Archive for 28th October 2007

Mail on Sunday article: ‘Residents fight plans for eighth Tesco in their city’

Neil Craven, Mail on Sunday

Tesco is facing its fiercest campaign yet from locals who are opposed to its store opening plans.

Councillors in Cambridge have complained to the Office of Fair Trading over plans for a new store when Tesco already has seven shops in the area.The campaign, which has secured 4,000 signatures on a petition, comes at an embarrassing moment for the supermarket giant, which is awaiting the results of a competition-inquiry. The Competition-Commission’s probe, an update on which could be released as early as this week, has examined all the big supermarket groups.

A central feature of its investigation is likely to be Tesco’s land bank and its allegedly aggressive techniques used to win planning applications.

In a letter sent to the Office of Fair Trading and seen by Financial Mail, Cambridge’s Liberal Democrat council leader Ian Nimmo-Smith complains that Tesco already has three Express stores, three supermarkets and an Extra superstore in the area. The group hopes to open a fourth Express store.

That compares with four stores shared among Asda, Sainsbury’s and Waitrose and a range of smaller discount and convenience stores.

Nimmo-Smith said Tesco’s planned store was ‘unacceptable’.

The Mail on Sunday, 28 October 2007