Over 100,000 sign pensioner’s petition to bring back tills at Tesco
69 year old Pat McCarthy says her local Tesco has ''inaccessible self-service tills with no staff', leaving some shoppers waiting over 30 minutes to be served
A regular shopper at Tesco is pleading with the supermarket giant to “stop replacing people with machines”, and has even launched a petition to take them on.
Pat McCarthy, aged 69, started the petition after she struggled to use the self-checkout tills at her local big Tesco supermarket.
Stating “you can’t speak to a machine”, she’s now calling on the company to reintroduce more staffed checkouts – and it seems the nation is on her side.
The petition has already hit over 100,000 signatures – 102,222 at the time of writing – and looks set to soon become one of the most-signed petitions on Change.org.
In it, Pat makes several well-put arguments for the return of more staff, explaining that at her local Tesco, and “probably all over the country, Tesco is bringing in new self-service and sort-it-yourself card only till machines. They make up 3/4 of the tills now.
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“These new tills are not accessible for people who don’t have credit cards and can only use cash or those with little confidence to use these self-service card-only tills – myself included.
“As an older woman, I can’t lift anything heavy, and that goes for many disabled people.”
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She continues: “People such as carers, older people, disabled people with mobility problems or lifting problems have to queue waiting for more than 30 minutes.
“I couldn’t lift the windscreen wash the other day in Tesco because it was so heavy and some men were lovely to help and had to put it in my car for me.
“If they weren’t around and my daughter wasn’t with me, I would have been helpless.”
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On my last visit to Tesco’s we had a £170 shop. We were told to go to the self check out tills! We said unless you open the check out we were leaving all this right here and will never shop here again – they opened the tills #BringBackTescoStaff
Her petition also points out that the new self-service tills have “displaced mainly part-time women staff”, and echos something many older people miss – the bit of chit-chat you have with the staff as they’re scanning your items.
She explains: “I love chatting with the staff, albeit briefly, especially as l live on my own. Talking with human staff is important to me. Now that experience has been taken away from me.
It is not the first time that shoppers have pushed back against self-checkout tills. Back in 2015, Morrisons brought back staff at 1,000 “express” checkouts after learning 67% of their customers felt enxious using the self scanning tills.
The full petition reads: “My name is Pat, I am 69 years old, and retired but I am a volunteer helping disabled people with applying for Personal Independence Payment (PIP) forms and a Trustee of my local Disability Network.
“My local Tesco has inaccessible self-service tills with no staff which makes the shopping experience physically difficult and overwhelming.
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“At my local Tesco mega-store, and probably all over the country, Tesco is bringing in new self-service and sort-it-yourself card only till machines. They make up 3/4 of the tills now.
“These new tills are not accessible for people who don’t have credit cards and can only use cash or those with little confidence to use these self-service card-only tills – myself included.
“People such as carers, older people, disabled people with mobility problems or lifting problems have to queue waiting for more than 30 minutes.
“I couldn’t lift the windscreen wash the other day in Tesco because it was so heavy and some men were lovely to help and had to put it in my car for me. If they weren’t around and my daughter wasn’t with me, I would have been helpless.
“These new self-service card tills have displaced mainly part-time women staff.
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“I love chatting with the staff, albeit briefly, especially as l live on my own. Talking with human staff is important to me. Now that experience has been taken away from me.
“With these new replacement Self-service-card-only tills (SSCOT) you have to choose your shopping if you can find it, put it in the trolley, unpack it, load it onto the belt that is static, scan it (if the scanner works), shove it across onto a packing area, pay for it and then lift it off out of the packing area and then load it into your trolley. This is a physically taxing process. As an older woman, I can’t lift anything heavy, and that goes for many disabled people.
“I challenge Ken Murphy Chief Executive of Tesco to meet with me for a discussion to explain his ‘replace people with machines policy’. I want Ken Murphy to bring staff back to do check-outs on the till and not have a replace people with machines policy.
“If we lose, it means an erosion of a great shopping experience into a Tesco’s shopping nightmare.
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“Sign and share this petition to help people with physical difficulties to have a better shopping experience in Tesco by bringing back staff.”
A Tesco spokesperson said: “Our colleagues and the friendly service they provide are absolutely vital to our stores and will always be on hand to help our customers, whether they are checking out at one of our colleague-operated or self-service checkouts.”
If you’d like to sign the petition you can do so here.
A comedy night packed with raunch and hilarious storytelling is heading to Manchester and its fronted by one of comedy’s leading queer comedians.
