There have been rumours flying about for months as to what would open in the retail space under the Yale Terrace development. This, stuck to the hoardings, looks like the answer:
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| Licensing application from the soon to be Hornsey Road Tesco |
There's no sign of a Stokes Croft style rebellion to this Tesco.
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| Stokes Croft anti-Tesco protest. Not on Hornsey Road. Thanks to Mark Simmons Photography. |
There are no protest marches planned, no furious letters to the Guardian, no creative types occupying the space to make it into a theatre or writing poetry about the crack troops of gentrification. There's been nothing but a few sarky comments on stroudgreen.org, and even those are undercut by people saying they'd like a free cash machine.
Of course, Stokes Croft's reaction made the news because that sort of thing doesn't normally happen, but this will be round the corner from a newsagent that sells the Morning Star and in a constituency where Jeremy Corbyn has a 12401 majority. I'm a little surprised that it's all so quiet.
I'm neither trying to start a protest nor arguing in favour of Tesco here, but there are two lines from a Sophie Hannah poem 'the end of love should be a big affair/ it should involve the hiring of a hall' that keep going round my head.
The Hornsey Road (for good and for bad) didn't have any chains. It may have been the last British high street of which that was true. There should be a ceremony to mark the end of that. Something like this:
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| If someone tells you Brussels is boring, they're wrong. |
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| If they tell you Brussels is strange, trust their judgement on all things. |
I was hoping the shop opposite Hanley Road would be a Tesco. I'm all for it, because I am super picky when it comes to vegetables and won't buy them from the other stores on Hornsey Road. Food snob.
ReplyDeleteIt's supposed to be a coop, isn't it? That should be good for vegetables. If you've time/opportunity to make it that far the new fruit&veg place on stroud green road is ace.
ReplyDeleteMy boyfriend tends to pop into the Sainsburys on the corner of Stroud Green Road & Hanley Road on the way home from work. Is the new fruit & veg place much further down?
ReplyDelete'Fraid so. It's just south of the Tollington Park crossing.
ReplyDeleteWell it's opened. Just talked to the glum looking staff of one of the supermarkets opposite asking how's business. 'Very slow' was the response. Tesco only opened on Monday! Already?? I said. 'I think Tesco will close us down' he said. I bought an extra chocolate bar after that but if people don't help I'm afraid that that stretch of Hornsey Road will be made up of a Tesco and a pub.
ReplyDeleteIt's a typical Tesco opening gambit, advertise in advance of the opening, enormous adverts in front of the shop on their deals, even one over the road in front of one the local supermarket. And it's certainly working, lots of queues, people coming in and out with full bags. It's very sad I think because all the shop owners and staff are really very nice people, friendly too which honestly you don't get that much in London.
There's lots more to say about Tesco but it's all been said before. It's a sad experience to see them establish a local monopoly on your doorstep though!
Hmmm. Thanks for your comment hello_operator. I think there might be a case for a 'six months' after blog looking at what will have happened to the shops around Tesco.
ReplyDelete