Das Geist der Zeit

February 20th, 2007

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Posted by ChrisG at 2:23 pm

This post has it all: citizen journalism! Mobile phone pix! Ritual denunciation of corporate interests! (no discussion, however, of the micropolitics of shaved celebrities).

Following Dispatches’ compilation last night of just about all the usual charges against Tesco (monopolistic behaviour, land banking, tax avoidance, plus general degradation of everyday life – all at low, low prices), I found myself this morning having the opportunity to document some of the consequences of hi-convenience, low-responsibility retail.

Thanks to Tesco’s policy of seeding largely residential areas with the smaller Metro and Express stores, many of which are built within small retail premises on back streets, people in the surrounding areas are treated to this (see right) on a daily basis. Delivery lorries turn up to unload in the middle of rush hour, and given that the shop units were never built with high-volume supermarket deliveries in mind, the absence of anything like a goods entrance means that the small streets the shops are located on end up pretty much blocked. Recently, as last night’s programme pointed out, plans for yet another mini Tesco in Cardiff were shelved after locals refused to have this situation imposed on them for the sake of having a source of fresh avocados on the doorstep. This photo was, however, taken at 9.00 am this morning on Salisbury Road, heart of studentsville, where a largely transient population means that the barriers to unrestricted development are set rather low, resulting in yet another Tesco Express.

Just another reminder that the major beneficiaries of the planning laws’ presumption of development are private monopolies whose might is, by legal means, constantly being transformed into right.