Tesco Mixed-Use Developments
I read today that Tesco is planning to develop four mixed-use properties anchored by a Tesco supermarket. They have been called “mini-villages” in the media. Concerns around the food retailer’s dominance in the market and impact on the national economy were expressed.
One such development is happening around the corner from where I live, around a site already occupied by a Tesco Superstore at Bromley-by-Bow. Approval is next month expected for 400 homes, a primary school, hotel, and park on this site near to the Olympic Park in Stratford. Other housing and retail developments are expected in Streatham, Dartford, and Woolwich.
At first, news of this reminded me of the model villages of the late 1890′s and early 1900s. These were housing developments founded and created by large companies and manufacturers for the benefit of their workers. One such example is Port Sunlight, “purpose built by William Hesketh Lever (later Lord Leverhulme) starting in 1888 for the employees of Lever Brothers soap factory… Between 1899 and 1914, 800 houses with a population of 3,500 were built, together with allotments and public buildings including the Lady Lever Art Gallery, a cottage hospital, schools, a concert hall, open air swimming pool, church, and a temperance hotel. He also introduced schemes for welfare, education and the entertainment of his workers, and encouraged recreation and organisations which promoted art, literature, science or music.” (Source: Wikipedia) However, it is unlikely the Tesco schemes have such social purpose in mind. Instead the food retailer is said to be “diversifying” from retail.
It would be great if Tesco was not only creating jobs in these communities (as they say they are), but also developing homes to house its local workforce. It would be nice if Tesco employed the capital available to it and created more amenities that could be enjoyed by the local community and public in general. The hotel at Bromley-by-Bow is most certainly opportunistic with the Olympics only two years away. That they are building a school and park on this site is a vast improvement from the cookie-cutter Tesco Metros that appear on the ground floor of almost every new development of flats in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets. If Tesco has such capital available to it and is “able to invest and create jobs in areas that many other developers cannot and will not” (said a Tesco spokesperson as reported in the Telegraph), wouldn’t it be great if Tesco invested instead in skills training and local enterprise. Imagine if it really invested in local communities and the economic and social development of local residents.
