More radio coverage on 209radio
A piece reporting on the Campaign will go out on Friday 22nd February 2008.
Archive for the ‘Media coverage’ Category.
Radio 4 ‘Today’ programme features the Cambridge campaign against Mill Road Tesco
BBC Radio 4’s ‘Today’ programme on 15th February featured Cambridge’s campaign against Mill Road Tesco as its main case study.
- Listen to the programme (MP3 format, 6MB download)
CEN article: Check out traffic chaos, protest urges
By Rachel Extance
Protesters say we may see scenes like this more often with a new Tesco.
CAMPAIGNERS fighting plans for a Tesco store on Cambridge’s Mill Road claim it will cause traffic chaos.
Members of the No Mill Road Tesco campaign group have been talking to people living near the Chesterton Tesco Express about what deliveries are like.
They say there is “constant noise” and large HGVs turn up four or five times a day. Residents living at the Mill Road end of Sedgwick Street also complain about large numbers of cars pulling up outside the shop and being parked illegally while people nip in for groceries.
Tesco want to extend the former Wilco building in Mill Road, install new signs and a cash machine to make an Express store.
The plans were to be decided last month but planning chiefs decided the report councillors would base their decision on did not go into enough detail.
The issue will now come before Cambridge City Council’s east area committee on March 6 but Tesco has decided to lodge an appeal with the planning inspectorate because the council has taken so long dealing with its application.
No To Mill Road Tesco say the city council states one of its five overall objectives in the Local Transport Plan is objectives ‘to minimise the adverse effects of transport on people and the environment’ and say their research shows Tesco’s application will do the opposite.
The campaigners quote a resident living opposite the Chesterton Tesco Express store who describes how lorries would turn up at 5.30am, despite deliveries not being allowed until 6am. The time has now been moved back to 7am but deliveries take place on weekends as well as Monday to Friday.
The resident said: “The reversing into place outside the shop involves the ‘bleeping’ and then crashing as the tail lift is put down. There is then constant noise as trolleys are pushed up and down the length of the lorries.
“There are a minimum of three deliveries per day and in actual fact there are more like four to five per day. This is because there is a separate bread delivery, then a milk delivery occurs, directly from separate companies, followed by Tesco’s own lorries.”
Public consultation on the applications runs until February 21, anyone who has already submitted their views does not need to do so again.
Letters to the paper in support of the Campaign
Letters to the Cambridge Evening News continue to come in from members of the public in support of our campaign to stop Tesco forcing its way into Mill Road.
- Tesco’s tactics (14th February 2008)
- Facts wrong (7th February 2008)
- Not snobbish (2nd February 2008)
- Star letter (31st January 2008)
- Tesco effect (31st January 2008)
- Money tantrum (31st January 2008)
- Show respect (31st January 2008)
- Just avoid Tesco (29th January 2008)
- Tesco too greedy (24th January 2008)
- Traffc concerns (24th January 2008)
- Safety issues (22nd January 2008)
- Keep fighting (17th January 2008)
- Mill Road hurray (13th December 2007)
- Vibrant, active (5th December 2007) (in response to this letter)
- Tesco intrusion (3rd December 2007)
(More links will be added as articles are published and as time permits.)
CEN article: Tesco protesters hit out at ‘arm-twisting’
CAMPAIGNERS have fired a furious volley at Tesco bosses after they “bulldozed” council planners.
The No Mill Road Tesco Campaign has accused the supermarket giant of “arm-twisting” and “disrespect” after it bypassed slow moving councillors over plans for its store in the street famed for unique shops.
Continue reading ‘CEN article: Tesco protesters hit out at ‘arm-twisting’’ »
‘I want the facts’ - CEN correspondence
Richard Boast wants a few questions answered by the No Mill Road Tesco Campaign, in a letter to the CEN; well, we’re always happy to help.
Continue reading ‘‘I want the facts’ - CEN correspondence’ »
CEN article: Tesco in shock Mill Road move
[We contacted the journalist responsible for this piece to follow up various inaccuracies. Following our press release, the CEN subsequently issued another news article which gives better coverage.]
ANGRY Tesco bosses have bypassed slow moving councillors over plans for its Mill Road store, the News can reveal.
Continue reading ‘CEN article: Tesco in shock Mill Road move’ »
TCS articles: Student media coverage
Two articles in ‘The Cambridge Student’, 17th January 2008:
Mill Road Tesco decision expected
The Cambridge City Council’s East Area Committee will meet today to deliberate on Tesco’s application to open a new store on Mill Road. The application has caused outcry amongst Mill Road residents, many of whom fear that such a store would cause an increase in congestion and noise in the area and threaten small local shops. The ‘No Mill Road Tesco’ Campaign has collected more than 5200 signatures.
Tesco: convenience, at what price?
Alice Bloch argues that only consumers have the power to halt the rise and rise of ‘Tescopoly’
Alice Bloch, King’s
Is there anything good about Tesco? It has a 30% share of the UK grocery market, doesn’t think twice about crushing small businesses, and one in seven pounds spent in Britain goes straight into its pockets. And that’s before we even start on its condescending advertising campaign this Christmas.
Yet Tesco ploughs down a one-way high-street to uniformity and market monopoly. Last week, planning officers at Cambridge City Council recommended the approval of a store on Mill Road, perhaps the city’s last bastion of independent retailers and long-nurtured diversity.
