If you visit the prosperous Buckinghamshire village of Gerrards Cross, you’ll find what looks like abandoned industrial workings. An unsightly overhead conveyor. The steel frame of an abandoned building. A series of concrete scructures over the railway.

What’s going on, you’d ask the locals? Has some local engineering firm gone bust, leaving an eyesore in the heart of the village?

No, this is the work of one of Britain’s most successful, profitable companies. Tesco fought the locals – and the local council – for the right to build a store here. It employed a contractor called Jackson Civil Engineering of Ipswich to build a flimsy looking bridge-cum-tunnel over the Chiltern railway line to London. The store’s steel frame was in place when the tunnel collapsed on 30 June 2005. I was in the last train to go through before the collapse, as I explained in my post a year ago Tesco trauma continues at Gerrards Cross.

A year on, Gerrards Cross is still blighted by the Tesco scars. No decision has been made, and the company’s reputation locally has suffered badly.