4/15/2007

Another Tesco tale of woe

Visiting Devon last week gave me another example of the damage Tesco are doing to communities across Britain.

Having just built a new superstore and petrol station in East Devon, they have done an enormous amount of trade and people have stopped using local petrol stations as they "fill up" when they do their shopping. As a result, five petrol stations in villages as far as 12 miles away from Tesco have closed. The problem is that in many of these small petrol stations there were also small shops which were usually the only shop in the village. So what is the result ? There are now a number of villages with no shop at all and you have to do a 24 miles round trip to get some petrol.

For me personally it was a bit of a nightmare as I was low on petrol and having driven for over 50 miles without seeing a petrol station I was starting to panic. Fortunately, the one garage I found was able to keep going, so the owner told me, because he also does vehicle repairs and MOT's.

Why pay more ? ask Tesco. I think the reasons are clear.

3 comments:

Tristan said...

So, the jobs of a few are more important than the benefits to the masses?

If you can show that Tesco are breaking the law then let them suffer the consequences, otherwise, let the market decide, rather than a few policiticians claiming 'they know best' or letting pressure groups decide.

As soon as you start interfering you start producing bigger negative effects and you start down the road to authoritarianism.

Nich Starling said...

I am at a complete loss as to why you think I said Tesco broke the law ?

Perhaps I should ask back, what are you on ?

I am, you may be sad to hear, allowed to question the wisdom and benefit of things, be they Tesco, Tony Blair or Unitary status for Norwich. I am allowed to do this because we have freedom of speech. By questioning these things I mention it does not, at any point, mean that the things under discussion are illegal in any way shape or form.

When you talk about authoritarianism, perhaps you should think about whether your authoritarian view that I cannot discuss my own opinions about anything unless it is pointing out that something is illegal is perhaps the height of authoritarianism.

My blog points out that for all the supposed benefits of Tesco, there are many negatives. You obviously dispute this. Don't start accusing me of authoritarianism when there is none and don't start telling me what I can and cannot make comment on on my own blog.

monty said...

Success is success and Tesco should be praised for that. They should be fined for waste.

There is a cost in that success and just because things are cheaper for the masses - and that the store needs to employ the masses to service it, it doesn't mean its good or fair in its operating ethics.

Its the "moral" right of the masses to choose where to shop - and the consequence of living in a society where we want, demanding everything together in one place at a cheap price, is at the detriment of smaller retailers. Hence those most vunerable become more vunerable.

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