The Tesco Thing
I was out and about again the other day. There's always 'stuff' to be done, things to buy and decisions to be made - but for anyone aspiring to be a social commentator, it's important to 'get out more'....as I keep on telling those who think my view of contemporary life somewhat lacking in range.
'Getting out' is in fact what healthy people do; I don't just mean going for a run or walking briskly along coastal paths - I mean seeing people, watching what's going on, conversing with shopkeepers and so forth. Most of our species benefit from mingling with the pack - behavioural research and neurology prove that social intercourse raises seratonin levels. There is indeed such a thing as society, and it's good for us. But it's not good for the shareholders, so we're gradually doing it less and less.
There are two reasons for this. First, we spend far more time at work. And second, thanks to the rapacious greed of multiple retailers, we don't go provision shopping any more - we go to Morrisons, Sainsbury or Tesco. And of these, the last is the most voracious omnivore: it is doing here what Walmart has done in the States - gobbling up communities in the name of efficiency and shareholder returns. (Retail 'therapy', I've decided, isn't shopping - it's compulsive displacement action to heal the pain of being a lab-rat.)
Our local paper The View from Seaton confirmed last week that Tesco's mighty bulldozers will also flatten the holiday village and leisure centre, an outcome exclusivelypredicted here - not from inside sources you understand, but based purely on observation of the gym owner's complete lack of interest in either repairing broken machinery or keeping clients. Chum Richard (a Seaton retailer he) tells me there is acovenant on the land forbidding the retailing of alcohol. I'm sure Tesco will find a way round it. I'm sure East Devon Council will spring into action if anyone decides to get uppity about that. This is sham democracy becoming scam democracy.
Anyway, I had to get the car engine steam-cleaned, and our dealership is over in Honiton. I like Honiton - it's my favourite market town down here. It's got antique shops, plenty of parking, small food shops of every kind, a clock repairer, a CD shop, independent bookshop, and coffee shops that aren't Starbucks. There is a small and excellent M&S Simply Food, a medium-sized Co-op, two chemists, W H Smith and one of the best Health Food stores in Britain. And it's got a Tesco on the outskirts of town. Hold that thought.
I rarely look at antiques these days, but the one thing I still covet is a Victorian wall-clock. They're such elegant things, without taking up the space required by Grandfathers. It is an extraordinary thing about the antiques trade that your own stuff can't be given away, but theirs costs well over £1500 a piece. So these days I tend to see it as yet another of those bizarre examples proving you can indeed fool all the people all the time.
I was looking forward to visiting Fogarty's Bookshop, but when I got there it was closed, devoid of books and disturbingly deserted. Across the pavement, a market trader was knocking out reading glasses for a fiver and underpants for a quid.
"Moved on didn't they?" he said in that interrogatory way people have, "No point, see".
I asked why there wasn't any point, and he said it was The Tesco thing. Tesco Extra, it seems, is moving into books. Soon we shall all be able to buy Bridget Jones frets Again with our free-range organic corn-fed locally-produced chicken. I remember thinking that the store is too far away to have worried the Fogarty people, but I had cotton-rich polo shirts two for £6, three for £8 to buy - summer will come sooner or later, and the week after next we're driving down to meet the season on its way up here.
The Lloyds cashpoint had a queue of people a dozen strong. Inside the branch the queues were even longer, so I crossed the road to spend half an hour browsing my favourite CD store. It too showed evidence of being no longer occupied. Across the road, the charity shop (genuine Chevingnon short-sleeved shirt, £3.50) had its usual complementof dumpy blue-rinse ladies bustling about. But even here, one of the staff confessed in an undertone that she was worried about The Tesco Thing. I was beginning to see this as some mythical but deadly animal- the Hound of the Baskervilles, or whatever. Well, Tesco is deadly alright - but sadly, there's nothing mythical about it.
It was about then that the protest notices in every shop window registered on my radar. 'SAY NO TO THE TESCO RELOCATION' they all commanded. But then, that's the problem with protest notices - after a week or two they blend into the background. I'm sure in 2008 one could put 'SAY NO TO LIBERTY' in every window, and sooner or later they'd become part of what's always in shop windows.
This is the topline (because we haven't reached a bottom line yet): the success of Honiton's town shopping (it attracts huge numbers of tourists each year) has meant an underperforming Tesco on the outskirts. Oh dear: accountants have costed the chicken margin per square metre and declared it sub-prime. On the property portfolio (South West) over at Global HQ, unpleasant red asterisks sit next to Honiton Tesco. So Honiton Tesco is to be converted into a distribution warehouse. And the retail store is to be upgraded to Tesco Extra (a hypermarket to you and me) and built upon a piece of land rather nearer to Honiton town centre. Selling books, CDs, clothes....you get the picture.
The process of persuading Honiton and East Devon (EDDC) Councils that life there would be meaningless without a new Tesco Thing began in the Autumn of 2006. The site favoured by Tesco (so the minutes of 29.11.06 tell us) was not surprisingly Ottery Moor Lane (handy for the shops, see). Over the following twelve months, the chaps at EDDC put a gagging order on discussion by the Honiton Council. Possibly something to do with public outcry. The local Northe Devon Gazette website Devon24 reported on February 20th last:
'After being 'gagged' for months, members of Honiton Town Council have finally voiced their opinions on Tesco's relocation proposal.
At a special meeting of the council's planning committee, held at St Rita's Conference Centre, in Ottery Moor Lane, on Tuesday (February 19), Councillors unanimously rejected the supermarket giant's plan to relocate from Battishorne Way to Ottery Moor Lane.'
The site's coverage is remarkable in that there is some engaging footage of furious protesters and local councillors making a point of saying to camera the 'this is still a free country' speech. Five days ago (on the 20th March) EDDC grudgingly turned Tesco's planning application down. I say grudgingly, because the minutes referred to earlier make for interesting reading:
'The members felt that Honiton needed a Tescos, and the business community favoured their expansion in the area'.
However, the 'excellent' feasibility study had omitted to canvas the council taxpayers, and was thus a tad flawed.
Hurrah, you might think - a victory for local democracy. Hmm. A victory indeed, but only because EDDC made a balls of the cover-up. And lest we forget, the Tesco Thing has the right to appeal.
Meanwhile, back in Seaton (a community of some 7000 souls) the tanks are on the move once more: since the plan's first revelation in 2007, EDDC have recieved 800 objections to the plan, and just eight (count them) in favour.....but it's going ahead, and gradually the square footage required by the Tesco Thing is creeping up. Hence their purchase of the local Holiday Village earlier this month - which is, by the way, Seaton's largest employer.
The first plans were called "the biggest act of architectural and environmental vandalism I have ever seen" by a flood expert consulted by the Stand Up for Seaton team. The site is on a flood plain (upon which things construction is supposedly now banned by the DoE) and close to an important nature (bird) reserve on the River Axe. Residents have made it clear they would prefer another retailer other than Tesco - but on the whole would prefer nothing. So far, they've been ignored by the Men at East Devon. However, the anti-booze covenant on the land they've bought remains as an intriguing wild card.
Stay tuned - and for more info, go to the anti-Thing site at www.tescopoly.org