A Story in which Tesco Shows that it lacks a Sense of Humour...

We've covered before the opposition to Tesco's plans to knock down houses in Liverpool to create a new superstore with attached Everton Football ground. Of course, the people living in these houses are not happy with the idea.

Today, one of them, Dot Reid, has come up with the impressive idea of applying for planning consent to knock down Sir Terry Leahy's house in Cuffley and build a 'community area', reports the BBC. She, quite reasonably, told the Beeb,

"These are more than just houses, they are homes. I have been living under the threat of losing my home for 18 months now and it is very stressful. I want Sir Terry to have a taste of what we have to put up with."

Rather than either acknowledging Mrs Reid's ingenuity or taking her situation seriously, a 'Tesco spokesperson' once again responded to individual concern by claiming the support of 'the majority'. He or she tells the BBC,

"This is just a publicity stunt*. Unlike this application, for our application we spoke to hundreds, if not thousands, of residents in Kirkby, the vast majority of whom recognise this is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity which will create 2,000 jobs**."

This, of course, invites two interesting questions.

Firstly, even assuming that most local people are on Tesco's side (and we know what its surveys are like...), why should the opinion of a few local people outweigh the right of someone to stay in their home of 18 years?

Secondly, does this mean that Sir Terry would go along with the plans if local residents think that converting his home into a community area would be a good thing?

To try to answer the second question, we've put a poll up on the right of the blog. If you think that turning Sir Terry's house into a community area would be the right thing to do, please tick one box. If you think he should be allowed to keep his house, tick the other. We'll send the results of the survey to Mrs Reid to see if they can be used to support her campaign.

Some notes:

* - Tesco's spin doctors may see this as a 'publicity stunt'. I doubt they would be so flippant if they were told that a house that they (or perhaps their mother?) had lived in for 18 years was being knocked down for another supermarket!

** - of course supermarkets don't 'create' jobs. People have always shopped for groceries, so jobs are just moved around and taken from existing retailers. In fact, as supermarkets provide efficiencies of scale, they need fewer and less skilled workers - research shows a new supermarket will on average cost 276 jobs. That's where Tesco's impressive profits come from.

UPDATE: The poll we did on this subject is now closed, but we have sent the results up to the campaign group in Liverpool. Of the 75 people who voted 89% (67) thought that the best use for Sir Terry Leahy's house would be a community area, while only 10% (8) thought it was best used as his house. So, Sir Terry, the community wants you out - will you go along with this?