Saturday Traffic Jams

Two pictures taken this morning (Saturday 11:45am) that illustrate the traffic problems that we face already in the area around the proposed Tesco in St Albans.

The first shows Alma Road totally blocked with traffic. The second shows the end of a queue of cars over 600m long in London Road from Lattimore Road beyond Orient Close.

You can see the streets on Streetmap here - the brown building marked 'Works' in the centre of the map is the proposed Tesco site.

An extra 500 cars per hour going to Tesco (more on Saturday?) plus lots of delivery lorries will gridlock the area even more - and all Tesco can suggest is putting in a 'right turn lane' on London Road!

First Time Visitors - Please Volunteer for Next Week

If you're visiting the site for the first time today having read our leaflet through the door, many thanks. Please download one of the posters and stick it in your window, fill in the petition online or on the leaflet, and ask friends and family to add their names.

If you'd like to help further we're back in the City Centre next weekend collecting petition signatures. Please click on volunteer on stoptesco.com and let us know when you can join us. Please don't worry that it will be difficult asking people to sign the petition - we've found people very supportive. You don't need to volunteer for an hour - if you can do 30 minutes that will be great!

More Coverage for Political Support Meeting

The Herts Advertiser covered the meeting today. Thanks!

Warning from Wolverhampton

Tesco is under fire for letting the former Wolverhampton Royal Hospital fall into disrepair, according to the Express and Star. After owning the land the former hospital stood on for several years the paper claims the site has 'become overgrown and a haven for drug dealers and prostitutes'.

Local priest, Rector David Frith, from St Peter’s Collegiate Church in the city centre, told the paper,

“So many people in the area are working so hard to breathe new life into the local community but Tesco are getting in the way. They don’t seem to care about the health, safety and quality of life of our city’s residents - only about their cash flow and market control.”

Local residents in St Albans sympathise - we've wanted to breathe new life into the Eversheds site for years while Tesco has sat on the land.

More Letters of Support

Two further letters from Stop Tesco. Simon Hepburn writes in the Evening Standard in reply to Tesco's massive profits...

"Tesco may be growing (17 April) but opposition to the supermarket's tactics for growth will grow faster unless it starts to listen to local people.

"One of St Albans' claims to fame is that it contains one Britain's first Tesco stores - something local residents are proud of. However Tesco has recently spent many years buying up all the land in one of the few remaining brownfield sites in the centre of town, centered around a former printworks. The site is has been long-designated by the council for housing. The 50,000 sq ft supermarket Tesco proposes will increase traffic and pollution and threaten the 1,000 year old market in the centre of the city.

"Since setting up the Stop Tesco campaign in January we've been overwhelmed by the support from residents and local politicians of all persuasions.

"Other recent cases where stores have been refused planning permission, at Finchley and Hillingdon show that the company needs to take a much more sensitive approach than in the past. While campaigners around the country are not against Tesco in principle, we have passed the point where the best solution for a brownfield site is automatically another supermarket."

Liz Needham writes in the St Albans and Harpenden Review about Tesco's potential damage to community spirit. She says,

"One of the unique selling points of St Albans is the ability of the city to retain the feel of a village, especially on the outskirts. I have always been struck by the fact that I cannot walk up Alma Road, London Road or Victoria Street without someone I know stopping for a chat...

"It would be to the detriment of our city if we lost this community spirit, but this is what I feel sure would happen if Tesco continues with its plans to build a supermarket on London Road...

"I, for one, would like to say stop, Tesco, please!"

Stop Tesco Website Statistics for March

Below is a graph showing that this website continues to regularly visited by dozens, and sometimes well over 100, of people each day. During March there were 1,406 unique visitors and they looked at a total of 2,252 pages of content:



We thank you for your support and hope that you continue to visit this website to find the latest news and information about Tesco's plans and our campaign to stop them.

Stop Press!!! Posters and Petition Now Online

Stop Tesco posters and a petition are now available online.

There are four different posters to choose from and a petition that you can download and use to collect signatures in your street. Visit http://www.stoptesco.com/downloads/

Local Blogger: "We made our last Tesco purchase last week"

On his blog, PlanetMike writes:

We made our last Tesco purchase last week.

I'd been getting very uncomfortable buying anything from Tesco given their plans for St Albans, but we needed an internet shop, our details were already set up and we had some money off vouchers to use; so as a last resort it didn't seem too bad an idea. Well, not until their customer service wouldn't give a reasonable response to a query and certainly not when some of the produce turned out to have a use-by date of the same day as the delivery.

