets. Greengrocers, newsagents, butchers and fishmongers are steadily giving way to hairdressing salons, charity shops and To Let signs. The further that supermarkets extend their product ranges into areas such as shoes, books and bicycles, the more specialist shops are eclipsed. The entry of Tesco and Sainsbury's into the convenience-stores market has proved another nail in the coffin of independent retailers.

On Saturday, The Herald reported on the impressive campaign mounted by the villagers of Gartmore, a community that once boasted at least half a dozen shops, to keep open their final remaining village store. Fintry, another Stirlingshire village, which has just lost its garage and last shop, is sadly more typical.

It is true that communities such as Wigtown, with its book festival, and Orkney, which has successfully linked its name with high-quality jewellery and delicatessen products, have succeeded in bucking the trend. However, as this report rightly argues, those keen to reinvigorate local communities are hamstrung by a lack of resources. France has been more successful at retaining local businesses, partly because of stronger fiscal autonomy in local government and partly because consumers are more willing to support them with their buying power. In Britain, governments, both local and national, should be placing more value on diversity and vibrancy in our towns and villages.