[fidotron]

In small towns or villages once you have a couple of them the general pace of everything around them tanks, partly because they can get away with far less revenue per sq metre due to the difference in taxation and reliance on volunteers. As others have mentioned the alternative might well be nothing there at all, which would be worse, but it has converted the central section of whole villages into feeling like they are in fact the outer buildings of nearby old people's homes.

Aesthetically they are, at best, a sort of British twist on the cheapest Ikea stylings which can be OK in small quantities but when they become everything it is depressing.