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Staying the Course for our Future: Stour Community First
It’s hard to believe that it’s been over 18 months since Stour Community First was formed to oppose the building of a huge Tesco superstore in England’s smallest town.
At the time we instantly recognised, as our name suggests, the need to revitalise our locality, our community and our town – to try and put something back – before Tesco were allowed to finally take away its prosperity and diversity forever. We knew our town had faults, had failings but that, in essence, there was so much potential here – so much that was good but could be better.
In those 18 months we have vigorously fought the Tesco planning application – identifying, with expert assistance and via our many volunteers, the myriad weaknesses and flawed arguments within Tesco’s polished marketing of their ugly designs on our town. Meetings have been held, forums have debated, objections raised, highly successful events run and information distributed to ensure we consistently got our main concerns across…
- Tesco will not bring more visitors to the town – people will simply shop in the store and go home. The store has been deliberately sited between their new car park and the town to actively discourage people from venturing in. Tesco have not become what they are today by being altruistic – they want us to spend our money with them and noone else.
- Traffic will increase significantly through our narrow streets and at pinch points such as Station Road and Lawford. Tesco know that in order to make their massive 46,000 sq ft store profitable they will have to attract much more than the local community – this means at least 700 extra car journeys per hour, probably much more. A case of jam today…and more tomorrow.
- By their OWN figures, Tesco assume they will take 8% of all turnover from local stores – many of which, with much tighter margins than the superstore, will never be able to compete and will therefore close. Even Tesco’s own Express store in the High Street is only guaranteed to remain open for 18 months after the main store opens.
- Tesco will destroy more jobs than it creates – research has shown that there was an average net loss of nearly 300 jobs within a 10-mile radius of 95 new superstores across the UK. Tesco have already closed the RailEx site to obtain the land with the loss of those jobs…how many more will be lost in these chastened times?
But, despite these efforts and achievements, we have not rested on our laurels – and are actively working to improve the town as it is today…
- We are lobbying the existing Co-op to improve the quality of its store and services (particularly in respect of stock)
- We wish to see a thriving Chamber of Commerce representing a diverse set of businesses in our community and have participated in the Stour Valley Market Towns initiative to make our contribution heard
- We are keen to encourage the provision of better facilities for the young people in our town
- We regularly hold litter picks to improve the visual appearance of our town
- We are supporting the town authorities to improve the appearance of Manningtree through the continued provision of flowers and bulbs in public places
- We are supportive of the Manningtree Festival, the Manningtree Society and are keen to assist in the restoration of the Christmas celebrations in the High Street once again
- We support the ‘Free the Quay’ group in Mistley against the forced closure of the quayside by the present owners – despite centuries of free access
- We are fostering closer ties with other, like-minded, local organisations like the Hadleigh Society and the Stour and Orwell Society.
Activities are constantly being planned.
Unless the application is defeated, we fear our Tesco town will soon become yet another ghost town, a clone like Hexham, Stalham, Witham and countless other communities before us – decimated by a company that has over 30% of the grocery market of the entire UK and 16 stores within a 15 mile radius of Manningtree already. Without Tesco, Manningtree has the chance of a future; with Tesco there will be no future at all.
So stay the course for our future by supporting Stour Community First |
