TESCO PUTS IN APPLICATION (WE THINK THIS IS THE REAL ONE!!!)

We understand that Tesco has now submitted a complete planning application. We will post details here of what you can do to object as quickly as we get them! To be the first to know, please sign up on the right for email updates!

In the meantime, what can you do?

• Let us know if you would be able to help during the campaign (which will include petition signature gathering and leaflet distribution), even if it is just for 30 minutes. if you can, click here to register and we will contact you again.

• Consider drafting a letter of objection to the Council (maybe get it ready to send, but don't send it until you can refer to the specific application by number - we will send this as soon as we have it). Please mention in the letter that you believe that there are better uses for the site, there will be a significant traffic problem, pollution will increase, and the development will kill our City Centre market and businesses.

• Please contribute to our campaign - we need to book venues for public meetings and to pay for posters and campaigning material - you can send cheques to Stop Tesco St Albans Limited, 33 Alma Road, St Albans. AL1 3AT
  

Thanks for your continuing support. Our voices need to be heard loud and clear in the coming weeks.

Tesco's Lawyers Sue Guardian

Following Tesco's recent lawsuit against people who oppose its stores in Thailand, the company's UK lawyers now have The Guardian in their sights. Apparently, Tesco objects to recent articles that alleged it was using offshore banking to avoid paying £1bn in corporation tax (it appears to admit to using it to avoid paying £50m+ of stamp duty though, which is a lot of tax to most people!). A Guardian spokesperson commented,

"Instead of frankly explaining their position and/or engaging in a public dialogue Tesco has taken the extraordinary step of suing for libel in a clear attempt to close down the debate and discourage others from looking too closely.

"It's hard to think of another large public company which would resort to such bullying tactics."

The full story is here. There's also an interesting commentary on the issue in Director of Finance magazine here, which points out that when large companies sue, they can often suffer badly!

Pete Asks Why Tesco Houses Are Still Unoccupied

Local resident Pete Milne wrote to the St Albans Review earlier this week with a history of Tesco's houses in London Road. Here's the letter in full. Thanks Pete!

The Tesco-owned houses in London Road have been a disgrace to St Albans for years. Tesco have done a token tidying up but the houses are still boarded up and decaying. Three years ago the district Council started talkng about restoring the houses under new powers but have done nothing, as the following extracts from the Review illustrate:

Sept 16 2005 - The council says it is looking to use an amendment to the Housing Act which comes into force this autumn allowing it to manage [the London Road houses] with a view to providing accommodation for tenants on the housing register.

Mr Pollard said this week: "Last autumn Tesco assured me that they would press on as quickly as possible with their plans to develop London Road, promising not to leave empty and boarded up valuable properties which could be used to house local families desperately in need of accommodation.

Jan 5th 2006 - Mr Pollard said: "I have asked St Albans District Council to use its new powers in the recent Housing Act to take possession of these derelict homes, do them up and then offer them to homeless families. A council spokesman said: "There are two areas we are exploring. Under section 215 of the Town and Country Planning Act we can make efforts to tidy up the appearance of the area..... Councillor Robert Donald has also written to Verulam Properties a subsidiary of Tesco which owns the properties to request that action is taken to improve their appearance."

Jun 19 2006 - COUNCIL leader Robert Donald has pledged to take action over the empty homes and shops in London Road if the stymied supermarket scheme does not progress this year.

Dec 1 2006 - Council leader Robert Donald said the firm had improved the appearance of the area since the beginning of the year.

Oct 15th 2007 - With the company rethinking its plans for a store, district council planning chief Chris Brazier .... is asking council officers to use the 2004 Housing Act to take over the properties temporarily.

Feb 19th 2008 - [Tesco] says it will renovate six of the homes it owns in May or June, and all should be occupied by tenants by the end of this year.

Why have the council let Tesco drag their feet for so long over the derelict shops when they have the power to do something about it? Who believes that Tesco will actually do something in May/June? Their houses in Alma Road remain badly neglected, even though Tesco claim they no longer want to demolish them.

How many times have Tesco promised - and failed - to submit their planning application for the store?

When will the council stop listening to Tesco's empty promises about the houses and get on with what they talked about in 2005 - take over the houses and make them habitable!

PS - The new application still isn't in...

Every Little Spin Doctor Helps, Tesco...

Tesco needs to hire more 'corporate affairs managers' (spin doctors), or else it runs the risk of them spinning themselves to death - if the busy schedule of Michael Kissman is true of all of them. Over the past few weeks he has been trying to spin around the country and support six different Tesco developments*, all of which seem to have massive local opposition. Just look at the last 2 weeks...

