Great Letters of Support

The Herts Advertiser (29th March) carried no fewer than 6 (!) letters opposing Tesco's development, as well as coverage of Saturday's 700 name petition. The letters were sparked by a Tesco survey which claimed that 66% of 27 surveyed businesses near the proposed supermarket site supported its proposed development. The letter writers neatly summarised local people's views on this survey.

Here are some of the comments....

'Why were only 27 surveyed? The majority of these businesses are non-competitive - at present - to Tesco'

'These supportive businesses may want to consider the future effect on their rents of having Tesco as a neighbour... If the retail value of the area does rise with Tesco as a neighbour, their rents will rise also'
'When [Tesco] have sucked the life out of the surrounding retail zones, they will have perversely proved there is (was) a demand for their presence'

'I recently spoke with the operator of a business in London Road and she told me she had indeed been asked her view on the development... she told the representative that she was indifferent to the scheme as long as none of the small ancilliary schemes competed with her particular business. No surprise there. Furthermore, she doesn't herself live in St Albans.'

'St Albans' city-centre shops and markets need all the support they can get, not direct competition with a hefty rival down London Road'

'Other stories in your newspaper last week highlighted the need to build 7000-plus new houses in St Albans... The Evershed site was zoned in the council District Plan for housing and redeveloping this area for housing would certainly relieve some of this pressure to build on Green Belt land'

'I cannot put the case against the move better than Simon Hoggart who wrote in the Guardian this week of how big supermarkets "suck the money out of communities"'

'There have been countless reports from Central Government, the New Economics Foundation, Friends of the Earth and others showing that large supermarket developments impact negatively on existing businesses, whether those supermarkets are town-centre, edge-of-centre or out-of-town'

Many thanks to Nic Trevillion, Mrs Philippa Parker, Eric Roberts, I.M. Langford, Tom Hardy and Simon Grover for their letters.
Thanks also to the St Albans Review and Observer which covered the petition on 28th March!