Letter from Mrs Norman

Dated 26 November 2007

It wasn’t much to ask, was it? A spacious, well-stocked supermarket in Sheringham where families could fill a trolley without breaking the bank, and the elderly and less abled could shop with dignity without being jostled by other customers. At present shopping for groceries in the town must be an absolute nightmare for the disabled. The store would also bring extra local employment for all ages.

Once again the powers-that-be have moved their well-worn goalposts and say we can’t have the store. After asking Tesco to resubmit their application in April 2006 and promising to approve it, the JDCC have chucked it out once again. Now, if you can believe it, they want a store half the proposed size, which would make it about one-third the size of Fakenham’s Tesco, and it has to be in keeping with the architectural style of Sheringham’s only listed building, the Roman Catholic church, i.e. a tall red-brick building in the gothic style. As demonstrated for over a decade, the committee have never had any intention of allowing Tesco into the town, but that hasn’t stopped them wasting the taxpayers’ money by commissioning reports by our highly-qualified planning and highways officers only to reject their research and recommendations. Does this mean they consider their officers to be incompetent? Do you wish that other views and opinions had as much voice with the council as those of the aptly named SCAMrod, with a seemingly unstoppable propaganda machine? The leaders of this organisation are a handful of local business people with a vested interest in keeping competition out of the town. They have no relevance to my life, what about yours?

What it all comes down to again is that those with the means who want any choice and value for money in their groceries, will still have to spend their spare time and their money away from the town. Those who are restricted to the town will still have no choice but to negotiate their way crab-wise around the narrow aisles of Budgens, past other shoppers vainly searching for a wider choice or transfixed by some of the jaw-dropping prices. No offence to Budgens’ entrepreneurial endeavours but they've already come up with the best they can do. On a serious note, as pointed out by the Finance Officer, if Tesco win their appeal against the decision, NNDC will face enormous legal costs. These will have to be met by us in the form of higher taxation and/or cuts in services. Your local councillors are currently bathing in the glory of the publicity of a so-called victory for democracy. But it wasn’t democracy, was it? As was shown in the recent survey, more people voted yes to Tesco than voted no. If you were in favour of a Tesco in Sheringham and if you are at all dissatisfied with the way you have been represented by these councillors, then please get in touch with them and make your views known. They are obviously confident that the town is populated by families who don’t eat, and people who have always been blissfully unaffected by the cost of living and think supermarkets are vulgar. They have a duty to represent us all equally, not just the ones that shout the loudest. As they have demonstrated, they are one hundred per cent in favour of the anti-Tesco lobby.
Mrs W Norman

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