Hi Bob,

Apart from the whole M and S subject, we’re also very concerned at home about the even bigger impact Tescos are planning to have on us as a community. It seems not enough people are aware of what is being proposed? An expansion of 70% on their current site, as well as a new Dot.com centre. This will involve a very large catalogue providing everything anyone could possibly want for their home to order from and receive home delivery. I believe Petersfield will be the local headquarters for this new addition, creating more pollution and impact on our already clogged up roads at our end of town. Arctic lorries here we come. As well as trying to completely starve our town of business.

They are emotionally bribing us with an all singing, all dancing, all weather sports ground for TPS as way off paying us off. This is great for the school but at what cost I wonder for us as a community. It sounds awful to deny young children from better facilities but where do morals and support for local businesses and trade come into all of this?? How far will our councils let Tesco go before somebody is brave enough to stand up and say ‘no, we don’t want you’?

Anyway, I thought that with your ever growing mailing list you now have, it may be something you can draw people’s attention to?

Very best wishes,

Rachael (www.eclection.net) 25/5/2007

Thanks for your response Rachael, and for your interesting (and disturbing) observations. I didn't know about the Tesco expansion , which follows on from the Sainsbury's expansion in Liphook (where you can now buy £2 t-shirts and £10 jeans - I often wonder how many people question how it's possible to produce clothes so cheaply). The more I run this site (which started off as a whim), the more angry I become about how little defence there is of the local economy and local culture, particularly against businesses like Tesco (which left to their own devices will simply suck the life out of a town).

I sense a more campaigning flavour coming into the site as the year goes on: both negative and positive (pro the kind of initiatives that towns like Modbury have taken aginst plastic bags, or Lampeter and Totnes have taken, becoming transition towns to an oil-free economy). Without becoming obsessively tree-hugging about it, these kinds of initiatives would be easy for Petersfield to take, would be popular and would bring us a huge amount of positive publicity.

Thanks again for the response,

bob, Editor, myPetersfield

Hi Bob - bit harsh on the impact of an M&S... what would your editorial have been like for the old Somerfields? And, no coverage of the refurbished Waitrose?? I am sure if you sent your comments to M&S they would respond with the recently announced targets of eliminating E nos, carbon neutral etc but then their share price has done well on this too.

Susan, 25/5/2007

hello Susan

A bit perhaps, but M&S is the event that's happening so that's what triggered the thoughts. And Somerfield really wasn't worth getting excited about ... and in any case we don't have any objection to people using supermarkets to stock up with baked beans and washing powder and are all for Aldis and similar outlets for just that reason. We'd just like them to think about the alternatives when they're looking at food.

M&S is, I'm sure 'better' than many other outlets - Tescos are planning major growth in Petersfield for example (70% expansion seems likely) - although you could just say that their marketing and customer proposition is more sophisticated. But the effect on the local organic (in the old-fashioned sense) economy is just the same - they're just hitting a different segment.

bob, Editor, myPetersfield

tesco

hi

I thought you may be interested in this information for your my Petersfield website

You can now buy milk from Tesco in Petersfield which is produced just a few miles from the town centre.

Peter Caines is a dairy farmer and has two herds of Friesian Holsteins which you may see grazing in the fields on the Petersfield Harting road. The cows are milked twice a day 365 days of the year the milk is collected from Stanbridge and Heath farms and is pasteurized and bottled in a processing unit in Portsmouth.

Thanks to a new incentive and general awareness of food miles Tesco now has a range of local choice milk - this new scheme is on a trial period and if it is well supported by the general public it will become a permanent range.

So this is another way we can all support these Green projects and also support our local farmers too.

The milk is sold under the label of local choice alongside Tesco basic range to make sure you make the right choice.

Tesco seem to be getting a lot bad press concerning the extension to the Petersfield store, but maybe they are trying to support the local community and green issues in other ways

Lucy Caines

Hello Lucy

I am interested, and thanks very much for the feedback.

Complicated isn't it? I'm treading warily here because I don't pretend to be any kind of an expert on agriculture or logistics, and I'm aware that as far as you're concerned, this is not an academic issue. Also, the last thing I want to be accused of is supporting a campaign which would actively undermine a local farmer's livelihood.

Having said that, I'll give you my uninformed views and you can tell me where I'm going wrong.

My instinctive feeling is that the expansion of Tesco is broadly a bad thing for Petersfield, for all the reasons that I've itemised on the site - it will use vast economies of scale to suck more money away from local businesses and Petersfield will increasingly become a soulless identikit market town, reduced to chain stores and superstores and with none of the individuality that gives a place life and personality. The gains in terms of prices wouldn't justify the change to the town's character... in my opinion.

As far as Peter's milk is concerned, I guess that has to be a good thing for him (I would be interested to know how big a barrel he's over in supplying to Tesco and the big supermarkets, how far they will ratchet down the wholesale price and so on.. but again, this is just a half-informed 'concerned Guardian reader' speaking so I'm not presuming to teach anyone their own business. )

As far as Tesco's policy is concerned, am I misguided in thinking that they are an incredibly sophisticated marketing machine, and will do anything to gain an extra inch, whether literally or in terms of perception? And that if it's expedient, they will change that policy in a second? I'm very sceptical, not just about Tesco but about all the supermarkets' take on local supply (with the possible exception of Budgen, who seem genuinely to have their heart in it) ... I spoke to the manager in Waitrose recently about their policy of stocking local fruit and veg from places like Durleighmarsh (which seems a good thing to me) and he as good as openly told me that they couldn't give a stuff where it came from but it was what people seemed to want. I was amazed, not so much that that was the attitude but that he would be so ready to express it.

