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| Community garden, not Tesco in Lewes Road |
It clearly intends to force the Co-op out. The site, once a garage, was derelict until local people turned it into a community garden. It has changed the atmosphere of Lewes Road, a choked traffic funnel in and out of the city that you cycle on with your life in your hands.
Perhaps policy makers at Tesco don't know what's going on here but they could take a trip down from Cheshunt HQ. Or maybe Sir Terry Leahy could get on National Express from his home in Cuffley. He'll be familiar with the issues, since his neighbours tried to say no to Tesco as well.
The police and diggers moved in before dawn to evict a sleeping man from the garden, put 6 ft barriers around the site so no-one can see in and destroyed everything in it by floodlight. Alburn took legal action against a founder of the community garden to stop the original occupation. People moved off but another group moved on - that's the strength of public opinion about how this site should be used.
Old style thinking, old style tactics, old style use of the police and legal system. Tesco is supporting night-time raids, destruction of a community garden and bullying tactics against an individual.
What will the community gain? Lorries, cement mixers, delivery vans.. Modern thinking is for greening cities, using urban space to grow vegetables and fruit, not feeding an old addiction to competition. It's a bit like a gambler not wanting to give up the horses. And that's another apparent use for the site - alongside Tesco, a betting shop.
"A prince, then, who would be powerful should have no care or thought but for war, lest he lose his dominions..." wrote Machiavelli in The Prince.
Tesco may believe Lewes Road, home of funeral directors, cut price booze, betting shops, Spar, Co-op, the Trades and Labour club, a high Anglican church, St Vincent's charity shop, the best Turkish deli, is part of its dominion, but Lewes Road doesn't need a Tesco.
Check out Tesco's corporate website for its green claims - they were quoted below but it appears my blog has been tampered with - I certainly didn't blot out the lines below.
And what a shame because I was about to write an update - Tesco has apparently now decided it's not interested in the Lewes Road site.........: As a global business we have an important role in helping to minimise climate change. To achieve this, in 2009 we committed to: (
- becoming a zero-carbon business by 2050
- reducing the emissions of the products we sell by 30% by 2020
- helping our customers to reduce their carbon footprint by 50% by 2020
- halve emissions from our 2006/7 baseline portfolio of buildings by 2020
- new stores built between 2007 and 2020 to emit half the CO2 of a 2006 new store
- reduce emissions per case delivered by 50% by 2012... And its claims about supporting local communities: In every country where we operate, we work with local communities to provide jobs and services and support local causes. We are committed to being a good neighbour. At Tesco, we believe in society – the idea that people depend on each other and that, working together, we can support each other and achieve much more than we can alone.
- http://www.guerrillagardening.org/
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