The Milly Card loyalty scheme exists to encourage people to use the shops and other services available on Mill Road, Cambridge, and the area around Mill Road.

The purpose of the scheme is to allow local residents to show their suport for local traders and for Mill Road traders to have the opportunity to respond generously. This scheme will encourage business profits and goodwill to circulate within our community for the benefit of all who live here.

Membership costs £2 per person. This gives a MILLY membership card, which, when presented to participating traders, will entitile the holder to special offers and discounts. The list of offers is available on the Milly Card website.

Use the Application Form to apply for a Milly Card.

For full details of the scheme, go to the Milly Card website at www.millycard.org.

The Milly stall in Hope St Yard for two hours on 16th May saw lots of interest and new sign-ups.

We have today (16th March 2010) received the formal decision notice from the City Council. Their e-mail reads as below:

Date: Tue, 16 Mar 2010 15:55:33 +0000
From: licensing at cambridge.gov.uk
Subject: Tesco, 163/167 Mill Road – Appeal decision

To all persons who made representations to the above application for a premises licence.

We are pleased to tell you that the hearing of Tesco’s appeal against the Council’s refusal to grant a Premises Licence for the Mill Road store concluded on Thursday 25th February 2010 and the appeal was dismissed.  This means that Tesco Stores in Mill Road is unable to sell alcohol.

Please find attached a copy of the formal written decision which we have now received from the Magistrates Court.

Licensing Team
Environmental Services
Cambridge City Council
01223 457879

More details and commentary on this will follow in due course.

The text that has been removed is:

“A flexible approach to licensing: We do not apply for licences in areas with known disorder issues and we review existing licences where evidence emerges that late-night alcohol sales are contributing to problem drinking.”

Below is the evidence of this sneaky change. Click on each screenshot below to see the full version and read the changed text.

Before: Tesco’s current Corporate Page promoting its “responsible” attitude to the sale of alcohol:

[Note that the yellow highlighting is merely present because Google's cache highlights the search term used when finding the page.]

After: The same page before it was quoted as evidence against Tesco in their recent court action to be allowed to sell alcohol in one of its Cambridge stores in an area “with known disorder issues”:

Tesco have proposed various conditions as a way of trying to get a licence – including not advertising alcohol on their windows. (This is somewhat ironic given that Tesco were caught only last month advertising wine in their Mill Road window, which attracted the interest of the regulatory authorities …)

We will update on the outcome of the appeal when we have it.

We understand there are 18 witnesses in total.

Dear supporter,

As part of our support for traders in the we are launching a Mill Road traders discount scheme. This scheme called ‘Milly’ will be launched at the Winter Fair where we hope to get lots of members of the public to sign up to the scheme. Prior to this we are endeavouring to get as many of the local traders on board as possible with discount and other special offers.

Read our briefing, ‘Introducing The Milly Card’. It will cost £2 for members of the public to join and get a Milly card. For the traders, the cost will only be the cost of discounts and special offers that they wish to offer.

We are looking for people to help us in discussions with the traders. Please help us if you can talk to traders (shops, restaurants, service providers) in the Mill Road area about the scheme and hopefully get them on board.

We are also looking for some volunteers to help us run the Milly stall at the Winter Fair.

If you are willing to help with either of the above, please e-mail us – we are coordinating the discussions with the traders. (If you know any traders particularly well or have a preference over who you would like to contact – please let us know).

We hope that you will support our Milly and assist us with the launch. Thank you for any assistance you can provide.

We understand that the hearing for this is likely to be in the new year, but we (and other objectors) have no further details as yet. We will send out an update to supporters when such details arrive.

This will mean that the 14th Tesco-owned store in Cambridge will have no opportunity for Christmas drink sales, reducing the profitability of its outlet on Mill Road further.

But the supermarket giant has still to win over a large section of local residents, and appealing against the council’s refusal to allow the shop to sell alcohol will do it no favours.

If Tesco bosses really want to be part of the Mill Road community, they should listen to that community. Police could not make it clearer the street has a serious problem with alcohol abuse.

Tesco claims not to push for licences in such areas. It should take its own advice. It would go a long way towards convincing its opponents it is not just pursuing maximum profit at any price.

Cambridge Evening News: leader, 3rd October 2009