tesco - is it that bad

[swallowthree]

Planning permission being sought for a big new supermarket (maybe tesco) in my town. Is that such bad news ?

Depends on your town. If it is going to put small shops out of business, then I dont expect they will be too happy.

Tesco have just got planning permission for a store here. We live in a small town with a Solar/Co-op and a Sainsburys' already. We have a lot of small shops which rely on local people, butchers, clothes, bakers etc. They will go out of business once tossco gets built ! However what knarks me more is the LBC bought two properties standing in the way of this development for £700k TWO years ago ! they had it planned years back !

I'd be more than happy for us to get a tesco closer to home. Especially if it was a Tesco Extra.

Big supermarkets do put the small business out of action. Look at Reading's history. There are two huge Tescos and several smaller 'Express ones' and yes, small independent greengrocers, butchers, bakers, haberdashers etc have gone out of business. Towns are not what they used to be - they are all clones of one another with the same stores everywhere and few small business. Tesco is unbelievably applying for planning permission for yet another huge store.

There ought to be a law against more than one supermarket of any name in a town.

It's bad because they stifle competition, and once they get their foot in a town they are NEVER happy with just the one superstore. They get around planning permission for another large store by opening loads of little Tesco Metro's - There's supposed to be rules about how close together they can build them, but they stretch this margin as far as they can. Where I live there are 4 Tesco Metros within walking distance. I swear a couple of them cannot be a mile apart, plus there's the superstore.

If you plotted all the Metros on a map, it would look like a flower shape expanding outwards. They are generic, boring, and anti-social we have no local shops left on our highstreet that aren't pound or 99p stores.

It is worse news than you can possibly imagine. We ran a high- profile campaign here to stop a massive Tesco development in a small town. The level they will stoop to to fight objections is breathtaking. Here's just one example - the streets leading up to the road the planned store is on are very narrow and parking is on street, meaning that cars can only go single file. There is no room for delivery lorries to pass so they would have to route past a primary school. Tesco's answer? Double yellow lines throughout the residential area to clear the streets for their lorries ( potentially dozens each day they said) leaving residents with nowhere to park near their own homes. I could go on...

*Tesco Extra's never use them it shows.

They are evil...........they buy up land apply for planning permission, get refused, and then keep on applying and applying until they get permission. They own the land so in the end the councils get bribed eventually cave in rather than keep the land derelict.

Wouldn't bother me TBH. There's a place for both - the small independent shops and the supermarkets. Most people will use both at different times. Supermarkets are extremely useful for most of us.

Nobody owes any one a living - my view is that independent shops only (usually) go out of business if they're not offering something extra. So when a tescos comes to town they need to up their game - offer better service, more expert advice, unique products...something different that will make customers keep coming back.

Anti Tesco website

There is a lot not to love

googie it's just not that simple.

Our town had until recently a Tesco, now we have a much bigger Tesco plus a host of other big shops (away from the highstreet) so the independent, local family owned shops are struggling more now than they were before.

Supermarkets can be great for us as shoppers but they completely stifle competition.

Towndon............ the thing is though, people don't use the independant shops when there are supermarkets in the proximity, they are misguided by the advertising saying they are cheaper and are led like sheep through the blue arches!

I work as a sales rep selling into independant retailers, there was a situation recently where a long street in a city which had 3 independant convenience stores along it all maintaining a small but worth doing profit, Tescos opened up a tesco express in the middle of them all, sold pretty much everything the independants did at a higher price except for the few offers they had an a year later all 3 shops have now closed down.
There is also mounting evidence of tax avoidance by tescos.

No its not bad at all. If people in your town are against it they won't shop at it and it will have to close won't it. If people cared so much about shopping local they would, and local bussiness would not need to close.

Big supermarkets do not put small business out if action. They do not force people to shop at them, people choose to shop at them.

Within a 3 mile radius of my house, there are 8 Tescos. I find this excessive!
Bloody expensive too.

Actually, it is that simple, carabos.

I live in a subsection of Belfast. We have 2 butchers, a green grocer, 2 bakeries and 3 chemists right up the street from me along with a smaller Co-op. I also have 2 large Tescos, one in either direction, within 2 miles.

Those small shops survive because they know their customers. They offer high quality merchandise and it's competitively priced to Tesco. Not as cheap, no, but close enough that I'd rather spend my money with my butcher than at Tesco up the road. If the difference in bananas is 2p between Tesco/Co-Op and my green grocer? I'm going to go to my green grocer. And I do.

I have never gone into any of those shops without there being at least one other customer there.

The 'little guy' can beat Tesco et al. They just have to work at it.

I forgot to mention the bully boy tactics they are using to drive down the price they pay for their dairy and farmed goods. It is now more profitable for dairy farmers to tip their milk down the drain and sell slurry than it is to actually sell the milk. Dairy farms are closing down week in week out and now we import milk from abroad that has to go through the pasturising machines 9 times before it meets our standards to drink!

Tesco is good. What's wrong with it?

They just got permission for a Tesco here. Permission kept being refused, but they tried and tried again, and have finally got it after bunging the council a million quid or so. It's not like we needed another supermarket, we already have ASDA, Sainsburys, Morrisons, Waitrose...

What's even worse is that there is a clause that if they put the nearby local co-op out of business within a few years they "have to" open a Tesco express on the site, in order for the local customers to still have a shop. Some punishment that will be....

I would love to shop independently, but unfortunately all the excellent independent shops that we have in our town are only open when I'm at work. The supermarket will deliver. If I didn't work, I'd put the time in going to the butcher, baker, greengrocer etc. separately, like my mum always tells me I should do.

Googie You say smaller retailers have to up their game, but the thing is the supermarkets look at what the smaller retailers do and then attempt to imitate it - for cheaper. 15 years ago you would never have found bespoke looking soft furnishings, clothes, and electrical and DIY goods in a supermarket, now you can find them all. They have expanded their ranges too widely. They are greeedy, and we're pushed for time. They know that and they love it.

I think it depends. The small market town I grew up improved when Tesco came to town. It's a town centre store, provides free parking when there wasn't any before and free bus service to the villages every other day. People visit Tescos because of the free parking/free bus but then pop to the High Street at the same time. There always used to be empty shops on the High Street, not any more. The Tesco didn't stop people using local businesses, it brought people back into the town when they used to go to the next big town to visit the supermarket.

It will provide a lot more jobs than your local butcher.