Justin King's Job Creation Claims

Here we go again! Sainsbury's big cheese Justin King claims today that one of the benefits of Sainsbury’s large expansion plans would be to provide employment. But of the 3,000 – 4,000 new jobs expected in the West Midlands only 200 would be created in Dorridge, according to Sainsbury’s own estimates, put out in January. Is he scraping the barrel for something good to say about the Dorridge plan?

We hoped that Sainsbury’s would have had time to reflect on this report by the Association of Convenience Stores which claims that, too often, the ‘hundreds of jobs’ notion is based on inconsistent forecast criteria and takes no account of the likely loss of jobs from closures in other retail areas.

DROVS, too, has a plan for Dorridge which would create a good many jobs (we have provided for additional retail outlets in Forest Court, and our store would still be twice the size of Tesco’s in Knowle – plenty of jobs there!) without causing permanent harm to traders in other places – and in Dorridge itself.

To watch the Midlands Today report click here (4m10s).