An obvious question for me is - why provide choice anyway - why not just buy it and sell it, marked 'local milk' by all means - but does this mean there's a different price point? I should drop in and take a look.

best regards,

Bob Machin

p.s. there's a question I would really like an answer to and I wonder if you have an opinion. In rural France, they seem to be able manage a food economy which allows local producers and supermarkets to co-exist. Not only that, but the supermarkets usually stock great local food which seems to be more or less equivalent to the street markets. How do they manage that?

--
Bob , Editor, myPetersfield

Hi, I am Tracy Chandler and an active member of the Greening Petersfield Campaign, below is a bit of a pipe dream, but have a read,

I just wanted to make a quick suggestion about Tesco's. I dislike their monopolisation as much as anybody, but I don't think we can in reality do much to stop their expansion. Tesco do seem to be employing a more eco-friendly strategy with the inclusion of local milk and carrier bag reuse points, but they could take this further by being encouraged to sell more local produce. Advantage could be taken of their (Tesco's) strong situation and get them to help more locals get produce in store, even as far as setting up a local processing plant. Perhaps we could get tescos to limit what they sell in the expanded unit as not to infringe on existing businesses.

Petersfield does have a growing population and there is plenty of things I cannot buy in town for my family, so if Tescos stocked these items I would not have to travel elsewhere to get them, therefore using less fuel (CO2 emmissions), which would be true for lots of people. With Peak oil expected in 3 years even the giants will have to be considering some of the above measures. it may be in 3 years the local option actually becomes the cheapest,

let me know what you think
yours faithfully

Tracy Chandler

hello Tracy
Thanks for your mail, which is much appreciated. We've just discovered the Greening Petersfield campaign ourselves, as you've probably seen from the front page of the site - looks like great stuff.

We're not really a green or ecology driven site but we're pretty sympathetic to that way of thinking. We're not really anti-Tesco either - I can't abide the place myself, but that's just personal taste. We're more pro-local business, local supplier, local producer, because that's where a lot of the soul and personality of a place comes from, and what we have against Tesco (and other supermarkets for that matter) is that their economies of scale make it almost impossible for small businesses to compete, they have a limitless appetite for growth and the end result of their expansion is that every high street in the country ends up looking identical, which I find a terrible prospect.

Regarding Tesco's local sympathies, I'm afraid I think that Tesco's have a pretty sophisticated PR machine and will do whatever is expedient at any given time to build business and eliminate competition, particularly when they are negotiating an expansion such as that which is mooted in Petersfield. I'll be interested to see if this lasts if their application is approved. Regarding the price angle, I appreciate that it's difficult for people to disregard low prices, but in the end low prices have a high cost (not least in the price paid to farmers and suppliers)... and most economic models tell us that as a company's monopoly position grows, their prices inevitably tend upwards. So enjoy those low prices while you can...

 
Having said all that, we don't think there's no place for supermarkets. I use them myself for commodities, and I confess for a bit more than that when I'm short of time and energy. But we think there has to be room for diversity in the High Street because it's part of what makes life worth living, to quote our own publicity. Our ideal would be something like the French model, where supermarkets co-exist with local growers, suppliers and markets, and I'd like to see real (including financial) encouragement of local businesses in the town and the market so that it became possible to make a realistic choice about where you do your shopping.

Finally, we don't think you should give up on resisting Tesco's expansion. There are a number of case studies on Tescopoly that show what can be achieved through concerted local action and we think that it's more realistic than trying to reach an accommodation with Tesco on what they will and will not stock, which is a bit like trying to teach a 900lb gorilla table manners.

Just our view, but we appreciate hearing yours. Can I put your letter on the site, and add you to our mailing list? If you like what you see on the rest of the site, please forward the url to friends and acquaintances. Your suggestions, ideas and recommendations would be very welcome too.
all the best,
--
Bob, Editor, myPetersfield

Hi there Bob,
sorry I've taken so long to reply,

I do agree with your view that local produce is beneficial to a community, in terms of soul or community spirit. Local just so happens to be the eco friendly way, because of transport of goods and services.

One particular Petersfield business concerns me, as I have witnessed their decline since Tesco's entered our community. and that is Morgans the butcher on Lavant street; they provide excellent meat, and I believe they source locally if possible (not entirely sure on that). Morgans has been there for years, and used to have a daily display in the window with a whole team of butchers working. but now they just have the meat counter inside with two butchers - how long can they keep going?

I think there should be some sort of campaign to save Morgans, I understand they cannot compete with Tesco prices, but you do get quality which tesco cannot do any cheaper, i.e if you buy a quality cut from Tesco's in any terms, they cannot do it cheaper than morgans. I have pledged to go to there at least once a week and buy something. Although morgans could probably promote themselves a little better and go for the local angle.

with regards to the Tesco marketing team, they are trying to promote the green aspect because of public opinion, so public opinion matters to the marketing exectutives, so what I meant with my points in first e-mail was- use this to play them at their own game, to get what a community around them wants.

any way just a few thoughts
must go now
regards
Tracy