Tesco Takes Over Britain

It seems that Tesco the who have been waiting in the wings for a few years now to get into the housing market have finally managed it. I personally have a real issue with Tesco in general with their ever increasing march on our towns and cities and in every part of our daily lives.

The problem again lies with a massive company forcing out small local businesses with their huge buying power. Now, they have greased a few palms at government level and low and behold Tesco villages have been appearing on our landscape. Of course at the root of it all is that what Tesco  really want is to build even more stores than the current legislation allows. To get past govt guidelines Tesco have gone in the back door as so many companies with large cash reserves who want to be big developers do.

It works like this:

You give us X amount of (for example) ‘affordable housing’, and we (the govt) will let you have planning for a huge block of flats. There was a project like this one in particular in Southend On Sea, Essex.

Over the course of 2 years in the boom, various developers tried to get planning for a block of flats over 6 stories high right on the sea front. Plans were knocked back due to valid residents complaints. Eventually, an under the table deal was done and the developer was forced to build an affordable block nearby first.

However, the ‘affordable’ homes are actually more expensive than an average flat would be on the same plot and were sold on a percentage ownership basis. Over half of them stood empty for over a year. The really sad thing about this particular development, is that when the recession hit, the developer ran out of cash and the 11 storey building was only half completed.

it has now stood empty for over 18 months as a concrete shell covered in green tarpaulin. Lovely. 

In Tescos Case:

You build us X amount of homes and we will allow you to build a Tesco store where none were allowed previously. Or as Tesco like to sell it:

“Spenhill provides a unique offer – extensive specialist mixed-use experience combined with the retail expertise and reputation of market-leader Tesco.”

They are effectively building “Tesco villages” where a large proportion of all things monetary come back to them. The reason they can do this is that as we are constantly told) we have a housing crisis, a recession and big black finance hole which has allowed big business to take over and change our landscapes again- forever.

Tesco Villages

Tesco Villages range from; a business centre for research, Student accommodation, 200,000 sq ft of additional retail, relocation of Everton Football Club, 29,820 sq m of retail including a 13,000 sq m Tesco store (nearly half a Tesco store!),10 island petrol filling station, 960 new homes- 35% of which will be affordable- includes a library, local council service centre, civic offices, an anchor supermarket(!) along with other shops and cafes, 926 new homes, shops, cafes and restaurants and more than 600 jobs. (Any guesses where the workers’ cash will be spent??)

Do we REALLY need any more shopping centers or supermarkets where the majority of our food and goods are imported from abroad over countless thousands of miles?  Perhaps it would make more sense if they were ‘supporting the local growers and manufacturing’ rather than trampling it into the ground with their mass produced tat from the Far East which will inevitably end up in landfill in the future.

What do you think? Should Tesco be allowed to build their own villages?  Your comments welcome as always

UPDATE:

As an update to this blog, I notice today in the news that Tesco has sold 41 stores in a sale and leaseback deal that will generate around £950 million as part of its continuing program to extract more value from its vast U.K. property portfolio.They did this by using a 30-year benchmark sterling bond backed by rents generated by a portfolio of its supermarkets.The deal is structured as a 50-50 joint venture with Tesco Pension Fund Trustees Limited as trustee of the Tesco PLC Pension Scheme.

Tesco said it would use the proceeds to help fund new property development projects, both in the U.K. and in international markets.As an aside to this, many councils have opposed the new building plans, but Tesco seems to be getting the permission in any case.

The Telegraph also carried a story recently on how Tesco bypasses local planning with it’s underhand methods, You can read that here.

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