[Campaignforrealdemocracy] Fwd: tesco

[Mark Barrett]

a democratic planners gathering around this campaign is being mooted

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Edwards Michael <m.edwards at ucl.ac.uk>
Date: 2009/8/14
Subject: tesco
To: Planners UK Network <pnuk at sheffield.ac.uk>


Dear PNUK
The Monbiot article in the guardian the other day and its spinoffs to the
planners network and elsewhere has produced a torrent of messages and emails
and it seems to me to reveal something where PNUK could be useful and focus
the knowledge and commitment of a lot of us.  I for one am only just
discovering who we all are by reading their posts.  Maybe someone should
speak to Monbiot? Who knows him?

Incidentally, in response to a flush of letters in the guardian this morning
I sent them the following.  Here it is in case they don't print it.  It
would have benefitted from a lot more polishing.  Michael

  Dear Editor

Monbiot's article on the Tesco threat (12 August) has unleashed a rich
correspondence and a vast tumult of opinion ranging from anarchism to market
fundamentalism in the online commentary (not to mention a rapid exchange in
the Planners Network UK). Drawing on these strands I suggest the following:

(i) Machynlleth, the home of Intermediate Technology, would be a specially
good place to fight this battle;
(ii) A referendum
has attractions but until Wales  becomes a canton of Switzerland there
is no legislative basis for it and, as Robin Harrison argues in his
letter, it would be a crude way to resolve nimby conflicts with wider
interests;
(iii) A public inquiry could be the best way to have a really serious debate
but if the local council lacks the nerve or resources to refuse Tesco (and
thus trigger an appeal) the campaigners should press the Secretary of State
to call in the application for an inquiry and for his own subsequent
 decision on the evidence.  The local authority could then take part without
the threat that costs would be awarded against them;
(iv) The campaign would have to confront the fact - which the market
fundamentalists stress - that many people, especially poor people, would
value and use a Tesco because of its low prices and reliable quality. On
this point they would have to show how supermarket prices are artificially
low, understating the environmental costs of their activities and the
effective subsidy to their supply chains from under-paid labour around the
world and government subsidies for low pay at home;
(v)  It would be wise to develop a counter-proposal, at least as a
fall-back. They should identify a site within the existing centre where a
small supermarket would be welcome and press the council to insist that the
harm it does is minimised - for example by making sure that the car parks
benefit all the shops equally - and that there are maximum benefits - for
example ensuring that 'locally sourced' goods are delivered direct, not via
Avonmouth.

If we want to change the world we have to start somewhere and Machynlleth
looks good.

Michael Edwards



 *********************end********************
 *A sustainable economy for London, *submitted to the GLA by David Fell,
Michael Edwards, Richard Lee, Jenny Bates, Richard Bourn and Darren Johnson.
http://www.brooklyndhurst.co.uk
Discussion about this on my blog (below) where you can also find a
submission on *research gaps in London Planning.*

Michael Edwards, The Bartlett School, UCL
22 Gordon Street
London WC1H 0QB
m: +44 (0)7813 1944 01
skype:  michaellondonsf
blog & publications: http://michaeledwards.org.uk
admin: +44 (0)20 7679 7456 (Lisa Fernand, Tues/Wed/Thurs)  or 7501 (Judith
Hillmore, Mon+Fri)






-- 
"We hear men speaking for us of new laws strong and sweet /Yet is there no
man speaketh as we speak in the street.”
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