Wycombe shop owners to fight Tesco plans

1:47pm Monday 11th February 2013 in News By Simon Farr

Mr Kandiah and his family with Cllr Tony Green Mr Kandiah and his family with Cllr Tony Green

DAVID is going to war with Goliath - as High Wycombe shop owners prepare to fight Tesco’s plans for two new Express stores.

The supermarket giant announced last week it will open an Express store at the former Golden Fleece pub in Hatters Lane in the summer.

While Wycombe District Council’s Planning Committee will meet on Wednesday to deliberate over Tesco’s application to regenerate the old Platt’s garage site next to Costcutter in London Road.

But convenience store owners, fearful the proposed stores will hit their own businesses, are refusing to take the Tesco takeover lying down.

Balapandian Kandiah has splashed out £40,000 refitting his Best One store – which is just 0.2miles away from the proposed Tesco Express at the Golden Fleece site and just over half-a-mile from the Tesco garage.

He fears he will lose half of his business if the plan goes ahead. He said: “I don’t know why they do it, they kill small businesses.

“A lot of customers said they will back me and sign my petition to the council about this, as they don’t want it either,”

Shaid Mahmood works at Mak Foods shop in Totteridge Drive – he said Tesco’s promise of 20 new jobs at both of its proposed new stores is “false economy” and labelled the supermarket chain “greedy”.

He said: “Firstly, they would create traffic problems, the jobs they say will be created is a false economy as the 30 people that already work at the convenience stores in the area could lose theirs.

“And the Tesco Express stores are not cheaper than convenience stores. They are simply trying to muscle in – it’s just pure greed.”

The Totteridge shopkeepers have the backing of Cllr Tony Green, who has urged residents to tell Tesco ‘we don’t want you here’.

But he doesn’t believe the council will be able to fend off the shopping titans from renovating the Golden Fleece under planning guidelines.

He said: “I spoke to Tesco and said it was a very bad idea given the availability of other shops in the other area and that they would affect the livelihood of other traders - but I don’t think they care.

“They are intent on increasing their marketshare, putting other people out of business in the process.

“I don’t think boycotting them would do anything, I think the best thing to do is for people to petition Tesco’s and say they’re unhappy because I think they genuinely believe they are doing us all a favour.

“But the risk is they will kill off local businesses – I’ll still be coming here to get my paper because they are convenience stores serving their neighbourhood.”

Comments(17)

Voyeur says...
3:01pm Mon 11 Feb 13

A petition will only be counted as one objection for planning purposes. You will need to get individual people to sign individual letters of objection in order to make a bigger impact.

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wycombe_boy says...
3:42pm Mon 11 Feb 13

Somebody should post a template letter with the council's contact details - anybody who's against this can then register their objection and boost the numbers.

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Wycombe-buddy says...
4:10pm Mon 11 Feb 13

Best one sell out of date food and they are overpriced, many occasions I was sold out of date food, send in your bfp reporters to check the products!

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Les Clarke Depreciation Society says...
4:27pm Mon 11 Feb 13

Wycombe-buddy wrote:
Best one sell out of date food and they are overpriced, many occasions I was sold out of date food, send in your bfp reporters to check the products!
Well if you bought out of date food yet went back "on many occasions" and bought more out of date food, you either like buying out of date food.....or are a bit of a plank!

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miccles says...
4:45pm Mon 11 Feb 13

Les Clarke Depreciation Society wrote:
Wycombe-buddy wrote:
Best one sell out of date food and they are overpriced, many occasions I was sold out of date food, send in your bfp reporters to check the products!
Well if you bought out of date food yet went back "on many occasions" and bought more out of date food, you either like buying out of date food.....or are a bit of a plank!
more like the latter i think.

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thethe says...
5:03pm Mon 11 Feb 13

Wycombe-buddy wrote:
Best one sell out of date food and they are overpriced, many occasions I was sold out of date food, send in your bfp reporters to check the products!
Do they, like Teasco, sell horse meat masquerading as beef?

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lady Ratz says...
5:38pm Mon 11 Feb 13

Small shop take on Tesco. Ho Ho having a laugh . Think they can ,, See you in the new Tesco when it opens.

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Kwak1100 says...
6:04pm Mon 11 Feb 13

If a "lot" of your customers are backing you, why worry? I suspect that in reality, your customers will do the same as me and all go 0.2 miles down the road and enjoy cheaper prices and better quality goods. I'd prefer to support local business's but value for money is everything these days.

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Mr Totterdge Hill says...
7:21pm Mon 11 Feb 13

Sorry if you can't compete its bye bye.

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realist_highwycombe says...
11:02pm Mon 11 Feb 13

I agree with Tesco opening either at Platts or the Fleece but to open both is a bit silly.

As for Best One and other shops such as CostCutter etc - start selling quality produce and people would shop there.

For example the vast majority of baker products including bread, cakes etc is all of a very cheap nature and usually nearly stale by the time you get it home. The selection of frozen items is extremely poor.

I would love to support local business but until they get the right sort of products at the right sort of prices Tescos will continue to win the war.

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Drummer-12 says...
11:40pm Mon 11 Feb 13

Opening a Tesco on the former golden fleece site seems like an excellent idea, it will help everyone as it is near local schools! Best one and other small stores have a very minimal range of products and at high prices were as tesco has cheaper products and a wide range and good opening hours!

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Honey33 says...
3:52am Tue 12 Feb 13

Well, who we got here,Tony Green, who will jump on any bandwagon to seek cheap publicity and this was another opportunity. My friendly advice to elderly couple will be to take early retirement and let this pretty young lady to pursue more challenging career. You had your days and things need to change for better so enjoy your long holidays and its time to start growing your own vegetables.

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Catflap says...
8:31am Tue 12 Feb 13

i agree with rea-list. One or the other would be fine but both seems a little OTT. Tesco do not care about local shops only profit. small local shops maybe a little over priced but the offer good costumer service and know their customers by name, something that Tesco will never be able to do.

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BucksComment says...
12:09pm Tue 12 Feb 13

No chance of stopping this.. Look at Bourne End. 3 years of fighting and rejections and finally Tescos threatens to drag the council into an expensive legal battle and they back down.

The only way to stop tesco is not to shop there.

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J B Blackett says...
1:05pm Tue 12 Feb 13

Yes and stop eating adulterated dubiously sourced (possibly toxic) down-market food stuffs that they sell

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Kwak1100 says...
6:48pm Tue 12 Feb 13

J B Blackett wrote:
Yes and stop eating adulterated dubiously sourced (possibly toxic) down-market food stuffs that they sell
I would venture a guess that it'd would still be better quality than the produce sold at the likes of the above though

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Moimar says...
1:15pm Wed 13 Feb 13

The daughter is hot

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