Thursday's Herts Advertiser carried an article about what it calls "mounting opposition" to Tesco's St. Albans plans as well as four letters to the editor that demonstrate the strength of local feeling against this development.
David Dorking of Hill Street says in his letter that:
"You have to give Tesco credit for blatant audacity in presenting a scheme that not only gives them a major store, unwanted by many St Albans residents but at a stroke would see the demolition of most of the locally-listed buildings around the site, the widening of London Road to cope with the extra traffic and the creation of a pretty awful environment for those houses left around the site."
Simon Grover of the St. Albans Green Party writes:
"Tesco have shown us their ideas for the London Road site in St Albans, and made it sound like it's all going to be wonderful. More jobs, more local shopping and, amazingly, less traffic. The myths that they peddle must be unspun, so lets start here."
Simon's letter goes on to debunk six "myths" about Tesco's plans.
Ian Langford, who lives on Orient Close in St. Albans and who has provided information to this website previously, wrote in his letter to the Herts Ad that,
"As I walked home from the Tesco exhibtion on Friday evening I looked around. Cars stretched bumper to bumper the length of London Road... I wondered how the clever people from Tesco were going to clear their estimate of 500 cars per hour coming in and out of the store without any impact on traffic congestion - which was their claim..."
In a letter titled "Questions", Michael Keaveny of Kings Road asks,
"... is there anyone in St. Albans who wants a new Tesco store? I really don't think there is - except perhaps Tesco employees."
Mr. Keaveny goes on to suggest that the District Council should, as he puts it, "have some vision" and do the following with the Evershed site:
1.) Repurchase the land by compulsory order.
2.) Develop several hundred new properties - hey, they may even contribute to the target of 7,000 we keep hearing about.
3.) Design a feature in the area, maybe a fountain in a square?
4.) Allow for a smaller convenience store - maybe a restaurant or cafe or two.
5.) Maybe even allow the old cinema to be redeveloped and really open up that end of town so that it actually proudly represents our city rather than the mess it currently is.
6.) Maybe also, the other stores and businesses in the area will also tidy up somewhat.
Do you have something to say about Tesco's plans? You can submit your own letter to the Herts Ad [link] , email us at tescocampaign@yahoo.co.uk (we won't publish any emails sent to us without express permission) and/or use the links to the right of this page to find the contact details for your elected representatives and other media organisations to write to.
[Please note: The letters excerpted above were published by the Herts Advertiser on Thursday 01 February, 2007. The quotes used here do not in any way imply that the authors of those letters support or are involved in this website.]
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