The potential local impacts of the Chorlton Tesco are numerous, and most are issues covered by local and national planning guidance. Here is the local case against the Chorlton store. For more detail, download our full report to the planners.

Reducing choice

A new Tesco store is likely to prove damaging to other local businesses, as has been the case in so many other areas. Supermarkets grab their huge market share by taking trade from other local stores, and it's not hard to see what the growth of supermarkets is doing to small retailers who are now closing down at a rate of 50 per week nationwide. The Manchester Road application is for a shop almost 3 times bigger than the small Esso garage shop, run by a company well-known for aggressively undercutting competitors. The increase in floorspace and range of product lines of the new store, with a likely annual turnover of over £2million, would have an unacceptable impact on existing shops.

Although healthy competition between retailers can give customers more choice and good deals, the impact of a new supermarket on existing shops can actually reduce consumer choice in the end. Both national and local planning guidance highlights the importance of preserving the vitality and viability of existing shopping areas, and Chorlton's success in recent years has been largely based on its independent shopping provision.

Traffic & Parking

Just up the road from the proposed store is another Tesco Express, on Upper ChorltoRoad. Since being built, congestion and illegal parking around the store have caused a nightmare for cyclists, pedestrians and other drivers. The inevitable increase in traffic to the Esso site will result in similar problems on this stretch of Manchester Road, which is already very congested at busy times.

The application proposes just 14 parking spaces, which, given that the shop is likely to attract large numbers of customers in the car, is not enough. The nearby Unicorn Grocery, which has a similar floorspace to the proposed application size, has almost 30 spaces, all of which are full at peak (and other) times. The proposed development will create severe parking problems in the area, and will almost certainly result in illegal street parking and unauthorised parking in the nearby Unicorn car park and Council building staff car park. 

Finally...

As we've learnt, when fighting planning applications, it's only ‘planning' issues that count as far as official channels go. The UK organisation Planning Aid can often give free advice on things like this. The ethics, overseas activities, or general reputation of the company you're fighting, although a motivator for the community, are not relevant to planning officials. The Local Authority can only refuse an application on planning grounds. However, as well as local concerns specific to this application, many of the KCI group share a general desire to protect local independent businesses against the supermarket and chain-store onslaught. See Home Town or Clone Town? for the reasons why.