So, screw 'em. Sainsburys/Asda/Morrisons can have our supermarket money, we'll buy more from the market and grow more of our own veg.

Thank You For Your Support

We'd like to thank everyone who voted for us in the Herts 24 website awards. Voting has now closed.

Our campaign, however, has only just begun. Why? Because we feel very strongly that allow Tesco to build an inappropropriate and unnecessary store on the edge of centre Evershed site in St. Albans isn't the right thing for our community. We are opposed to the demolition of locally listed homes that form part of a sensitive conservation area. We are opposed on the grounds of the environmental impact of an estimate 500 additional motor vehicle movements AN HOUR in the area surrounding the store. We are concerned about the effect of such a store upon local businesses, city centre shops and our thousand year old market. We fear that already congested roads - important access roads into the city and to the nearby St. Albans City Station - will become even more gridlocked.

Do we really want to all Tesco to vandalise our city as shown in the artists impression of Alma Road below?



Our city, our communities and our families deserve for something more suitable to be built on the Evershed site, something that benefits us all. That could include new homes built alongside and in keeping with the existing locally listed buildings, including affordable housing for local people and incorporating environmentally sustainable features, a sorely needed new school for the area, local shops, and other things that local people - not Tesco shareholders - want and would benefit from.

In the coming weeks our campaign will be ramping up and we'll be asking for your support. Not just by voting for us in a web awards competition, but by putting your name to our cause, writing your letters of opposition, and making it known that our community can and will stand up together in opposition to Tesco's plans. Stay tuned.

[The composite image above was created by local resident Simon Dowell who created the images based on an interpretation of the plans revealed by Tesco and shown on their website for the St. Albans development. We thank Simon for his kind permission to use these images here.]

Herts Ad Website Awards: Please Vote Now!

A few weeks ago, we gushingly announced that this website had been nominated for "Best Community Website" in the Herts Advertiser's Web Awards 2007.

Please ensure that your vote counts by clicking on the button below and registering your vote before Noon on Friday 16 March.



The five sites in this category will then be forwarded to the judges to decide the winner. We don't know what sites we're up against but we're willing to go out on a limb to suggest that Tesco's promotional website for it's St. Albans plan didn't make the list.

Every little vote helps.

St. Albans Observer: Tesco Battle Rages On

In today's St. Albans Observer, Tesco spokesman Michael Kissman says that people shopping at the store they hope to build on London Road will "pop into town and support their local shops."

Shame, then, that if they build a Tesco where they're proposing to, Tesco may very well kill off those local shops. Many have argued that the edge of centre site would act as a barrier to city centre shopping rather than as a much needed magnet to the city centre. Not only is the site of the proposed store a full 6/10th's of a mile up a slight incline away, but the store is likely to impose a strict 2-3 hour parking limit, making it nearly impossible to do the weekly shop and leave the car to continue shopping in town.

Kissman, not seen in local papers since he proclaimed that local opinion was split 50:50 on the plans - a claim most local people found to be unbelievable - is facing a growing uphill march of his own:

The St. Albans Green Party found that of the 100 respondents to it's own poll, 96% of respondents were against the plans.

Local Lib Dem activists have also set up a website in opposition to Tesco's plans and are polling opinion themselves.

The St. Albans Observer has started a Save Our Shops campaign, in part inspired by the Tesco plans.

St. Albans Convervative party MP, Anne Main is also against the proposals.

It increasingly appears that Tesco, and it's spokesman Michael Kissman, are alone in wanting to build a Tesco on the Evershed site in St. Albans. Will the last one out turn off the lights please...

That Ain't Half of It

According to the Times,

"The Trading Standards Institute has called for an overhaul of the national pricing code, and accused Tesco of “grossly exploiting” loopholes through its “fruit and veg pledge”. Tesco is urging its customers to eat five portions of fruit and vegetables a day to stay healthy with half-price special offers.

But the institute said that Tesco had misled customers because the prices for items featured in the promotion rose sharply just before the offer started. The half-price offer related to the higher prices."

Tesco refuted the claim, with a spokesperson saying: “Any suggestion that we ramp up prices in order to cut them again is the purest nonsense.”

It's not the first time we've had the feeling that Tesco had been a bit creative with it's use of the word "half" - Tesco spokesman Michael Kissman told the Herts Ad last month that:

"Overall, there's a half-and-half split between those who support our proposals and those who don't and the reasons vary hugely. "

Every little, as the ads say, counts - particularly, it would seem, if you've got a knack for creativity with numbers. For our own part, we admit that we've come across a few people locally who were unaware of Tesco's plans, but we have yet to come across anyone who actually supports them.

