Your Emails: Tesco Must Now Dramatically Reassess It's Plans

In an email sent to this website earlier today, David Redcastle of Watsons Walk, St. Albans makes some good points about, and compelling arguments against, Tesco's current development proposal for St. Albans. He believes that more homes (with protection of the environment integral to their design) and local shops, some green space and maybe even a smaller Tesco Metro store, would make more appropriate use of the site. David writes:

Over the last couple of weeks Tesco has announced two major changes to its UK business strategy. One is a major commitment to improving its own environmental impact in respect of carbon emissions. The other is its entry into the house building sector. Together these surely mean that Tesco must now dramatically reassess the use of its land bank in central St Albans. This site is crying out to be developed almost entirely for housing, with some communal green space and trees, and perhaps a few small shops (including a Tesco Express) and cafes. St Albans does not need a Tesco supermarket on this site.

There are already two large supermarkets in St Albans (Sainsbury’s and Morrisons), competing with each other, and catering to the same demographic marketplace as Tesco. There are other large food retailers here too, such as Waitrose, Marks and Spencer, Budgens and Iceland. It is surely not necessary for every grocer to be represented in the City. Will the District Council in its next District Plan be identifying sites in the City to be reserved for, say, Aldi and Lidl, even though their marketplace is unrepresented, or ASDA and Somerfield? I think not.

Of course, there is also the existing historic Tesco Metro in St Peter’s Street. And, Tesco will deliver shopping ordered over the internet to homes in central St Albans. Whilst not everyone has a PC, over half of households in the country now do, with probably a higher proportion in St Albans, and the number is increasing all the time.

There are already Tesco supermarkets in Hatfield, Hemel Hempstead and central Watford. The Hatfield Tesco Extra is open 24 hours and is only six miles away. If this sounds a long way to drive, remember that it is not as far as our nearest A & E department. For those without a car, there is a half-hourly bus service with a journey time of 35 minutes. Many people in rural Britain can only dream about having a massive supermarket just six miles away. Last year posters were displayed on the hoardings by the London Road railway arches urging local residents to visit the shops of Milton Keynes! Frankly, we are already spoiled for choice in St Albans.

One of the key planning objections to a supermarket on this site is the additional traffic burden of both customer cars and delivery lorries. These days traffic is a problem everywhere, but St Albans is different from most towns in this area. We are not a planned new town like Hatfield, Hemel Hempstead, Stevenage, Harlow, Milton Keynes or Welwyn Garden City, with their dual carriageway roads and large roundabouts. Nor do we have the ring roads or urban through highways of Watford, Luton and Hertford. Our narrow roads grew up in medieval and Victorian times. We saw in December the damage a Waitrose vehicle inflicted on the wall around St Stephen’s churchyard. Being perched on a hilltop exacerbates the traffic situation, as anyone who has seen the queues climbing up Holywell Hill will surely agree.

Indeed, so bad is the traffic in the City centre even before Tesco builds a supermarket here, that I suspect many St Albans residents who want to shop at a Tesco would go elsewhere after its hypothetical construction: those in the east of the City will find it quicker to drive to Oldings Corner in Hatfield along the A1057; those in the south of the City will find it quicker to drive to central Watford via junctions 6 and 5 of the M1 and the A4008; and those in the west of the City will find it quicker to drive to Jarman Park in Hemel Hempstead along the A4147.

Another key planning objection is an environmental one about the use of land. The Tesco site is so close to the very well-served main City railway station, with its excellent onward connections at Kings Cross/St Pancras, that it would be an environmental waste of the first order not to use the site for homes for commuters who can walk to the station in a few minutes. St Albans is partly a commuter city, and it is the admirable rail service that partly makes it such a desirable place to live. Although some train services are very full at present, the promised expansion of the route through the central London bottleneck will eventually mean longer trains and a better timetable.

What this site needs is the integrated and well-designed development of a large number of small homes, some affordable by first time buyers, some available to rent by those who do not want to buy or cannot yet afford to buy, and some as social housing. Most will work in London, while others will work in St Albans given our especially low rate of unemployment. Although many City centre shops and offices are within walking distance, the nearby railway station also provides a good bus interchange.

Central government insists we have to build thousands more homes in the District; this site can make a significant contribution to that target. Otherwise, the homes will still have to be built elsewhere, mostly on green-belt land on the fringes of the City, and hence their commuting residents will drive to the railway station. Is that environmentally desirable? Hardly. It is notable that the environment has suddenly become a big issue, not only now in Tesco’s own company plans, but also in planning matters. Climate change impact was accepted as a valid planning objection for the first time in the recent decision by Uttlesford District Council concerning the expansion of Stansted Airport. A supermarket on the Evershed’s site will stop this land being utilised for its optimal environmental purpose, and hence Tesco will have permanently damaged the environment in a way that no number of Tesco lorries running on biofuels will ever fully compensate for.

There are, however, three special attributes that need to be applied to these homes.

First, these small homes should be aimed primarily at occupation by childless individuals or couples, some buying and some renting. If there are few children, this will prevent any additional pressure on overcrowded local schools in the short term.

Second, the homes should be available only to residents who undertake not to own a car. Instead, the on-site manager would supervise a shared car pool of, say, five small cars per hundred homes, which can be hired by residents by the hour or the day, for travelling to visit family and friends, or driving on UK holidays. But a car won’t be needed to get to work. This will be cheaper for the residents, both by avoiding all the fixed costs of running a car and by buying or renting a home with a smaller land footprint. It will be better for the environment generally and, in particular, it will not add to the traffic congestion of St Albans. And it means more homes can be accommodated on the site, to the benefit of the District housing targets and to maximise the profit of the developer. If the only car parking spaces required are a small number for visitors, then the considerable expense of installing underground car parking is saved.

Third, each home should have a large cupboard adjacent to its front door, accessible from the outside but protected by a security keypad, in part housing a refrigerator with a freezing compartment. This will permit Tesco to deliver internet-ordered shopping while the residents are out at work or play, if the security access code is notified with the order. (It is, of course, up to Tesco to make its offering more attractive than that from ASDA, Ocado and Sainsbury’s, who also already deliver to the door in central St Albans.) So a car won’t be necessary to do the bulk of the weekly shopping trip.

Under these circumstances, my guess is that Tesco could make more profit from developing this site for homes than as a supermarket, especially given some prospective loss of custom from its other stores in the area. House prices in St Albans are higher than anywhere else outside London, and Tesco probably acquired much of this land at prices lower than values prevailing today. Development of the whole site in an integrated way would yield big economies of scale to the developer. Tesco would get substantial short term profit from the sale of some homes, more than covering building costs, and would get an on-going revenue stream from letting other homes and small shops.

I understand the site is designated mainly for housing in the current District Plan, and that, together with the strength of local opposition, will make it hard for Tesco ever to be able to build a supermarket here. After all, the reason we have a planning system in this country is to prevent a wealthy landowner from riding roughshod over the interests of the wider community. And now we have to add the environment as a major factor in those interests, something acknowledged by Tesco itself.

Yours faithfully

DAVID REDCASTLE