Does St. Albans Really Need Another Supermarket?

St. Albans is home, every Wednesday and Saturday, to a one-thousand year old market that includes a number of established fruit and vegetable sellers, a butcher, two fishmongers, two bakeries, a Chinese speciality stall and much more.

The market gives local people a wide range of choice and individual service, not to mention the opportunity to pick up a whole bowl full of bananas for a pound if you wait until the end of the day.

But, of course, not everyone can make it to the market on market days or simply prefer getting all their groceries and related household goods in one shop. With that in mind, we've compiled a list of supermarkets already in St. Albans or a short car journey away.

To give the list a bit more context, we've used google maps to plot the distance by road from St. Andrew's Bookshop to each grocery store. St. Andrew's is located* at approximately the centre of the frontage on London Road, along which Tesco is planning to build their development.

What did we find? A total of 8 grocery stores, not including smaller convenience stores, corner shops or specialist food providers, can be found in the area with just over half of those within walking distance.

One of those, Iceland, is practically on the development site, being just 0.2 miles away. Also within easy walking distance are Marks and Spencer, as well as Tesco itself, have shops 0.5 and 0.6 miles away respectively. Still within walking distance of the site are Sainsbury, just 0.8 miles away and, perhaps slightly less walkable but certainly an easy bus or car journey, is Morrisons 1.3 miles away. Waitrose, Sainsbury and Tesco also all have large stores within easy driving distance and, of course, most of the major grocery retailers now offer online shopping with home delivery as well.

Here's our data:

Iceland, 140/144 Victoria Street, St Albans, AL1 3TG
Distance from proposed Tesco development: 0.2

Marks&Spencer, 21 St Peter's Street, St Albans, AL1 3DP
Distance from proposed Tesco development: 0.5

Tesco, 67a St Peters Street, St Albans AL1 3EB
Distance from proposed Tesco development: 0.6 miles

Sainsbury's , Everard Close, St Albans AL1 2QU
Distance from proposed Tesco development: 0.8 miles

Morrisons (formerly Safeway), 244 Hatfield Road, St Albans AL1 4SU
Distance from proposed Tesco development: 1.3 miles

Waitrose, 1 Ermine Close, St Albans AL3 4JZ
Distance from proposed Tesco development: 1.8 miles

Sainsbury, Barnet Road, London Colney, ST ALBANS AL2 1BG
Distance from proposed Tesco development: 3.1 miles

Tesco Stores, Great North Road Mount Pleasant Oldings Corner, Hatfield AL9 5JY
Distance from proposed Tesco development: 7.4 miles

*The exact address of St. Andrew's Bookshop, from which calculations above were created, is Norman House, 97-99 London Road, St Albans, Herts AL1 1LN