My Environment
"Terry Leahy: A 'Scouser' in the home counties"
by Jemma Blocksidge (14), Caroline McElroy (14), Laura Ness (14) and Daniel Rathbone (14)

Mr. Leahy shows us the ropes Mr. Terry Leahy is 42 years old and shares feelings about the environment. My neighbourhood Mr. Leahy lives in a village near Potter's Bar. The area could be described as suburban, consisting of family homes and countryside. Mr. Leahy's house is located opposite some woodland which once formed part of the royal hunting grounds of King Henry VIII. During the nineteenth century private ownership enclosed the land, but early this century it was brought back into public ownership by the local council and is now designated as a Public Open Space with free access. The area around Mr. Leahy's home is slightly hilly and it was on one of these hills that a First World War German airship crash-landed. The village grew as the railway network spread outwards form London - in this case towards Cambridge. The most significant of this linear development took place around 1910 to 1920. His only criticism was of the local geology that consists of London Clay which soon turns to mud in the rain and makes it slippery walking in the woods with the dog. As people live longer and shopping becomes more difficult, Tesco try to help by offering different types of shops and different means of shopping. Shopping on the internet is now available in eleven Tesco stores and this is linked to home delivery which is proving to be a success with older people and shoppers whose lives are very busy. Changes I would like Mr. Leahy described the measures taken by Tesco towards improving the environment. He mentioned unleaded petrol which is sold at Tesco garages and city diesel as two significant fuels which had led the field. All Tesco stores have opportunities for recycling materials and the supermarket distribution network make use of reusable trays to reduce waste in packaging. In this way Tesco save 100,000 tonnes of plastic and card in a year. My concerns. The two problems which Mr. Leahy identified about his environment concerned housing and change. He said that as households grow, they demand more housing and this leads to more development in villages such as his. A second difficulty is to accommodate existing qualities of life as changes take place and he particularly mentioned traffic problems and traffic policies.