They boast that every little helps.
But supermarket giant Tesco is pulling out of delivering to a Sutherland village.
Durness locals are so angry at the decision that they have written to the retail giant’s chief executive David Lewis appealing for him to intervene.
The arrangement does not even involve ‘traditional’ grocery home shopping where products ordered on the internet are then delivered to the customer’s door. Instead customers in the village, which is home to just 350 people – and a small number of neighbouring villages – can order online and then meet the delivery van at an agreed location. Now after around 18 months of offering this service in Durness Tesco say the local arrangement is not used enough for it to be viable in the longer term.
Instead shoppers in Durness now face a journey of 70 miles to Thurso to browse at their nearest Tesco store.
Furious local b and b owner Kathy Parker has written to Mr Lewis in protest.
“I would appreciate your intervention in a situation that has developed in our village, Durness, which is in the far north west of Scotland,” she wrote.
“Kinlochbervie, a village some 20 miles from Durness, has seven deliveries each week which, as far as I am aware, are set to continue.
“Can one delivery a week come to Durness rather than Kinlochbervie?
“Why are we being given so little notice?
“Why were we not informed if this was just an experiment?
“The name of Tesco’s is mud in Durness at the moment, can you take any action to redeem it?”
A Tesco spokesman said:”We continuously review how we serve customers across the country. In a very small number of villages in the far north of Scotland our click and collect shopping service has not been well used. This includes Durness.
“We will be contacting affected customers directly to explain changes in the coming weeks. Our colleagues at Wick and Thurso stores continue to offer customers great service.”
