Tesco says 'sorry' for development error

A campaign group has slammed a supermarket giant for "misleading" villagers.

SAVE (Save Ashtead's Village Environment) is furious that Tesco has claimed the size of its proposed store in The Street was 32 per cent smaller than its previous application.

The supermarket's previous plan was refused in March by Mole Valley District Council because of a number of concerns which included it being too large.

Quentin Armitage, from the campaign group, said: "I have measured the plans that have been submitted by Tesco and I found the reduction of the store is not 32 per cent but more like 24 per cent.

"We believe Tesco has been misleading us and we are all very angry about this.

"Another thing I believe is totally misleading is Tesco saying the 'size of the development' has been reduced by 32 per cent.

"We consider the development to be the whole area being developed, and not just the store.

"On the previous application the development area was 0.1599 of a hectare and in the new application the size is 0.159 of a hectare. The size of the development has therefore not gone down by 32 per cent.

"If you look at the new application's aerial shot and compare it to the previous application's there is little difference."

Gillian Russell, spokesperson for SAVE, who has a master's degree in town planning, said: "It is very disappointing that Tesco think that they can win the support of the village whilst they appear to be flagrantly misleading us," she said.

"I think everyone in Ashtead will be extremely angry, no-one likes feeling they are being misled.

"We are planning to make a complaint to The Advertising Standards Authority regarding the fact that Tesco sent leaflets to residents with a misleading figure."

She added: "We all want the Esso site to be redeveloped, but a viable solution would be a much smaller store, with only a front entrance, which draws shoppers onto The Street and into other shops, with on site parking and no change to the current car park."

Eoin Dardis, spokesman for Tesco, confirmed there had been an "error" in the references to the net floor areas and net sales areas in its previous and current applications.

He said: "We have looked at our figures again and the reduction in the store's size is 24 per cent rather than 32 per cent.

"This arose out of an error for which we take responsibility and apologise. This was a mistake and it was not our intention to mislead."