Reverend Billy exorcises a till at Bold Street’s Tesco
Campaigning anti-consumerism evangelical preacher Reverend Billy exorcises a till in the Bold Street Tesco branch.
Campaigning anti-consumerism evangelical preacher Reverend Billy exorcises a till in the Bold Street Tesco branch.
In case it passed anyone by, Tesco withdrew its application to build a store on Hope Street, after a significant amount of protest emerged online, focussed around a Facebook group ,which ended up with over 4,500 members.
In a rare triumph of people power, Tesco’s indicated that it was prepared to acknowledge the level of public feeling and look elsewhere for a new site.
I think it’s fair to say that few people expected the supermarket megalith to heed any complaints, but heed them it did. You know, Tesco isn’t all bad. Well, OK it is – but a new Tesco store isn’t the end of the world. However, a new Tesco store on Hope Street – slap bang in the middle of the ‘cultural quarter’, connecting two astonishing cathedrals, host to the iconic Philharmonic Hall, Everyman Theatre and Philharmonic pub and blessed with its own street festival – is a bloody awful prospect. Announced at a time when the city council has somehow allowed a developer to destroy Josephine Butler House, the prospect of another sodding Tesco store blighting the otherwise-stunning thoroughfare is a depressing one.
Someone who must be scratching his head over all of this is
Abandon all Hope – another fucking Tesco
I’ve just been for a walk around the new Tesco on Hanover Street, as people seem to do when a shop opens nearby. “Have you been to the new Tesco?” they ask, as if there’s something other than a busy and joyless stress experience waiting for you when you inevitably go.