6:50am Friday 1st May 2009
By Kerry Grove
Tesco should give up and go away so family homes can be built on its Tolworth site, MP Edward Davey said this week.
The supermarket giant dropped its plans for a store, 562 homes and a community centre for the second time last week, because the cost of road improvements was too high.
But now local councillors and Mr Davey urged the retail giant to sell the land or build houses on it soon, so Government targets for new homes can be met.
Kingston needs to build 380 homes every year, council planners told a meeting in Surbiton last week.
Although this had been met in recent years, there are few brownfield sites as big as the former Toby Jug site in Tolworth, that Tesco bought in 2002.
Mr Davey said the borough has a dire need for three, four or five bedroom family homes.
He said: “In my advice surgeries every week I have so many people coming about overcrowded accommodation, who cannot afford to move from a two bedroom house to a three bedroom house.
"It’s a major social issue here.”
Chessington Councillor Mary Reid said she doubted Tesco would be able to resubmit a third planning application that would solve the traffic problems at the A3 roundabout.
She said: “They’re just sat on that site preventing it from being developed on.
"They’ve got an opportunity for Kingston to have more housing and it’s just socially irresponsible.”
James Wiggam, corporate affairs manager at Tesco, said it was no closer to reaching a decision for Tolworth.
He denied rumours that Tesco had pulled out of the plans because it had identified another place to build in the borough.
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