Your Letters in the Herts Ad: Tesco Plan Gets a Sound Beating

This week's Herts Advertiser contains a number of letters to the editor in response to Tesco's plans.

P. Field, who lives in St. Stephen's Avenue, St. Albans, reckons that the edge of centre Tesco could provide parking for people going to the city centre:

"Many of us find it virtually impossible to reliably locate a city-centre car-parking space. Although a sensitive subject, one huge benefit of the edge-of-town Tesco stores at Borehamwood and Watford is their provision of ample free three-hour parking. This benefit would be doubly useful for St Albans. It would certainly help revitalise the run-down Hatfield Road and Victoria Street."

Many people who are opposed to the Tesco plans are aware of and affected by the lack of parking places in central St. Albans, but most feel that this site is simply too far from the centre to relieve the problems. For example, Mike Dilke who lives in Alma Road, St. Albans, is worried that the Tesco will act as a barrier, keeping people from travelling in to the City Centre to shop at the market and other local businesses:

SIR, - I am very concerned about the proposed Tesco development for a number of reasons. One of the most important is the barrier that it will create to central shops and the subsequent loss of trade and vibrancy to the city centre.

Whatever the Tesco PR machine says, the site is not in the city centre and shoppers are very unlikely to do a supermarket shop then walk to the market and other shops. It is not far but it is pretty much the same distance as it is from the Sainsbury's at the bottom of Holywell Hill and I do not see a stream of people walking into the centre from there. The fact is they don't - and they won't from Tesco.

Tesco have told us they will have a wide range of stock covering non-food items as well so not only the market business will be damaged but also that of other city-centre outlets.

The land is a potential asset to the city but unfortunately it could also be a drain if a supermarket is built there. I appeal to Tesco not to create something that will damage St Albans but to provide something that the city needs and will make it a better place.

Some people also can't quite believe Tesco's claim, in last week's Herts Advertiser, that opinion is split 50:50 on the plan. Becky Alexander's letter in the Herts Ad challenges this:

"SIR, - I find it impossible to believe that Tesco think that 50 per cent of local residents want the Tesco Evershed development (Herts Advertiser, February 15). I have not met a single one.

I guess that Tesco are choosing to read comments such as "we want London Road to be improved" as a vote for Tesco in a desperate attempt to find support for their greedy, inappropriate scheme.

Any benefits that local residents may get from having a huge food shop within walking distance nearby will be outweighed by increased traffic congestion and the slow death of the historic street market. We all manage to get our groceries from somewhere, so the "need" for a supermarket on London Road is hardly urgent.

If Tesco are really interested in what the local area needs on the Evershed site, it is a new primary school, family housing, parking for the train station, and a release of the stranglehold on London Road so new small shops can move into the area. If they really want a slice of the St Albans retail market, find a site on the outskirts."

Mary Woodward is concerned that Tesco, rather than the people of St. Albans, are mapping out the city of our future. She writes in her letter to the Herts Ad:

"SIR, - So it's 50:50 on the Tesco scheme according to Tesco's consultation exercise. That's all right then. One or two conciliatory modifications to the plans will no doubt produce a sound majority in favour.

Silly old us - and there we were, thinking we needed time-consuming and expensive things like a council planning department and local forums such as the Civic Society, when all we had to do was to wait for disinterested, neutral, objective parties like Tesco to map out the future for St Albans."

Clive Patterson too has used the letters page to voice his opinions (see full letter) and to ask rhetorically:

"How does any St Albans resident who is living here by choice and because they favour living in a provincial historic market city with all its amenities, possibly want an acre of steel girder, aluminium-clad building with ground-to-ceiling glazing, with an even bigger plot of grey tarmac in front, plonked in the centre of their lovely city?"