Mixed news from the Herts Advertiser today. The paper has finally got an admission from Tesco's Nick Gellatly that Tesco will not be appealing against the council's rejection of its inital plans. This must come as a relief to councillors who will not be faced with funding an appeal. It presumably also reflects the fact that Tesco would find it very difficult to overturn such a comprehensive rejection.
However, we're not finished yet. Mr Gellatly then talks about 'initial proposals for a new scheme which is expected to be ready early in 2009', justifying his comments by claiming that there 'is a huge amount of support for a new supermarket close to the city centre'.
At this point we'd really urge Tesco not to waste its time and money going through the processes of 'consultation' exercises only to produce another unwanted plan - the people of St Albans made it quite clear last year that they don't want a supermarket on this site - they want housing and a school. If there is clear need for a supermarket, it is obvious that one should be built right in the City Centre, where it would be accessible by public transport and not drag people away from the centre.
Finally, Mr Gellatly tries to use recent changes in economic circumstances to try to justify his position, claiming that the store would be 'boost for the city in terms of new jobs'. We know this is getting a bit repetitive, but research shows that new supermarkets COST jobs (that's where Tesco's profits come from) and we know that these jobs would be lost from the City Centre retail area.
PS - our spellchecker keeps wanting to replace Gellatly with 'Flagellate' - then again, being a bit of a masochist could be seen as an essential quality for being Tesco's PR man in St Albans!
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