A NEW convenience store will be able to sell alcohol when it opens for business, but it needs to be built first.
Residents moving into the Huntley Wharf development in east Reading will benefit from a Tesco Express store when the site is completed.
The supermarket giant applied for a licence to sell alcohol from 6am to midnight each day – more than it had outline planning consent for, when it was granted back in 2019.
Condition 61 of the approval limited the hours of the store from 6am to 11pm Monday to Saturday and 8am to 10pm on Sundays and Bank Holidays.
A Reading Borough Council planning officer objected to the licensing application, noting the discrepancy between the time limit and hours Tesco has applied for, and this was discussed at a licensing meeting.
The retailer’s legal adviser Jeremy Bark revealed that the company hopes to open the store in 2025.
“These are the hours we would like to trade. We would like to trade until midnight. This is a small store which is not subject to Sunday trading rules,” he said, adding that it would operate under Tesco’s Think 25 age verification policies.
“We do an awful lot of training. Everyone does induction before going to the shop floor. We encourage and empower staff to refuse sales,” he said.
Of around 5,000 products sold at Express stores, between 80 and 110 of them are alcoholic.
Mr Bark said: “Alcohol sales are a small but important part of what we do”.
To ensure security, three members of staff will have bodycams, CCTV will be installed and the new store will benefit from Tesco’s mobile security team who deal with difficult customers.
On the operating times discrepancy, he stated Tesco was in a ‘chicken and egg’ situation, saying that the company is due to submit a planning application to vary Condition 61 to allow the store to operate from 6am to midnight.
A council planning officer said planning policy came first in such a situation.
“My main takeaway from the council’s licensing policy is that maybe the applicant should have submitted an application to amend the planning condition first,” they said.
Councillors Paul Woodward (Labour, Church), Deborah Edwards (Labour, Southcote) and Clarence Mitchell (Conservative, Emmer Green) granted Tesco the license at the meeting held on Tuesday, October 3.
When the store opens, it will be one of over 3,000 Tesco Express stores in the country and one of over 4,000 Tesco locations in the UK.