Titled ‘Queer as F*ck’ (we love a good pun), this night is devoted especially to queer comedy and sees Welsh comedian Morgan Rees taking the wheel with a wonderful roster of acts set to play too.
Taking inspiration from the cult-favourite queer comedy, this leading comedian is no stranger to seeing his work in the limelight as he has written for some of the funniest flagship shows like Mock The Week and The Great American Joke-Off.
Rees also doubles as the co-writer for smash internet hit The Uncle Roger Show, starring fellow comic Nigel Ng, and will definitely be bringing some of his razor-sharp one-liners on the night.
Ben Hodge, the MC for the queer comedy night in Manchester.Morgan Rees, the comedian headlining ‘Queer as F*ck’.Jenny Hart, one of the acts lined up for the queer comedy night in Manchester.Credit: Press Images (supplied)
The event, which has the full title of ‘brew. haha: Queer as F*ck comedy night’ will be MC’d by trans-male stand-up Ben Hodge and lesbian comedian Louise Young.
The latter may be a familiar name as she is currently supporting Alan Carr and Tom Allen on their latest tour while also stopping off in Manchester for this very special occasion.
Along with Rees and co., finishing the line-up are two impressive performers ready to raise the roof at this comedy night in Manchester: gay author Martin Dixon and trans comedian Jenny Hart.
Obviously, Rees doesn’t want to give everything away, but he has revealed an insight into what guests can expect to be chuckling away at in their seats.
Morgan Rees is excited to talk about “bad one night stands, growing up queer in a Welsh working class town, coming out late, and starting my first relationship in my 30s – it’s all in there.”
Taking place at Contact Theatre, this much-loved arts space is tucked away just behind the University of Manchester and another impressive city centre venue, Manchester Academy.
And if all this comedy talk wasn’t enough to get you down there, brew will be serving up Detroit-style pizzas with a range of draft beers and ciders – what a night you’re in for.
‘brew. haha: Queer as F*ck’ is coming to the Contact in Manchester on Wednesday, 9 April and ttickets are already on sale.
A pair of Paralympians born just down the road and honed two discipline-leading national performance centres here in Manchester have officially been awarded MBEs.
The Northerners doing the country proud – sounds about right.
First off, if the name Poppy Maskill doesn’t ring a bell, the promising Paralympic was Team GB’s best-performing para-athlete at Paris 2024 this past summer, contributing a total of five medals towards the nation’s joint-third-highest tally.
After her heroics at the Games, the teenager who turns 20 this weekend (Saturday, 29 March) was the recipient of an early and very prestigious birthday present, becoming one of the youngest individuals to be made a Member of the Order of the British Empire in history.
She was named on the New Year’s Honours list back in December but finally collected her latest medal in person this week following a ceremony at Windsor Castle, being honoured by King Charles III personally.
Hailing from Middlewich just less than an hour away from our city centre, Maskill might be a Cheshire girl by birth, but this young sporting gem is being polished right here at the state-of-the-art Manchester Aquatics Centre (MAC).
The youngster became the first Paralympian to pick up gold back in August after not only winning the 100m butterfly but smashing the world record in the process, too.
Competing in the S14 class – a category for athletes with intellectual impairments – she finished the heat with in just 1:03, surpassing the previous best by more than half a minute. But her impressive performance didn’t stop there.
MAC regular Maskill went on to win two more golds in the S14 100m backstroke and 4 x100m S14 freestyle relay, as well as a pair of silver medals in the 200m freestyle and 200m individual medley S14. Just incredible.
Poppy Maskill wasn’t the only Greater Manchester-based para-athlete who was recognised this month, though, as Stockport‘s very own two-time Paralympic champion Sophie Unwin was also presented with the accolade for her services to sport.
Named a member of the Order along with her co-pilot Jenny Holl, Unwin’s Paris 2024 medal haul included a double of golds in the women’s B 3000m individual pursuit and the road race tandem B, not to mention a silver in the road time trial and a bronze in the 1000m time trial at Paris 2024.
Following in the footsteps of fellow MBE and Stopfordian cycling legend, Dame Sarah Storey, who won her 19th gold medal to become Britain’s greatest Paralympian of all time – having made the most of MAC and the National Cycling Centre over in East Manchester during her career – the borough did us proud.
30-year-old Unwin has kicked on just as strong in the new year as well, notching a narrow victory to set an unofficial (unfortunately) world record of 4:36.737 in the women’s tandem at the 2025 Lloyds National Track Championships here in Manchester.
Georgina Pellant -
18th May 2022 
