Welcome to Tesco Towers

I suppose people will, if it’s cheap enough.

As far as hotel sites go, it’s certainly less objectionable than a tiny wedge of green field with a scenic view of B&Q, Southampton Road Tesco, the adjacent roundabout and a two-way traffic jam.

I’m no critic of cheap hotels. As long as the beds are clean and comfy, I’d rather not spend more than I have to on accommodation for an overnight stay or a weekend break. Better to keep some cash to splash in the shops, or on a special meal, in my opinion.

I like the local architects’ suggestion of hotel rooms above a covered market on the bus station site. But as far as I know, nobody’s actually offered to build that yet.

And none of these developments would be big enough to provide the classy conference facilities that, according to business leaders, are what Salisbury really needs to attract a lucrative new breed of visitor.

Besides, our B&B hosts are finding it tough enough already to fill their rooms. They’ve been telling us for ages that demand is falling as the nation feels the financial pinch.

So expecting these small family concerns to compete with cut-price hotel chains is like asking independent butchers, bakers, greengrocers and fishmongers to compete with the supermarket giants.

How many of those little shops are still clinging to life in Salisbury now? Precious few.

And they are precious.

Together with our market stallholders, they offer us some genuine choice as to how we spend our money.

Do we really want Tesco to take over even more of Salisbury? Can we stop it?

We don’t have a forum where local people can choose between development options to make sure their city grows in the way they’d like.

We have an illusion of local democracy instead – a choice between candidates on the basis of party politics, for a council 33 miles away, for which Salisbury is the cash cow.

So how can we strike a balance between what’s desirable for reasons that can’t only be quantified in terms of pounds and pence, and what’s simply cheap?

What was it Private Frazer used to say in Dad’s Army? “We’re all doomed, Captain Mainwaring, we’re all doomed!”

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