Tesco was delighted, saying ‘the new store will provide more convenience food choice that can help to keep people shopping locally’. By this incredible feat of reasoning, if I today purchase a DVD in Borders, I am apparently shopping locally. Well, we’re all shopping locally all the time then - lucky us! Of course, this is far from true and misconceptions must be addressed.
By disliking Tesco, I could be accused of being snobby, and belittling those who cannot shop at independent butchers, bakers and grocers. Yet this is not the case. I am as much opposed to the ‘oh-so-trendy-faux-bohemian-middle-class-Jamie-Oliver-loving-mother-en-route-to-yoga’ organic lifestyle shop epidemic in this country as I am to Tesco. Neither is ideal.
But it is Tesco, along with other supermarkets, that forces independent retailers to raise their prices by opening stores in a flurry of aggressive price-cutting.
It’s not even the case that Tesco always saves us money - research by the New Economics Foundation showed that fresh produce in street markets was on average 30% cheaper than at supermarkets. In 2000, the Department of Health recommended that local authorities discourage the provision of new supermarkets over 1000 square metres outside existing town centres in recognition of the value of local shops to low income households.
So much for Tesco being the social entrepreneur that deluded apologists portray it to be. As Corporate Watch notes, Tesco exploits ‘cash-poor, time-poor’ shoppers. The problem is, nobody dares say this because we all shop there. As its CEO says, ‘we’re just giving customers what they want’. This seems infallible, but is it really true?
After all, do we really want identical high streets, for British producers to lose out, or for our children to not understand what seasonal produce is?
It is time that we asked ourselves what ‘convenience’ really means, and whether we are prepared to sacrifice the diversity and integrity of our communities.
This, however, rests on the hope that we are not all as apathetic as the media claims. Tesco may exist on Mill Road if Councillors decide it, but if consumers don’t shop there, it will fail.
Still, as a generation raised in the age of super consumerism and endless short-term gratification, do students of today have the power to resist their autopilot tendencies? This challenge lies not with the supermarkets but with ourselves.
Alice Bloch is a member of SocDocSoc and third year SPS student.
TESCO fast facts:
- Tesco was founded in 1924 by Jack Cohen
- 2316 stores in 14 countries
- 450,000 employees
- World’s biggest online store
- Expanded from groceries to clothing, personal finance, telecoms and fuel
CEN article: Shock in store over Tesco bid
This is the version of the article printed in the Cambridge Evening News on 17th January 2008, and is similar but more extensive than the online-only version published the night before (on the 16th January).
by Rachel Extance, Local Government Correspondent
CAMPAIGNERS against plans for a Tesco store in Cambridge’s Mill Road have been given a last-minute stay of execution.
Planning chiefs at Cambridge City Council have taken the scheme off the table for Thursday night’s east area committee after deciding the report did not go into the issues in enough detail.
The decision to postpone came shortly before 5pm last night, taking campaigners and Tesco by surprise.
The decision has only just been made - taking campaigners and the supermarket giant by surprise.
Planning officers had recommended the plans for approval despite a massive public backlash against the idea.
More than 5,000 people have signed a petition against the plans, and more than 1,100 have written letters of objection.
Campaigners were expected to turn out in force to protest at Thursday’s council meeting which had been booked into a larger venue - St Philip’s Church in Mill Road - to make room for the large numbers of people expected.
But now the council has decided the planning reports were “not comprehensive” enough and said the applications will be debated another day.
The No Mill Road Tesco campaign submitted a complaint on Tuesday to the council saying the report on the extension was “substantially incomplete”.
A spokesman for the campaign said: “We are glad that the council have taken our concerns seriously with regard to the incomplete planners’ report and we are confident that when it does come before the councillors, they will acknowledge the strength of public opinion and the strong planning grounds for refusing the applications. We are still confident the applications will be turned down.”
Coun Ben Bradnack, who represents Petersfield, had written to say that detailed objections did not “benefit from detailed answers within the body of the report” and raised issues of refuse arrangements, road safety and car and Cycle parking.
Peter Carter, principal development control manager for the city council, said: “We just don’t think the report is comprehensive enough.
There are a whole series of issues involved. We looked at it earlier in he week and were prepared to run with it, we’ve looked at it again and decided we would prefer not to run with it.”
He said officers would discuss with committee chairman Coun John Durrant when the issue would next be approached.
Michael Kissman, corporate affairs manager for Tesco, said: “We are surprised and will look at the reasons. We do think we’ve still got a strong application in for the signage, cash machine and storage extension.”
Cambridge Evening News, 17th January 2008, printed edition
CEN article: Reprieve for Tesco Mill Road campaigners
CAMPAIGNERS against plans for a Tesco store in Cambridge’s Mill Road have been given a last-minute stay of execution.
Planning chiefs at Cambridge City Council have taken the scheme off the table for Thursday night’s east area committee after deciding the report did not go into the issues in enough detail.
The decision has only just been made - taking campaigners and the supermarket giant by surprise.
Planning officers had recommended the plans for approval despite a massive public backlash against the idea.
More than 5,000 people have signed a petition against the plans, and more than 1,100 have written letters of objection.
Campaigners were expected to turn out in force to protest at Thursday’s council meeting which had been booked into a larger venue - St Philip’s Church in Mill Road - to make room for the large numbers of people expected.
But now the council has decided the planning reports were “not comprehensive” enough and said the applications will be debated another day.
The No Mill Road Tesco campaign submitted a complaint to the council saying the report was “flawed” .
A spokesman for the campaign said: “We are glad that the council have taken our concerns seriously with regard to the incomplete planners’ report.”
