Grab and Go (followed presumably by queue and pay) is one of the delights that Tweedsiders must get used to. Apparently this is an exciting enriching your life style feature of Tesco. And Tesco and Asda are apparently planning to enhance our environment with new stores in Tweedmouth. The Berwickshire is all enthused by this prospect of new supermarkets and so is Tesco which is going to come to the rescue of local people who ‘currently drive miles to do a main food shop’. This ignores the presence within city limits of Somerfields and the Coop and Safeway’s on the edge. But Tesco offers ‘stores that are appropriate to their environment’. So that is the difference. Asda is more modest “We compete with Tesco up and down the country and it is not unusual for them to follow us around”
The council is now doing a’ retail impact assessment report’. And well it might. How many supermarkets can the Berwick/Tweedmouth area support-especially when the caravan hordes depart for six months in October? And how about the little town centre shops in the face of this ‘convenience shopping’ As one shop keeper said to Huttonian crumpling up the Berwickshire as he spat out ‘ We will go down the US route with no more ‘down town’. No shops-just a town hall and trendy apartments’ And it will be another blow to the few remaining village shops which will be reduced to eking out a living on newspapers, sweets and packets of milk.
The Tesco Spokesman is called Mr Kitchener. A name to conjure with. I fully expect to say posters of his fine features (perhaps complete with a bristling handlebar moustache) pointing a commanding finger at the shrinking, shy, coy Burghers of Berwick and proclaiming ‘ Your Country needs us’
Next to the front page Tesco/Asda scoop, a small article mentions the arrest of a 42 year old Berwick man in Eyemouth after ‘he had apparently committed a breach of the peace’. Only the procurator fiscal knows the details of the alleged offence but I suspect he was protesting, perhaps in an inappropriate manner, about the coming future desecration of his town. I hope Sheriff Kevin of Duns will be merciful.