Your Views on the Tesco Plan

Last week, local papers carried a number of letters about Tesco's plan for St. Albans and the St. Albans Observer kicked off a "Save Our Shops" campaign with an online discussion that brought out many in opposition to Tesco's plan, including a market trader.

David Parry of Park Street, St. Albans questions whether it's reasonable to have a planning rule that stops our elected politicians from commenting publicly on the Tesco plan. He writes:

"St Albans is currently besieged by major and controversial planning applications - Tesco, the cinema, Luton Airport and the recently-determined rail freight (sorry, road freight) depot - yet the Government's rules prevent the very people we elect giving us their views right up until the decision is made.... as they stand the rules would even prevent someone who is speaking out now against Tesco voting on the issue if they stood and got elected at the May elections - assuming the final decision was made after May."

Ian Langford, of Orient Close, St. Albans wrote the Herts Ad to ask:

"Does St Albans really need a 55,000 square foot Tesco? We already have a 45,000 square foot Sainsbury - yes, the proposed Tesco will be 22 per cent larger than Sainsbury in Everard Close - a 37,000 square foot Morrisons, a 22,000 square foot Waitrose and another 20,000 square feet from Iceland, Marks & Spencer (food only) and Tesco Metro combined. That's a total of 123,000 square feet of supermarket retail space, excluding the large Sainsbury a couple of miles down the road at London Colney. Does St Albans really need the 45 per cent increase in supermarket provision that a 55,000 square foot Tesco would give?

Matt Phillips of Inkerman Road wrote the Herts Ad to query Tesco's claim that "50 percent" support their plan:

"As an Inkerman Road, St Albans, resident, the current view from my bedroom window is that of a detatched period house at the end of a pleasant cul-de-sac in a Conservation Area. Under Tesco's current proposed plans, that would be replaced by the second tier of the new Tesco's car park. I'm rather fond of the privacy, community and lack of pollution we have here, so clearly I am not in favour of the development.

But what stuck me was Tesco's remarkable claim that 50 per cent of residents consulted are in favour (Herts Advertiser, February 15).

I for one have not met one resident who wants this store. So presumably when Tesco's come round to officially submit their planning application they will also submit clear evidence and proof that half of St Albans residents are in in favour as they say?"

The St. Albans Observer last week launched it's own "Save Our Shops" campaign, kicking it off with an article and online discussion where many weighed in with their opposition to Tesco's plans.

Market trader Julie Crumpton says:

"I live and run my business in St Albans. I trade on St Albans market and have done for the last 3 years. From a business point of view the town centre has been suffering for a long time... shops have closed down, traders on the market have left and small independent traders who add character to the town have had to leave, yet the rents have gone up the parking fees have risen St Albans town centre is slowly disappearing... If the new tesco site goes ahead it will strangle independent traders especially as tesco's nowadays don't just sell food you can buy clothes, stationery, electrical products, flowers and the list goes on the shoppers won't need to go into town if they can buy everything under one roof not to mention the roads will not be able to handle the volume of traffic it would create. It will just be another blow to St Albans."

Graham Ward said:

"...With fewer specialist shops, there is little to attract a shopper to St Albans that they cannot find better in London Colney or Watford. A Tesco superstore would simply add to congestion, and take further trade away from the Hight Street."

Tony and Barbary Billings write:

"It seems fairly obvious that St Albans, having come under prolonged and sustained roadworks in its city centre for two years, Herts Highways must take a very large proportion of the blame. The latest signs "shops open and business as usual" comes far too late to save many traditional and family-owned businesses. As a result St Albans will have an added-on "Anytown" image and the (probable) inevitability of Tesco coming here will provide the final nail in our coffin."

[Please Note: The above have been quoted to make them available to a wider audience. No permission has been requested or granted by the authors of the above who may or may not support our campaign.]

Stats for Tesco Campaign website: Week 6

The graph below shows the statistics for this website for the week 23 February - 01 March. The headlines are that, during the period shown, we had 440 unique visitors who looked at 787 pages of content ("hits"):



This brings the total for the life of this website to 2,648 unique users and 5,491 pages of content viewed. Hundreds have also looked at our photos on flickr and our podcasts on NowPublic.com.

February was our first full month of operation so it makes sense to, along with the weekly updates, to supply monthly stats from now on as well:



Thanks for your support!

