I can't think of a single village near me with a convenience shop owned by a big supermarket chain. And yet I can think of a few off the top of my head with pubs (whose main income in all cases is serving food, which The Woolpack does).
To be fair though, most branded village shops tend to be part of the smaller convenience chains such as Costcutter, Londis, Nisa, etc..
Which was the point I was making - Tesco Expresses in particular are exceedingly rare in little villages (that example being a village of 3,000 with an A road running through it).
I can think of about 5 villages a short distance from me with pubs that serve food as the Woolpack does. I know of none who have a Tesco Express or a Sainsbury's Local.
To be fair though, most branded village shops tend to be part of the smaller convenience chains such as Costcutter, Londis, Nisa, etc..
Tesco owns OneStop which seem to be quite common in small villages around me.
In my village:
4 pubs
1 social club
1 factory
several farms
3 sports pavilions
2 shops (1 has a post office)
3 garages
Several places for accomodation
1 vets
1 deli/farm shop
There are still loads of rural pubs in nice villages that serve food, these are more likely to survive than those in urban villages
In any case all the soaps are not realistic and they wouldn’t be very interesting viewing if they were. Hardly anyone in ED or EastEnders would in reality be able to afford their homes, whereas it’d be the opposite in Corrie, and many of the residents wouldn’t live in such an area
