Saturday, April 12, 2008

Would you like help packing Terry?


SOURCE: BBC News


A grandmother from Merseyside has applied for planning permission to demolish the home of Tesco chief executive Sir Terry Leahy.

Dot Reid is retaliating against plans to bulldoze her home and 71 others in Kirkby, to make way for Everton's new stadium and a Tesco supermarket.

The 58-year-old said Sir Terry, who lives in a mansion in Hertfordshire, deserved a taste of his own medicine.

She plans to turn the site of the Tesco boss's house into a community garden.

The grandmother lives on Spicer Grove where there are a mix of bungalows and houses, which would be bought under a compulsory purchase order and demolished under the plans.

She helped set up a housing co-operative which was given government money to build the homes, which were finished in 1992.

I want Sir Terry to have a taste of what we have to put up with
Dot Reid

She said: "These are more than just houses, they are homes.

"I have been living under the threat of losing my home for 18 months now and it is very stressful.

"I want Sir Terry to have a taste of what we have to put up with.

"When we found out about the plans by Tesco and Everton, we thought it was disgusting."

Mrs Reid has submitted an application to Welwyn Hatfield Borough Council in Hertfordshire for permission to demolish Sir Terry's 1930s mansion in Cuffley.

'Publicity stunt'

Mrs Reid has plans for the site.

"It's going be a nice community area. Trees and ponds and a little play area for the children, somewhere for the old people to go and sit and relax."

A council spokeswoman said: "Welwyn Hatfield Borough Council has received a planning application from a resident of Kirkby relating to the demolition of a property in Cuffley and use of the space as a community garden.

"This application will go through the normal planning process."

A spokesman for Tesco said: "This is just a publicity stunt.

"Unlike this application, for our application we spoke to hundreds, if not thousands, of residents in Kirkby, the vast majority of whom recognise this is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity which will create 2,000 jobs."


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THE APPLICATION ITSELF CAN BE VIEWED HERE:

https://fastweb.welhat.gov.uk/detail.asp?AltRef=S6/2008/0668/FP&ApplicationNumber=&AddressPrefix=&submit1=Go

Actual Documents open as .PDF file!

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Saturday, March 29, 2008

Tesco's "Complete Mess" Delivery Service

I have emailed the letter below to online@tesco.co.uk and terry.leahy@uk.tesco.com after a really distressing experience this evening.

I placed the above online grocery order and arranged delivery for 28th March 2008 between 9-11pm. The driver arrived at 9.10pm approx and straight away i noticed that my order was not 'in carrier bags' as requested. Furthermore the order contained 2 items of dog food, one bag of dried dog food plus six tins of dog food - i do not have a dog. It also contained a packet of 6 snow ball cakes, which i had also not ordered. There was only one '21 pack' of walkers crisps - i had ordered 2, and to be honest this was the final straw. Myself and the driver began to 'tick' items off on the receipt but it became clear that the order was a complete mess, the driver said it would look badly on him as he was limited to time spent at each address so i asked him to take the order back. He advised me to telephone customer services to re-arrange the slot which i did soon after. I explained the issues to the operator and they arranged re-delivery for the following day - 24 hours after my original order. I also explained that i do my shopping online as i am disabled and have a young child at home, and we now have no food. The operator apologised - i also pointed out that as my delivery was completely messed up through NO fault of my own i objected to paying delivery charges, he said 'Tesco delivered your shopping - you sent it back!' - is this what you call customer service?? My order was totally incorrect, packaged incorrectly and now i'm told its my fault and expected to pay for an inferior service. The call ended.
I then went to log into my Tesco account to check the change of delivery time, to my surprise the total amount of my shopping had increased by almost £20! Again i telephoned customer services only to be told that as the 'home delivery team' worked short hours there was no-one available to find out the reason. I requested that the order be cancelled completely.
Now this leaves me with not only no shopping but no further funds to do my shopping elsewhere as the funds have been debited from my debit card and upon speaking to customer services for a third time i am advised that it can take up to 5 days for a refund. I really cannot believe that i could be left in such a complete and utter mess and no offer to rectify the situation. None of this is my fault and i will certainly think twice before using Tesco again - which is a real shame as i have used Tesco for almost 12 months now - but i suppose my business hardly makes a difference.
I just hope someone in a similar situation to myself may not have to experience anything like this, i will be sending a copy of this email to Watchdog and Motability Magazine as i think you're customer service is non existent.
I would like to continue shopping with Tesco but do not feel confident my custom is valued or that you are able to provide a basic delivery service.
I hope you are able to get to the bottom of these problems and look forward to speaking to someone in authority who is able to take ownership of this and bring it to a mutually acceptable conclusion.

