Talking Tesco: UK Competition Commission

Why are we publishing these comments?

Tesco has been reading with interest the third party comments on the Groceries Market Investigation that the Competition Commission has been publishing on its website. Our formal submissions have addressed many of the issues raised by these comments, particularly those of some of the professional lobbying organisations. However, a number of submissions on the Competition Commission’s website contain more specific comments about Tesco which we have not covered in our formal submissions.

Some of these specific comments are inaccurate and misleading, and we are providing a series of short notes in order to put the record straight. In the interests of transparency we are today publishing the first such series of notes.

Community Has Rights In School Site

The “Community has Rights in School Site” organisation has alleged that we used “land banks” to curry favour with Worcestershire County Council, and that we plan to build a new high school to replace a language college on a site at Earls Court Farm, Worcester. They claim that this behaviour represents the use of financial inducements to “alter the course of the democratic process”.

We do not use financial inducements of any kind. We follow the due democratic and legal process.

Mr Davison may be pleased to hear that we are no longer proposing to develop the Christopher Whitehead Language College into a store, since the Secretary of State refused permission for the development of a replacement school. However we are sure that there will be many consumers and school students that will be disappointed.

It is unclear what the complainant is referring to when in accusing us of using our “landbanks”. Whilst we do own some land which is not yet developed or assembled into sites, this is a pipeline in order to build new stores – something that the OFT described as “commercially sensible”. In the particular instance of Worcester, we were aware that the college had, for many years, lacked investment and was below the standard which the Council wished for it. It lacked many of the facilities – such as on-site playing fields – which would have made the college a better establishment for students and the community.

We do not have a supermarket in Worcester on this side of the river, and offered to purchase the college site from the Council and provide a new and much improved site for the college. The Earls Court farm site where we planned to build a state-of-the-art replacement for the college is a good example of flexible thinking that benefits both the community and consumers.

The Council took the lead in applying for planning permission for this new, replacement college, but the application was refused by the Secretary of State. We are disappointed by this outcome. It means we have been unable to develop the existing college site into a store. It also means that we have been unable to help deliver a new, modern secondary education facility which would have been beneficial to students.