Tesco give lie to their 'good neighbour' claim

 

Three Lorries all unloading at the same time causing chaos on West End Lane

Long photographs are not my speciality - however, you can see above three large lorries that lined up on Saturday morning at 9:45am making deliveries to the West End Lane Tesco - all at the same time.  They took-up a good 75 meters of roadway - a very depressing site.  It was downright dangerous as double-deckers had to pull out into the middle of the road - only to meet other double deckers coming the other way.

I complained to the duty manager at the time and have passed the details on to the council's streets team.

The duty manager claimed it wasn't in his power to control when lorries from three different depots arrived.  I made it very clear that the community expected him to do exactly that.

As well as taking up all the road - the deliveries were taking up all the pavement...

Any reasonable person at this point would ask - 'what were the council doing allowing Tesco to go there in the first place' Indeed, that is what the driver of one of the lorries said to me! The answer, of course, is that the Council had no say in the matter.  In planning regulations a retail unit is a retail unit - whether its selling furniture or a supermarket.  Another example of how little central government trusts councils when it comes to planning matters.
However, the council must investigate other actions it can take.  I would have thought some kind of prosecution might be possible under Health and Safety legislation from what I witnessed on Saturday.
Any legal advice welcomed!