19th March - In St Albans, Michael comments on the St Albans Review poll that found 83% of people against Tesco's plans for the city.

20th March - Up North, Michael is commenting in Liverpool on Tesco's plans to redevelop Everton FC's stadium in the Liverpool Echo.

20th March - At the same time by miles away in Suffolk, Michael comments tackles concerns over gridlock in the historic market town of Hadleigh in the East Anglian Daily Times.

26th March - The Liverpool backlash arrives and Michael is trying to persuade locals via the Liverpool Echo that Tesco's plans will not lead to massive job losses and business failures.

(27th March - Michael is not available for comment to the Herts Advertiser, so non-Tesco consultant Eben Black is called in.)

31st March - Michael is speaking to the Suffolk Free Press, trying to answer the concerns of protestors in Hadleigh who are worried about the impact of traffic pollution on listed buildings and a nature reserve.

(*As well as those above, during March Michael has also been working on Tesco's unpopular developments in Mill Road, Cambridge, Halesworth, Norfolk and of course Gerrards Cross)

Perhaps this is why Tesco's St Albans application is STILL NOT IN?????

Our MP Criticises Tesco Pollution

Big thanks to Anne Main MP, who has publicised in the St Albans Review the fact that even Tesco's own figures show that a supermarket in London Road will increase pollution. Levels of nitrogen dioxide in the area already exceed EU limits and a projected increase of 70% in local traffic will make things much worse.

Stop Tesco's own report on pollution will be out soon as part of our response to Tesco's application - but of course we need to have an application in first... watch this space for more details!

Thanks also to all the local politicians who are keeping people up to date with Tesco's plans in their election literature - be they Green, Liberal, Conservative or Labour!

So, When Did You Say the Application Would Be In, Tesco?

The Herts Advertiser today follows up its story of two weeks ago, when Tesco's Michael Kissman told the paper that Tesco's revised application would be in by now. The council's planning portfolio holder Cllr Chris Brazier isn't happy with the delay, as he makes obvious in the article.

What does Tesco have to say about this? In the absence of usual spin doctor Mr Kissman, 'Tesco spokesperson Eben Black' says the missing details will 'be submitted very shortly, possibly in less than a week's time'.

We're not going to let up on this, and nor will the Herts Advertiser or Chris Brazier, although it is interesting that once again Tesco has not given an absolute date - we hope that Tesco's logistics people don't work with the same degree of uncertainty or we'd have lorry loads of food defrosting and going off all over the country...

PS: We assume this is Eben Black here - interesting that he doesn't actually work for Tesco! It seems that Michael Kissman has been occupied with another locally unpopular Tesco scheme in Liverpool - here's the view of the Liverpool Echo on the scheme.

Tesco Buys (and Closes) a Holiday Park!!

The Independent reports today that Tesco has bought the Lyme Bay Holiday Village in Seaton, Devon and immediately sent out redundancy notices to 152 staff.

The paper reports Lizzie Bewsher, head of a community group opposed to the plans, Stand Up 4 Seaton, as saying:

"In one fell swoop, Tesco have bought up and shut down Seaton's single biggest source of employment and income. A lot of businesses in the town rely on the passing trade that the holiday village brings in. The people who live in the holiday village face being made homeless and working parents will have nowhere to leave their children. The nearest nursery will be 10 miles away. The village also has the only gym and swimming pool in a town with very few facilities.

"Tesco has done this without offering any assurances that these facilities will be replaced next January or indeed without putting forward any plans for what it wants to do after the closure. It is acting with breathtaking arrogance. We have absolutely no guarantee whatsoever that Tesco will not bulldoze the holiday village, put a big fence around it and leave it untouched for a decade. They are throwing around their financial weight but we are determined not to stand for it."

Local people believe the only reason why Tesco has bought the site is to stop Sainsburys opening a store there. If a Tesco is eventually built on the site it will apparently be the 10th Tesco within 22 miles, with no real local competion.

So come on Terry Leahy, Michael Kissman and Tesco - how does this help people and communities????

PS - it is now nearly 2 weeks since Michael Kissman told the Herts Advertiser that ' he expected the planning application to be back on track by the end of the week'. We are watching... and of course waiting...

UPDATE: The Daily Telegraph carries the same story today with a few more comments from local businesspeople. One thing that must really concern the people of Seaton is that, despite what Tesco might say, a holiday village will attract people from miles away, and that they will then spend money in other local shops, boosting the local economy. A supermarket is only ever going to recycle the money that already exists in the local economy and in Tesco's case, only 7% of this money will remain local! So the future for the community is not good...

Final Results from the Poll

Just heard from the St Albans Review direct - a total of 1607 votes were cast, of which 83% were against Tesco. Apparently the website only shows 472 web votes, of which 93% were 'no'.