Herts Ad: Retail Study Firm Also Was Working for Tesco

When Tesco revealed it's plans for the Evershed site in St. Albans, they put much stock in a study, conducted by London based property consultants G.L. Hearn for the District Council, which suggested that the city needed another supermarket.

Well, today's Herts Advertiser carries an editorial that suggests that G.L. Hearn was, at the same time, also working for Tesco:

A FIRM which advised St Albans councillors on the district's needs for an extra supermarket was working for Tesco at the same time.

In a study carried out for the district council which was presented to its planning policy advisory group in November 2005, London-based property consultants G.L. Hearn, suggested that another supermarket almost as big as Sainsbury's in Everard Close would be needed in the city within six years.

At the time it was suggested that the proposal gave the green light to Tesco to press forward with their scheme for the old Evershed's printing works site off London Road which it already owned.

It has now transpired that at the same time the company was working for Tesco in other parts of the country, something it did not reveal to the council.

As part of the publicity for its current proposals which it has put forward for public consultation, Tesco points out that the study suggested the city needed an additional food store to keep people shopping locally.

Now we're not about to argue that this doesn't matter - many are likely to call into question the entire study now that the link between the land consultancy and Tesco has been revealed. However, in trying to shore up confidence in that very study, the consultancy reaffirmed on particular message from it: although the study recommended further retail space in St. Albans, that space should be provided in "centrally located site in St. Albans". The spokesperson from G.L. Hearn told the Herts Ad that:

"The findings of the study in connection with food retailing were that there was a need for a new store to serve St Albans and that, applying the sequential approach, that need should be met on a centrally-located site within St Albans."

Over half a mile away from the town centre isn't, we'd suspect, what they meant by centrally-located.

People Power Defeats Tesco

People Power Defeats Tesco
Originally uploaded by tescocampaign.

According to an article in the Evening Standard last week, people power has won a battle with retail giant Tesco:

"Tesco has been forced to back down over plans for a £150million development after a year-long protest by residents and shopkeepers.

The supermarket giant has withdrawn a proposal for a massive store and 662 homes.

Protesters said the 13-acre development would have brought gridlock to already congested roads, increased pollution and destroyed local businesses."

In St. Albans, we have similar concerns to those that won the day in Tolworth.

The campaign there included the Every Little Hurts website that was set up by Edward Davey, the local MP, in opposition to the plans.

According to a forum post on the St. Albans Lib Dem forum run by Sandy Walkington, several of Lib Dem councillors are hoping to meet with Davey to find out more about how Tesco's development ambitions were curbed in Tolworth.

A group of local Lib Dems also recently set up their own "Stop Tesco" website .

The St. Albans Green Party also has also been actively campaigning against Tesco's plans.

Do you know of news articles, campaign groups, websites or other content that you think we should link to? Drop us an email at tescocampaign@yahoo.co.uk

[Note: Our campaign, and this website, is not aligned with any political party. Our only aim is to stop Tesco from building what we feel is an inappropriate development for the city of St. Albans and, with that in mind, are happy to link to other campaigns, groups, organisations, or political party websites that support this aim.]

Tesco's Property Team Begins Mass Exodus

The UK's leading construction magazine, Building, reported at the end of last week that supermarket Tesco is facing what it calls "the mass departure of its property team", with Tesco's development director, programme director, company architect, procurement director, design director, head of engineering and head of small projects all leaving the company.

Building says:

Tony Vasishta, development director at Tesco, confirmed that he handed in his notice four weeks ago, at the same time as Mark Cammies, the programme director. Vasishta is in talks with McArthur Glen, a retail developer, but said he had not yet decided to move to the firm. Steve Douglas, Tesco’s architect, is to join retailer John Lewis. Cammies’ future was unclear as Building went to press...

Others who have left, or handed in their notice, are Bob Tragheim, the procurement director, Helen Dodd, the design director, Pat Jubb, the head of engineering, and Brendan Hastings, head of small projects. It is understood that a number of the company’s project managers are also going.

The group’s ambitious development programme has, paradoxically, left some contractors and consultants disgruntled because they say they are continually fighting for better margins.

The chief executive of one of Tesco’s main contractors said the supply chain was being “screwed down as far as possible to save money” and that some of his staff now refused to work on Tesco’s projects because of the group’s increasingly cut-throat and aggressive methods.

