25-1 Against!

Over the past two weeks, during Tesco's consultation period, both the St Albans Review and the Herts Advertiser have carried a series of letters from local people. We've added them up (including the website comments printed by the Review), and the overall score is...

Letters and comments opposing Tesco: 25
Letters and comments in favour of Tesco: 1

Percentage against Tesco 96%
Percentage support for Tesco: 4%

Some of the anti-Tesco comments (none of these are by Stop Tesco spokespeople!) included...

'Are they mad? Everyone who loves in or around St Albans knows that the traffic is a nightmare on London Road and we simply don't need another supermarket.'

'As for the proposed store itself... it is simply preposterous. What St Albans residents need is more housing and another primary school, not a retail park.'

'Whatever Tesco does, short of packing up and going home, this is the wrong place for a supermarket. It would cause a lot of damage.'

'The 'new' proposals are nothing more than a PR stunt by Tesco'

'[Tesco's] only concern is to fool a majority into backing something we don't want and don't need. Please throw this out'

'The stated benefits of the proposed Tesco store are nonsense'

'Tesco's initial suggestion for London Road was a monstrosity of the first order. The advantage to it is that it can now suggest a monstrosity of the second order and claim it as a huge 'improvement''.

Stop Tesco's letter to the Review pointed out that all local politicians remain steadfast in their opposition to the store.

Thanks to all letter writers and website commentators - and please keep writing to Tesco, to local MPs and to local papers. Weblinks are on the right of the blog.

PS - there was one letter in favour! Simon Wilde, who does live locally, wrote to say that 'Tesco will improve the local road infrastructure and offer residents competitive shopping facilities without having to travel or even use a car'.

All we can say is keep drinking the Kool-Aid, Simon! Tesco's road infrastructure improvements currently consist of painting a short white line down the centre of a short stretch of London Road (incidentally removing parking for existing local businesses). They also claim that by 'rephasing traffic lights' congestion will disappear - if it's that easy, why hasn't Herts Highways used this technique to reduce the existing 600m+ queues on Saturdays? Against this, the company needs to attract significant extra traffic to justify the store - they're not going to survive with local people and that's why the plans have over 400 car parking places.

In terms of 'competitive shopping facilities' - the danger that we all fear is Tesco reducing competition by threatening the future of the City markets, as well as the existing local shops in London Road and Victoria Street!