Tesco or Community – Keyworth decides

anon@indymedia.org (Reporter) | 26.10.2010 10:23

Tesco’s contempt for the people of Keyworth is further highlighted by their recent planning activities. By contrast, positive actions by the people of the village build on the sense of community and show what ‘local’ really means.

Tesco want to build a large supermarket in the centre of Keyworth village on a site which has detailed planning permission for sheltered housing. Tesco were given the option to buy the land by William Davies, a large building company based in Loughborough, who realised there was potentially more money to be made from selling to Tesco than from housing the elderly and vulnerable.

Despite a local survey showing the overwhelming majority of residents did not want another supermarket, Tesco have submitted a planning application and have been lobbying hard. Their response to the local objections is to assert that it is mostly the older people of Keyworth who are objecting because they do not like change!

Well, there many reasons why Tesco is being opposed. Some of these are the structural changes they plan for the village which Keyworth people really don’t like. Such as their plan to narrow the footpath beside the church, meaning that hearses and wedding cars can no longer pull up outside. The prospect of brides having to hitch up their wedding dresses and run, or pall bearers dashing across the road to the church with the coffin, while dodging Tesco delivery lorries is not one the villagers forward to.

Further along the lane Tesco propose to widen the pavement, which will make the road too narrow for buses, which already find this a difficult road to manoeuvre and would mean re-routing.

The County Council Highways Dept and Community Dept are objecting as have the Parish Council, all local Borough Councillors and huge numbers of individuals. What part of ‘You are not wanted’ do they not understand?

Rushcliffe Borough Council planners will make a recommendation soon on whether to accept or reject Tesco’s application. Tesco's agents have been playing hardball with the Borough Council recently, and they have been trying every trick to try to overcome objections to the application.

Let’s hope that RBC resist the corporate pressure and reflect the wishes of the people of the community. We should know in the next three weeks, but even this will only be round 1. Tesco have the right of appeal (the opposers don’t).

In contrast the people of Keyworth have been organising activities that help build community.

This year the Abundance project was started by a dedicated and hardworking group of volunteers involved in Transition Keyworth. A lot of organisation and graft resulted in loads of apples being collected from village gardens. No they were not scrumping; the apples were donated by people who had more than they needed. Stalls were run in the village square over several Saturdays where the apples were distributed for free.

Abundance then had a stall at Keyworth’s first Farmers Market, giving away apples and samples of a wide range of delicious apple based goodies. The recipes for these were also available and are on the Transition Keyworth website.

The Farmer’s Market, which was a proposal coming from the village plan survey, was all that a Tesco store would not be. A wide range of truly local produce, and hugely popular, judging by the number of people shopping at the stalls.

anon@indymedia.org (Reporter)
http://nottingham.indymedia.org.uk/articles/615

UK Indymedia

Tesco or Community – Keyworth decides