Tesco in trouble for land bank monopoly

Supermarket chain Tesco is being probed by the Competition Commission over claims that it has been using the UK planning system to gain a competitive advantage over rivals.

Tesco has the largest land bank in the UK grocery industry and smaller shop keepers claim that they are thus being pushed out of town and out of business while high streets become clones of each other.

However, Tesco says that it needs the land in order to make its supermarkets viable. For example in Woolwich it wants to begin building 940 homes for workers in the store and is awaiting a decision from the authorities.

The Competition Commission has rejected claims by supermarkets that Tesco will use its land bank to control the nation''s grocery spending and said that offering customers cheap products is beneficial to the consumer.

Tesco owns a large amount of prime development space and owns 55 per cent of all the supermarket sites in the UK.


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