Tesco arrival blows wind of change through local lives

SO Tesco is coming to Bracebridge. At last, people will be able to get their everyday stuff without having to speak to anybody – even the checkouts are self-serve.

Way to go – almost as good as soulless, mouse-clicking Internet shopping.

So what if it bungs up Newark Road a bit more?

Traffic on that road is already nightmarish at times.

No-one will notice a bit more congestion: delivery vehicles kerbside, customer cars trying to cross bumper-to- bumper traffic lines backed up from the crossing lights.

Not to mention all the nursery and infant school children running the gauntlet across the frontage three times a day during term-time.

Small price to pay for customer convenience.

The highways authority doesn't foresee any problems, so why should I?

Emergency vehicles, which use Newark Road 24/7, will just have to do the best they can.

I haven't needed an ambulance in a hurry yet, so I hope I never do.

It's really good to see employment opportunities in Bracebridge.

Too bad if it puts other people out of work, in the other little shops in the neighbourhood.

Who needs those little shops anyway? Only people like the elderly who can't get around much, need a helping hand with the shopping, etc.

Thank God I'm not one of them, or one of those people who think a trip to the shop is a chance to catch up with neighbours' goings-on , or children away from home and mum who needs an eye kept on them.

No, give me an anonymous chrome- and-glass retail church any day of the week.

Just think, you could wake up in the Bracebridge Tesco Express after a boozy night – probably a Tesco cheap booze deal – and you might not know where you were.

It might be Inverness, where Tesco takes 50p in every grocery pound, or Seaton at the other end of the country, where Tesco builds the housing to go with the superstore.

The uniform Tesco stamp is everywhere. It's got more than 1,000 Express stores already and it says it wants another 1,000.

Well, it's certainly a successful business model. I say, go for it.

Wall-to-wall Tesco – there's nothing to stop it, certainly not a cash-strapped and powerless local authority and there isn't the grocery ombudsman the last Government promised.

Tesco could even run the country. At least it's in profit (£3.4bn net last year) and the shareholders get a good dividend.

Tesco hospitals and Tesco academies, why not? You could purchase your treatment with double clubcard points.

Back to Bracebridge. Tesco starts a whole new ball rolling, the place is changed for ever.

What follows a Tesco? Yes, it's the developers. Did they get a tip-off or do they just have a nose for it?

Somebody already wants to build loads of flats on the meadows across the road from the store.

Now Bracebridge can move into the 21st century. Instead of being a quiet suburb of Lincoln, it'll be a bustling megalopolis.

Then we'll need ... another Tesco.

IAN LAYTON Maple Street Stores, Bracebridge.