What do we think about Tesco/dobbies and allotments

ALIBOBSY

So Tesco owned garden centres dobbies have been looking into turning nearby land into lotties and approval has now been granted at southport
see here- http://www.diyweek.net/news/news.asp?id=12554

Now whilst I think Tesco are sat on lots of land (in their so called land banks) which is not being used and is just to stop others building close to their stores, and could understand them turning this land into lotties to make some money from otherwise useless land (with plenty of good publicity from it as well). This whole scheme smacks of cross selling and is very cynical. The lotties are accessed through the garden centre who will sell you a "starter kit".

Whilst the idea of more lotties and more families enjoying GYO is fab I would worry that once/if it becomes less trendy again will tesco want the lotties back ASAP. Do you get some kind of protection when land is allotments?

ali x

ALIBOBSY

Another quick link showing the more cynical side of tesco
http://www.clickliverpool.com/news/local-news/125482-tesco-allotments-plan-hypocrisy-say-campaigners.html

ali x

foxgloves

I just completely avoid Tesco's. If it's true that 8 in every 10 quid spent in the UK (or whatever the figure is) is spent in Tesco's, then they don't need any of my hard-earned cash and I'd rather give it to our little village garden centre which undercuts just about everywhere around here on seed potatoes, onion sets, etc, or give it to just about anybody else for that matter! Every time I see that current Tesco's ad on TV...you know the one that ends 'Every little helps', I think 'No, every little helps TESCO'. So that's one chain of garden centres I shall be avoiding.

valk_scot

Well, while I'm all in favour of new allotments, I'm wondering how twenty plots accessed through a garden centre and underlaid with some sort of membrane be classed as allotments at all? Test plots or community plots yes, but I wonder if NSALG would class them as allotments, or if the new site would be able to take out membership? And what about security of tenure for the plot holders?

As to the other link yes, breathtaking hypocrisy, bah.

Smoffi

Fox.. does you local place have a website we can order from.. sounds like somethin i need to look at

Davesnave

This is what I think:
http://www.tescopoly.org/

foxgloves

Hi Smoffi,
No it doesn't have a website or anything, it's a tiny little garden centre at the back of a farm shop. Before this year, we always got our seed potatoes & onion sets from mail order companies and they were always good quality, but when we compared prices, we couldn't believe the difference & we felt we'd rather give our business to a local place. Some of these tiny independent garden centres & nurseries don't look much at all from the outside so I think people wanting the whole big garden centre/shopping/coffee shop experience probably overlook them but I bet such places exist all over the country. The most expensive seed potatoes we saw this year were on QVC. Including postage you got 10 for £15.00. We couldn't believe it and we thought they were kind of pushing them at beginner gardeners.... 'easy', 'can't go wrong' etc, who wouldn't necessarily know that you can get them for a fraction of the price.