OK, the main part of this story in the Independent is about the ongoing fight of local people to preserve the town of Manningtree from the 12th Tesco within 10 miles of the town, but we're excited to see that Tesco's Michael Kissman (the man who won't return our phone calls or meet us) is now getting into the national press!
Tesco wants to build a 30,000 ft store in the town, prompting Jenny Hawley, chair of the Stour Community First pressure group to argue,
"A lot of independent shops have already been lost and while there are fewer than there were 20 years ago you can still do all your shopping on the high street."
Kissman's reponse is fairly standard stuff and similar to his St Albans comments - you'd think he would try something new some time.
The vast majority of people support it and the majority of traders do too. The reality of Manningtree is that people are driving to do their shopping somewhere else."
Perhaps once the people of Manningtree survey local people and traders they'll find the same story as St Albans - the vast majority of both groups oppose Tesco! And to his second point, we've found here that the people who 'drive to do their shopping elsewhere' are almost entirely those who drive past supermarkets on their way to or from work...
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2 comments:
There's no business case for a new 30,000 sq.ft. food shed in a town the size of Manningtree (pop: 700, smaller than Sandridge!), eight miles north of Colchester and 11 miles south of Ipswich, other than commercial greed and corporate ambition for world domination. On the other hand there is - potentially at least - a business case for a new Tesco in a growing city the size of St Albans, but is the chosen location the right one and will the planning grounds for refusal be sustainable?
When Mr Michael - surely a Bart Simpson made-up name? - Kissman says: "The reality of Manningtree is that people are driving to do their shopping somewhere else" what he really means is: "The reality is that we want people to drive to our new store Manningtree instead of driving somewhere else." Does Tesco just pay lip service in the CSR section of the annual report to issues such as carbon footprints, coporate responsibility, greenhouse emissions, etc., or is there a suit at the top of this monolith's food chain who actually believes that to encourage punters to make repeated cross-country car journeys to buy cheap tasteless groceries is seriously irreponsible?
I would be interested to see the results of an independant shopping survey conducted, rather than Tesco just doing the usual and using the information about shopping habits collected from the clubcard information. As most people who live in Manningtree would know, the town isn't a huge employer so most people travel to the larger nearby towns for work. Where Kissman says people are making journeys to use the larger stores, where is the information to suggest that these are separate journeys and not just done so whilst a person is in the area anyway.
I also find it slightly ammusing that they say that the local traders are supporting the proposal - take a walk down the bustling little high sreet and see how many of the local traders have got anti-tesco flyers up in the window then tell me the same!
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