to be furious that tesco want to open a store in looe, cornwall?

[morecoffeepleaseholdthecake]

Just seen this on the news. There are currently no big supermarkets in this lovely cornish town, so Tesco want to build one on the outskirts.

They say, people already do their weekly shop in big supermarkets in other towns, so there is a demand for it.

If this goes ahead, that means this beautiful place will end up with countless empty shops when the local businesses close. They will then be filled with cash converter shops, crappy take aways and endless charity shops.

I think this is absolutely tragic. If somewhere is lucky enough to have got to 2012 without a big supermarket killing taking over the town it should be celebrated!

hairytoes quite, Tesco aren't renowned for their line in overpriced teddies & endless sea shell tat.

end I get a bit sick of unsuccessful small businesses blaming larger retailers when they can't renegotiate their lease on terms that suit them or they don't make enough to be profitable. If these shops were truly offering something special, they'd have nothing to worry about.

I should also say, I despise Tesco as a company (having worked for them & been a disillusioned shopper) & avoid it when possible. But, I also get fed up with people blaming TESCO themselves, they're a business, not a fucking charity. It's the sheeple who shop there & make it worth their while that keep it open. If people put their money where their mouth is, they'd have no business & would soon pull out.

Similar to when local(ish) leisure centre closed. There were multiple protests & complaints about withdrawL of a service. The finance manage pointed out that if just 25% of the protesters used the pool jus once a week, it would have broken even, 50% & it would've been very successful. There have also been protests about the cost to the council of securing the empty site & MORE protests when they sold it to Tesco, the only interested buyer!

People can have opinions, but they need to think them through.

The OP says most people already shop at supermarkets in other towns, presumably because the supermarkets are cheaper or the quality is better then the local shops. Given that it's very, very unfair on the most disadvantaged members of the community who cannot shop in other towns due to lack of or cost of transport. So YABVU to prevent the poorest people in the town from enjoying the benefits of those able to run a car.

Don't shop there.

while I agree with you FredFredGeorge the reason people come to Cornwall is that it is different - quaint little shops and beaches. These little seaside towns rely on tourism, make Cornwall the same as everywhere else with stonking great supermarkets and who will bother to come here?

YANBU at all Tesco have just pulled out of our town, a touristy town in the northwest BTW, we already have 2 large supermarkets and 2 smaller ones including a tesco and a population of 20.000, the tescos they wanted to build was a tescos extra type thing, we have one in a town a 15 minute drive away.

I agree the building they wanted to use needs something doing with it but our nearest cinema is 20 miles away we have absolutely nothing for teenagers in this town so they hang around the streets and get complained about.

eat Bollocks, big hairy bollocks. Yes Padstow has been quite the ghost town since Tesco opened, oh no, sorry, you can still barely bloody move. I never fail to snogger at the supposed 'uniqueness' of Cornwall.

What's so special about Looe??? So special it needs to be the one place without a tesco?

yeah its great if you like expensive fish and chips ... snogger away!

snogger phone fail! Although, I believe Newquay is where you go for that sort of thing! We go to Cornwall a lot sadly as my DH often works there & I have a lot of friends who live there. Camping & s/c have become a lot more affordable since we no longer have to rely on bloody Londis or drag it all with us (we used to come on the train, so filling the boot wasn't an option).

I live rurally, in am former pit village. Very ordinary people on moderate incomes. Not a hint of 'Boden and Bugaboo'. Until 18 months ago, the nearest supermarket was a 30 min drive away, then Tesco opened a Tesco Express in my village and a middle size store (food, but not clothes, dvd players etc) in my nearest town, ten mins away. The only other food shop in my village, a bakery, is still going strong. With two DC and DH away in the week, these two new Tesco shops have been a Godsend.

A "15 minute drive away" can be a very very long way if you don't have a car, especially in rural places with poor bus services.

YABU to be furious that a chain of shops wants to open another shop in a location that it is legally permitted to do so and where it believes there is a demand for the services it provides.

The people who object to supermarkets - I presume you'd prefer to live in a communist-type society where the government keeps shops open regardless of whether they're being used or not? In a capitalist society the economy is based on supply and demand. If you're not keen on it, then there are still a few communist societies around where you can pay half your week's wages at the local shop for a loaf of bread.