Yours Faithfully
Mrs Diane Dawson

Wednesday, March 26, 2008

Pointlessly pointed nowhere


Hello Tesco-Complaint. Thought i'd share this experience with you.
I work for Sainsbury's, and the other day while at work, a customer bought to me some keys with a Tesco Clubcard keytag attached.

The keys/card were kept in lost property for a while, but as the day progressed no one came in to claim them, so I rang the customer service number and asked them to contact the customer and ask them to come in as it was obviously important as there were keys there. I explained the situation to the man in the phone and he brashly informed that he wouldn't. I protested that the customer would need the keys, presumably to get in and it was very important. They again refused and hung up!

This incident just reminds me why i chose to work and shop at Sainsbury's and go nowhere near Tesco! If the guy wasnt allowed to contact the customer then fair enough, but his attitude stank of Tesco through and through!

Anonymous

Monday, March 24, 2008

Tesco's express way to hell


We were delighted to hear that a Tesco Express/Esso Petrol Station was arriving in Rotherham at the bottom of Fenton Road last year.
We have used the Tesco on regular occasions since its opening as we like to use Tesco for our shopping and it is more convenient than going into the main town centre. Also it gives us the opportunity to fill up with petrol.

However, the organisation of the petrol/shop has been cause for concern since its opening and we are surprised that we have not been involved in a serious accident, as we have come close on many occasions, entering or leaving the premises. The problems have occured due to the bad layout of the parking and also the two entrances/exits to the shop/petrol station. The petrol station/shop is entered via two separate entrances/exits which are from different roads, however, this results in cars being head on to each other at the petrol pumps and being unable to move away from the pump. This causes tailbacks onto the main road which is the major access route onto the roundabout.
The two areas for parking for the store are at two separate ends of the petrol stations and due to the tailbacks at the pumps often you are unable to get to them.
It is apparent that this has also been raised by other members of the public as some efforts have been made to restrict the entrance to entry/exit but this is not policed by the staff and therefore is of no use as many of the users of the petrol station/shop do not adhere to it. The security guard is there, as explained to us today, for drive offs and nothing further.

On our last two visits at key times there has been various sections stopped up by cones. The first cordoned off the bottom car park being that there was nowhere to park the car and therefore had to wait, leading again to tailbacks onto the road. People start to get annoyed and just reverse their cars back into the main road in an attempt to get out but this leads to further problems and potential accidents.
Today, upon entering the car park all but two of the petrol pumps had cones left next to them but it was not clear if the petrol pumps were empty/out of order etc. We spoke to the security guard who advised he was unsure as to why they had cut off the petrol to those pumps. This meant that we ended up having to park up in front of the other car, preventing her from leaving the car park until we returned - after we had purchased our food shopping. Our choice was to wait in the long queues to pay for our petrol, move the car and drive out of the car park and back in to repark to purchase our dinner or to buy our dinner. We where too scared that the security guard would think we stealing the petrol if we had moved the car into the car park before paying.
This is becoming a regular occurrence which is causing a lot of undue stress when going for a pint of milk. It is obvious that the people attending the shop are getting very annoyed and this is coming out in their driving. We really do not want to stop using the shop - we really do like Tesco and the convenience of attending the local shop but we sure that something could be done to ensure that the one way system is imposed - surely the problems were obvious when the designs were being discussed.

We do hope that you will be able to address these concerns and enable the local Tesco Express to be a safe environment for its visitors.

You might end up in a Korma

SAFETY RISK

Dear Tesco Complaint,

We purchased a Tesco Chicken korma and cooked it according to guidelines in the microwave. On removal from the microwave, it exploded everywhere, showering everything in the very hot korma sauce.

We consider this to be highly dangerous and would like to know who we should complain to, someone is going to get seriously injured - trusting you can help ?

T.C: Hopefully you'll find someone here who can listen and help you.

Don't mention the Store!

Regarding Tesco Store Lotherton Way Garforth

I have used your store for many years when you were in Garforth Main Street and more recently at Lotherton Way I am sorry to say it is falling far short of your usual standards.

1) The shelves are poorly stacked quite often items are missing for several weeks. (this week no medium Heinz beans no 12 oxo cubes no crisp & dry no small warburtons loaf on display)

2) Food quite often out of date, most recently a loaf of bread purchased from home bakery when I unpacked my shopping it was two days passed sell by date I returned it to store and was given a refund the young woman at service counter didn’t even apologise or indeed speak to me.

3) The floor is quite often dirty.

4) Why do they have to restock during the busiest time of day with cages strewn all over the place they are a health hazard.

5) Why don’t staff smile anymore? Smiles are free.

Perhaps a mystery shopper would be a good idea to get some of these issues addressed.