THERE will always be a lot of nudging and winking on the subject of how Tesco was fairly certain they could persuade the council that a small town that already has two supermarkets was just the place for a superstore.
As yet the council has not come up with the goods. Nor should it as all Cinderford really needs is for some of the shop keepers to give their fronts a lick of paint.
Some of the letters I have read show a little naivety when asking where all the customers are going to come from. The most telling phrase I heard was 'bringing the Forest into the town'. Well I suppose that if you build out into the forest far enough some of the trees will be left among the houses.
There was a hour long programme on the television about what has happened to other towns after a Tesco attack. It was not pleasant.
We do not know how much farm land in the Forest Tesco's house building subsidiary companies have got their eye on but we do know that the Government has ordered each county council to build thousands of new homes. We also know that they don't want any more housing estates over the river in the posh part of Gloucestershire or in the Cotswolds. Best to dump in and around the Forest again.
The only question is: what do Tesco know that we haven't been told?
The fact remains that with growing world population and more countries wanting to eat their own food rather than sell it to us especially as our currency will never be worth what it used to be, then building houses on farmland is typical of the short term thinking that has dogged this country for decades. The last time this country had to get close to feeding itself we had to plough up the football and cricket pitches to do it.
What we do know though is that there are many 'Foresters' in name only, who will quite willingly ruin their environment just for a temporary penny off a loaf of bread. We ought to be thinking ahead and not let Tesco do this for us. – Larry F Still, Soudley.