Tesco will spend £1.8bn in construction in 2006, opening 140 new stores. It opened 2 million ft2 of store space last year and will add 2.2 million ft2 this year. [full article]

Stats for Tesco Campaign Website: Week 5

This week the website saw a big spike in traffic after Channel 4's Dispatches: "The supermarket that's eating Britain".

Response wasn't just local - in addition to visitors from the UK, which do make up the vast majority, we had traffic from the USA, many EU countries, India, Japan, UAE, South Africa and even Burkina Faso. Below is the usual weekly graph:



The headlines are that this website had 519 unique visitors during the week and those visitors viewed a total of 1,150 pages of content. That 519 visitors is more than responded to Tesco's "consultation" as of last week.

The week five statistics bring us up to a an extremely respectable 5 week total of 2,192 unique visitors and 4,676 pages of content viewed. Hey Tesco, how about letting us know how many people have looked at your St. Albans website?!

Another Planning Fight Won Locally

St. Albans is currently under threat from a number of planning applications including the demolition of the Odeon Cinema across the road from the Evershed Site Tesco hopes to build on and the so called new "cinema" project behind the Alban Arena to name but a few.

One planning application we might not have to worry so much about in future, however, is that for the proposed Rail Freight Terminal on the former Radlett Aerodrome at Park Street. The Herts Advertiser reports:

OBJECTORS were out in force last night (Monday) at a meeting of St Albans District Council planners to determine the proposal to build giant Rail Freight Terminal on the former Radlett Aerodrome at Park Street.

The committee was unanimous in refusing planning permission for the project.

The meeting had been moved from the nearby council offices to the Alban Arena to allow for the expected crowds and nearly 400 people packed the venue. A further 250 watched the proceedings via a webcast, all protesting against the application by Helioslough for the 3.5million-square-foot depot.

Robin Booth, a planning officer with the district council, outlined 15 reasons for rejecting the depot... [more]

Congratulations to the local campaign group STRIFE who worked hard to fight the proposal.

Guardian: Why We Must Stop Shopping at Tesco

Almost a year ago, Guaridan Columnist Simon Hoggart wrote the following piece which still rings true today:

It's heartening to see the wave of antipathy billowing out towards Tesco. And it's producing results too. Near where my parents live in Norwich, a persistent local campaign has stopped Tesco getting permission for a store that would wipe out a street of local shops, including two terrific butchers, a greengrocer, a fishmonger, an old-fashioned pharmacist who delivers, and two fine bakeries. Money spent with local people goes back into the community, to the plumbers, hairdressers, solicitors and dentists, whereas money given to Tesco winds up hundreds of miles away in Tescoland, wherever that is.

Oh, and we also hate the so-called "Tesco's Finest", which seems to translate as "Tesco's More Or Less Adequate". But Tesco will be back. They always are. Do they never have a board meeting at which someone says: "Look guys, we're all making a fortune. We don't need any more money. Why don't we just stop expanding?" Of course not. It isn't in the nature of the beast. Which is why all these anti-Tesco websites (Tescopoly, Every Little Hurts, etc) are springing up.

Where we live there's a new, smallish Tesco store and we all complain like mad about the way their vast delivery trucks clog up narrow streets when we're trying to get to work, or people are collecting their kids from school. What are we going to do? Clamp them? Enforce a citizen's arrest on the driver? But there is an answer. We have to stop going there.

In spite of all the strong local feeling, our Tesco has long queues. Why? Given that the lorries are so vast, why do they never deliver anything we want? Why are there yards of fizzy drinks and nasty snacks, and little you'd actually want to put in your stomach?

If we truly hate Tesco we have to plan our shopping so we get to the small butcher and the greengrocer and the baker while they're open. And if Tesco is the only choice, we have to do without for the time being. Not selling stuff is the only language they understand. Otherwise they will carry on, getting bigger and bigger, destroying our country, our towns and our cities, even faster than John Prescott."

One of my neighbours told me just the other day that they, like our family, had stopped doing their shopping at Tesco. None of us had really known or thought much about Tesco's market dominance, business practices, etc before Tesco revealed plans to build a totally inappropriate development in St. Albans. Now, it would seem, Tesco finds themselves on the wrong side of the news almost everyday. If anything, this growing understanding of some of the issues we're facing locally in St. Albans will help us to defeat this development.

Can you help us spread the word even further? Do you work in advertising or public relations? Perhaps you're a journalist or work for a media company? Can you write press releases, take photos, research stories, email friends who can help us get noticed? If so, St. Albans needs you - get in touch: tescocampaign@yahoo.co.uk