Morning:
3°c
Tesco town planned next to 2012 site
Abul Taher14.10.09
Tesco is building a new “supermarket suburb” next to the Olympics site which will house hundreds of families and come with its own high street, park, library and primary school.
The 11-acre site will have a 24-hour Tesco Extra hypermarket at the centre, with 18 other stores that will make up a pedestrian high street.
There will also be a 90-bed budget hotel on the site, and Tesco will build a library, called Idea Store, for the community. It will create a local park on the bank of the river Lea, and a plaza area for residents.
Tesco will also part-build 460 homes in the area by securing “costly” planning permission for them. Social housing bodies are expected to build the homes, but Tesco may retain the freehold.
The retailer will also buy land and get planning permission for a primary school for hundreds of pupils. The school, next to its store, will be built and run by Tower Hamlets council. But, again, Tesco may retain freehold of the land.
The news comes after its chief executive Terry Leahy described Britain's school system as “woeful”. A spokesman said the new project in the Bromley-by-Bow area will produce at least 200 additional jobs in the hypermarket alone.
“The design of the store, community benefits and the phasing of the development have been designed to meet local needs,” he added
Tesco, which would not reveal the cost of the scheme, held a two-day public consultation with residents last month, which it said was “positive”. It is likely to submit formal planning applications to London Thames Gateway Development Corporation by the end of this month.
Tim Archer, a Tory councillor and parliamentary candidate for Limehouse and Poplar, said: “There are a number of benefits.” But he added: “Tesco dominates Tower Hamlets, in that there are already 10 stores built in the last two or three years.”
Reader views (13)
I'm sure that this development will bring many benefits to the local area, but make no mistake there will be costs involved. These may be subtle, but as residents start to shop regularly in the Tesco stores and buy into the expanding range of services that the company offers such as Banking,Finance, Insurance, Holidays, Mobile and Broadband networks etc..they will begin to surrender more and more of their privacy to the company. Tesco's ability to build detailed databases on so many aspects of their customer's lives through the information collected by their Clubcard has always been rather unsettling, but on this scale it could be even more worrying.
- General Rant, Godalming UK
We can all go on about monoploy's but people speak with their feet. Tesco run's a business that people use, it would'nt be so big if it wasn't for people.
- Anon, Sheffield, UK
Day by day, Tesco sounds more like "Buy 'n' Large" from the film Wall-E.
- Tavdy79, Bedford, England
There are too many Tesco stores already in the area and they plan to build more including this Olympic development. They have a monopoly. There is only one large alternative supermarket close by. What happened to consumer choice?
- Simon, London, UK
Good News: Tower Hamlets need to assist current land owners in gaining planning permission for big scale developments to revive Tower Hamlets.
- A, London
Cliff Steele, Melbourne, Australia
Its a sad state of our addiction to consume if we need 24/7 access to supermarkets. Personally I think that Sunday trading should be stopped so we can have 1 day a week where we are not slaves to our credit cards and actually do something worthwhile.
- Dc, London
I can't bare Tesco or any of the multi national, consumerist rubbish!
Personally I'm against the olympics too, it's all to do with the rich telling the poor what to do & it's wrong!
- Anti Consumer, London, England
A Tesco primary school... I shudder to think...!
- Tina, Bournemouth, Dorset.
yes you could call it shrewd, but people need to start thinking about local shops rather than tesco-ville, it scares me to think they will soon have a " tesco bank " what next tesco " flats " etc can no one else see this happening ??????
- James, tescopoly central
Oooh! I feel horrified at Tesco's strength...
- Jackie, London
In Scotland shops can open for 24 hours on a Sunday in addition to the rest of the week. Sunday afternoon seems to be one of the busiest times to shop.
It's our crazy nanny state that likes to decide for me when and where I can buy my bananas!
- Elliot, Finchley
Brave new world or 1984?
- Dominic, Holmfirth, England
How can Tesco call their store a 24 hour supermarket when it will only open for a few hours on Sunday? Here in Melbourne where supermarkets really do open 24 hours, Sunday night is one of the most popular times to shop because people have more time. This generates more business for the store and more employment for the local people. If Tower Hamlets Council are serious about getting people working in their borough they should sweep away the archaic rules that prevent stores operating at their full potential and allow full 24 hour trading.
- Cliff Steele, Melbourne, Australia
