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Village to close after contributing nothing to local Tesco |
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A 1000 year old Oxfordshire village is to close after it was deemed not to be economically viable to the local Tesco superstore. Villagers received the news at a tense public consultation meeting last night when Councillor Shapley revealed that not a single person from the historic village of Stony Bridgeford shops or works in the Tesco store a few hundred metres away. ‘It’s no good being sentimental about these things. In this modern competitive environment, villages either have to pay their way as far as the supermarkets are concerned or face closure.’
There had been some hope of keeping the village open, and just closing down some of the older and more annoying residents as a compromise but this was rejected as impracticable. David Gordon representing the village commented ‘We are devastated by this ruling from the local council. We have been good neighbours to Tesco and never gave them any bother despite having lorries thundering through the village at all hours making deliveries. Our village has stood since the Doomsday Book, Tesco has been here six years.’ A Tesco spokesperson said ‘We have tried time and again to encourage people from the village to shop and work in our store, but to no avail. We have tried to engage with the community by sponsoring prizes at the local school and distributing leaflets to allow the villagers to take advantage of our excellent deals on personal finance, but all these efforts have been ignored. The village is just not sustainable and we’ve had to apply for it to be closed down and bulldozed.’ Tesco has also intimated that there are other larger villages that may have to close, as well as the entire county of Shropshire which may no longer be viable. After the Saxon church and thatched cottages of Stony Bridgeford have been razed, the area will be turned into a car park with a small children’s playground and picnic area in the corner. ‘Tesco will pay for all this work,’ said Sir Terry Leahy, head of Tesco worldwide; ‘we want to make this a special place for people to meet, shop and have a real sense of community. The playground will have a slide and a swing and some bark chippings made from the 700 year old oak tree that currently stands in the centre of the village, which I think is a nice touch. Plus we will be offering mortgage deals to the villagers to buy a house in the development across the road which was co-funded by Tesco when the store was originally built.’ Ed: Thank you to NewsBiscuit for this story... you should sign up for their daily dose of humour... mostly with a twist as above... I'd lost their emails as my spam filter was being super sensitive... thankfully we're back on track now for 2009! |