Thanks to all who voted - an obvious message to Tesco that its store is not wanted!

St Albans Review Poll Update

As we enter into the last few hours of the St Albans Review poll (voting closes at 10am on Tuesday, if you still haven't voted!) it seems obvious that the people have spoken and firmly opposed Tesco. The facts (as of 5pm) are...

Online poll: Do you back the proposed Tesco store?
The results: Yes: 7.4% No: 92.6%
Number of votes: According to the paper, almost 1000!

Number of comments posted (in response to 2 articles): 81
Number in favour of Tesco: 3 (3.7%)
Number against Tesco: 67 (82.7%)
Number of repeat comments / for information: 11

Of course, Tesco's spin doctors will be revving up to oppose this - please let us have any suggestions as to what they will say...

Tesco and Free Speech in Thailand

Don't think of opposing us seems to be the message Tesco is sending in Thailand. The Observer reports that Tesco's subsidiary in the country is suing two anti-Tesco activists for £18 million for making an error in anti-Tesco speeches.

Hopefully, UK bosses will spot this and stop the lawsuits - free speech is a great British value and it is frankly stomach-turning to see this sort of process being used by Tesco.

A Letter from Cambridge

We've received good news from the Cambridge Mill Road anti-Tesco campaign, who have also had the pleasure of dealing with Tesco's Michael Kissman over the past few months. They write,

"Just thought you'd like to know that last Thursday the council threw out Tesco's application to build an extension, which they needed in order to open an Express on Mill Road. Tesco, in the usual form of our friend Mr Kissman, are now trying to claim that it was a victory for them because they have been given permission to put up a sign and install a cash machine and that they could open the store without the extension. Unfortunately for them, we have a copy of the email that they sent to the planners a couple of months ago, spelling out in some detail why they couldn't open the store without the extension. Oops."

If you'd like to find out more about the campaign, click here.

Say No to Tesco in the St Albans Review

The St Albans Review is running a major poll on whether people want Tesco in St Albans. Please take part (and say 'NO' of course...) by either...

1. Visiting www.stalbansreview.co.uk/news and clicking 'NO' on the poll about half way down the right hand side of the page.

2. Sending a text to 80360 saying 'Tesco No' (texts cost 25p plus your normal charge)

3. Phoning 09012 210207 (calls cost 25p from BT landlines, and may cost more from mobiles and other networks)

4. Emailing 'No' to revieweditor@london.newsquest.co.uk

If you'd like to leave a comment for the Review, please do so by clicking here.

The other news story today is that the Herts Advertiser has followed up the Tesco application rejection story - and Tesco's Michael Kissman has said that a new application may be in at the end of the week. See the whole story here.

Tesco, Negative News and Negative Reputation

One of the interesting things about the Internet is the access to information you get from it. Just a few years ago, keeping people informed about Tesco's expansion plans around the country would have been almost impossible. Today, however, thanks to Google News feeds and the like (like the one that sits at the top of the blog) we can see and report Tesco's struggles around the country.

For example today, here are the top Google stories about Tesco....










As you can see, all is not good for the company - stories report opposition to stores in London, Ireland, Radford, Manchester, Hyndburn in Lancashire and Cambridge, as well as the tale of a former Tesco senior executive who left the company after (she claims) suffering intense pressure and abuse from senior managers. The final story covers the media backlash over the company's use of (legal) tax avoidance.

We'd like to link all this negative news to our ongoing survey (on the right of the blog) which shows that Tesco's reputation in St Albans is nose-diving. Tesco claims to want to work with local communities, but surely there comes a point where we have to say that the company is not listening to the people of Britain at all. And at that time, we probably have to look for alternative sources of food...

Friction TV takes up Sandy's Oppostion to Tesco

Here are the views of local Lib Dem MP candidate Sandy Walkington on Tesco, as seen on opinion website Friction TV.

Wacky and Weird Surveys Get Weirder

The Adroit e-Research survey of 2 weeks ago, which Tesco used to try to spin the fact that two-thirds of people were against its planned store into a 'silent majority' in favour, has now been followed up by a further one from the bizarrely named research start-up.

The company now claims (via thisishertfordshire) that 'only 18 per cent of local people are opposed [to the Tesco store], and nearly half are positively in favour' (without specifying what 'nearly half' means, of course). Adroit Director Johnathon Brill tells the website 'The improvement is statistically significant, while admitting that 'responses such as "I don't care" or "They should just get on with it" were not included in the results, even as neutral responses'.

