Retailers Need Customers, Not Competition

A letter from Stop Tesco's Nick Hazell reaches the St Albans Review in response to an article the previous week about the concern for retailing in the central St Albans shown by our favourite Chamber of Commerce President, Sandra Oldfield...

Dear Sir,

It is very pleasing that Sandra Oldfield of the St Albans Chamber of Commerce is concerned about the future of retail in the centre of St Albans and wants to work with other local bodies to solve the problem (Review, 29 August).

I am seriously confused though as to how she can square her concern for the City centre with her support for a new Tesco store in London Road, as expressed in her letter to the Review on 24th May. When the St Albans Stop Tesco group asked 196 City centre retailers and market stallholders if they wanted Tesco to build its new store, 83% said ‘no’ while many were fearful that Tesco would negatively affect their business prospects.

The local council’s most recent retail report states that ‘'shoppers are using the Sainsburys, Morrisons and Waitrose stores outside the City centre for their main food shopping needs to the detriment of the City centre as a whole”. Tesco’s planned store is a similar distance to Sainsburys from the centre and will only increase this effect. Research by the British Retail Planning Forum has also found that new supermarkets cause an average of 276 net retail job losses.

I urge Ms Oldfield to talk to the council. I urge her to encourage them to support the idea of building new houses on the London Road site – houses that will mean new retail customers who will not need parking space in the centre and so benefit retailers in the City.