We have a massive Tesco about two miles away from my house (to the East) in the next town (am in North Herts). I believe it is one of the biggest in the country. There is a Tesco Express on the fancy new housing estate to the north west of my town, 1.5 miles away from my house. Another in residential roads to the west, a bit less than a mile away. And now a local pub is closing down on the housing estate behind my house (five mins walk) and Tesco has bought the site for ANOTHER Express store - to the outrage of residents and local shop owners - there is already a small supermarket, pharmacy not five minutes away from it.

So I will have access to FOUR Tescos stores within two miles. Lucky me......

The nearest supermarket to Looe is about 9 miles away, so allowing for the windy lanes getting there is a 40 min round trip. Fine if you have a car and can be bothered, but what about the many people that dont.
I live about 10 mins max from a supermarket, Of course I do my main shop there, because I like buying great big packets of loo rolls, washing powder etc, but if I want things like milk, a magazine, Prescriptions, and more importantly wine, I use my local shops, as does everyone else I know.

YABU. There's a place for Tesco and a place for local shops. There's some overlap but in general, people go to them for different reasons. Many people will already be doing their supermarket shop online, but the local shops are still there. In all likelihood the local shops will be fine.

Trills i'm not furious at all, i just think that in a town where there is 4 supermarkets already but nothing to actually do then its not nessesary to open another one,

we're not massively rural BTW, buses run to the major towns and citys around us regularly, we also have a train service, you can even go to one of britains largest airports every 30 mins, and one of our buses drops you right outside the supermarket door, we are also well catered for by all the major supermarkets via internet shopping, not rural so no broadband issues

the area they were planning to place the supermarket involves a drive or a long walk up a quite steep hill, so not wonderful for the older members of the town who tend to use the to your door bus anyway

Like i said the building needs renovateing, but to something we actually need, i would be uncomfortable letting My DD take a bus 20 miles to go and see a film (shes 2 so not for a while anyway) with friends, it's not that i don't want anything, the building is an eyesore and it needs something, that something is not another supermarket.

oh and apologies if the "15 minute drive away" wasn't aimed at me

St Ives has a Tesco.

Just sayin'.

Just looked up the petrol prices for Looe and petrol there is 139.9 at the local garage, as opposed to 135.9 at the nearest Tescos.

Losing the local garage would be no great loss, as it is An eyesore right by the side of the river. Texaco, or the like, so not a local business being affected there either. I bet they stock Ginsters pasties in it too, the shame!

I fucking hate Tesco bashing

they create employment
they create work for UK constructon
they provide people with a wider choice and lower prices

the small business that will survive will do so because they are good and have spotted a gap in the market

exactly what gaviscon said, bet noone would compain if it were a waitrose

"TRAGIC"

bit of an exaggeration

tragic !!!!! sweet jesus

Ha you're right about the waitrose Porca. The people I know in real life who complain about this sort of thing are incredible snobs.

An Incidental Tale:

There is a town near where I grew up, which shall remain nameless, which had an area of prime land in the town centre come up for development. The good folk of the borough mounted a campaign against Waitrose, who wanted to build a modest store there, perfect for the fur coats, green wellies and no knickers brigade who they saw as their major customer base. "No!" howled the townsfolk. "Keep our town Special!" The Waitrose proposal was thrown out. A year later a shop came up for rent on the high street and a Tesco Express moved in. Wasn't anything they could do about it.

This story has no point, but it amuses me.

There were even "Tesco riots" in Bristol! Totally misguided and troublemaking for its own sake if you ask me. Of all the causes people could protest against and they pick Tesco And they didn't even do it peacefully

Yeah the tesco riots in Bristol were incredibly idiotic.

I personally can't stand Tesco, and shop elsewhere, but that is because I have a choice to as I live in a city.

It is actually bloody awful to live in a small town which has only small shops. yes it may well be desirable to have chi chi bookshops to look at when you are holidaying in little seaside towns, but when you live there it is a pest trying to do a weekly shop in incredibky overpriced small shops or a cruddy Gateways.

I know when I lived in Ilfracombe everyone greeted the arrival of Tesco with open arms, as anything was better than the local Somerfield which had no parking, no bus routes anywhere near, only sold a small selection of very expensive crap. The other nearest supermarkets were 16 miles away. If you didn't drive you were buggered - there was NO choice.

What's so special about bleeding Looe anyway?