The fact is that this 'shift' reveals that the survey is in no way representative of public opinion. During the period between the two surveys, Tesco has taken no positive action to promote its store, and in fact is currently infuriating local people even more by wasting more time with its incomplete application. Yet we're expected to believe that a 'significant' number of people have changed their mind! Just to reiterate our other points from last time - we know that people want something to happen to the Eversheds site, and we know that shoppers might initially be in favour, because they like the Tesco brand, but once they look at the impact on local people and the community, and consider the alternatives, they rapidly become opposed. Our petition of almost 6,000 people is evidence of this.

We'd also like to suggest that Tesco's Michael Kissman stops wasting his time with these desperate surveys and spends some time getting the Tesco application in, so that it can be rejected and we can start doing something better with the land.


UPDATE: We've just heard on the grapevine that Tesco paid for the second survey, but not for the first one. Now you can all draw your conclusions about the results. Congrats of course to Mr Brill, who has snared perhaps his first blue-chip client.

Yet Another Tesco Plan Rejected

Not a happy time for Tesco's planning people at the moment, we fear. The Macclesfield Express reports that the company's plans for Poynton, Cheshire have been rejected. Interestingly, part of the reason given by the council for the rejection was that Tesco had refused to deliver a 'retail impact assessment', explaining the impact of the store on local traders.

Well done to the protestors of Poynton!

Another Environmental Reason to Oppose Tesco

Supermarkets have come under fire recently for handing out billions of plastic bags, which then damage the environment for many years. Unlike its rivals, especially Marks & Spencer, Tesco is playing hardball and refusing to take significant steps to reduce its use of bags.

In response the website thisislondon (part of the Evening Standard) took a look around the country to see where some of the bags ended up, taking these pictures. Do people really want these scenes repeated in St Albans? Does anyone think that a school and housing would produce anything like as much rubbish?

On an unrelated topic, we've not heard anything new about Tesco's rejected application yet, although we have heard that there were quite a few mistakes in it... Hopefully the company will recycle the paper at least.

More Fine Letters

Thanks to Sara Phillips and Ian Langford for their letters to the Herts Advertiser this week. Sara has a problem with the corporate optimism of Tesco's Michael Kissman, and Ian wonders why Tesco has not released the results of its second consultation, but instead a survey showing that only 1 in 3 shoppers in St Albans wants its store!

Thanks for all these letters.

By the way, there was a letter in the St Albans Review yesterday supporting Tesco - but the letter writer lived in Enfield! Anyone nearer like Tesco?

More Tesco Traffic Congestion Attracts AA Opposition

Another Tesco plan has run into fire over the potential for massive traffic congestion. The Automobile Association, Friends of the Earth, two Conservative former ministers and local campaigners are fighting Tesco's proposed 'MegaShed' - a massive distribution centre close to Stonehenge, reports The Guardian.

The planned distribution centre would be a massive 85,000 sq m (forty times as big as the St Albans store!) and would lead to thousands of lorries rolling down the picturesque (and massively crowded) A303.

The article also shows Tesco's usual disdain for local people - the company refuses to engage with them and tries to support its plans with claims that lots of jobs will be provided (although they will presumably replace jobs elsewhere) and that 'traffic improvements will get around the problem', without saying what these will be.

Tesco's Weak Survey

Readers of the Herts Advertiser will have noticed this article today, about a survey Tesco undertook in St Albans City Centre. Tesco claims the results show 'a silent minority not opposed to Tesco's plans'. The survey of 301 people apparently found that 34% were against a Tesco store, 36% in favour and the rest undecided.

We have many problems with the survey, some of which were mentioned in the article. Firstly, the survey methodology seems a bit curious - Tesco claims to have asked people to score their opposition or support on a scale of 1 to 100, but then converted this into three categories.

We suspect this is because the survey showed a high level of committed opposition, along with weak support - this would fit well with our experience of talking to people in St Albans City Centre - a lot of people who don't live near the site aren't too bothered initially about the idea - until they find out about the traffic problems and likely damage to the market and other local shops.

Secondly, it is interesting that Tesco don't say what questions it asked. Many people to be honest might well prefer Tesco to the current wasteland, but if given the choice between use of the land for a supermarket, or for a school and housing, the vast majority in our experience will choose the school and housing!

Thirdly, surveying shoppers in St Albans will only give a partial picture of the feeling of local people. We know from our own survey that 83% of local business people oppose the store. The Green Party and Liberal Democrats both report that an even greater proportion of people who live near the site are opposed.

Finally, we find it very gratifying that despite its massive PR machine, 15,000-strong leaflet drops and 'extensive local consultation', after eight years of owning the land, Tesco is celebrating the fact that only just over 1 in 3 of just one of the three important groups of local people actually want its store.