Vincent and Gorbing Revealed...

A couple of weeks ago Tesco's Michael Kissman told readers of the St Albans Review of a mysterious report into supermarket needs in St Albans by 'Vincent & Gorbing' - here's the link to our coverage of the article.

Ian Langford from our Planning team has followed up the report - it seems to be a bit of a red herring (can you get those from Tesco?). He contacted the St Albans council planning policy manager with regard the Vincent & Gorbing report and was told that the report,

"has now been "superseded by the GL Hearn report"; "it is well out of date"; "it carries no weight with the planning department" and "reading it would be a waste of time".

For what it's worth, which seems very little, the Vincent & Gorbing report was a retail needs assessment undertaken in November 2000 on the instructions of St Albans council. Its analysis for food shopping requirements concluded that by 2006 a further 1,000 square metres (about 11,000 square feet) of food retail space would be required to serve the needs of the St Albans district (for comparison Tesco want to build a 55,000 square foot store!). It also concluded that there was a need for a large supermarket/superstore in the town centre as there is not one there (the same qualitative deficiency in the town centre as found in the GL Hearn report).

However, since 2001 supermarket space in St Albans has more than increased by 1,000 square metres due to extensions at the existing supermarkets (Waitrose, Sainsbury and Morrisons). Therefore, the report argues that there is NO quantitative need for further supermarket space expansion in St Albans and that there is a need for a supermarket in the town centre (which will not be met by Tesco's edge-of-centre proposal).

Thanks for this Ian - and stand by for more planning news in the next few days!