Press+-+Haringey+Independent+-+Campaign+targets+supermarket+giants

=Campaign targets supermarket giants= Elizabeth Pears - Haringey Independent (Friday 7th March 2008)


 * Big supermarket chains are the income-suckers of local business, says an environmental pressure group urging shoppers to spend their cash in independent stores.

Campaigners from Tottenham and Wood Green Friends of the Earth handed out more than 100 leaflets in Seven Sisters on Sunday to encourage shoppers to "use local shops first" before turning to bigger chains.

The environmental campaign group also dished out posters for store owners to put in their windows promoting the shop local message. || || Moira Jenkins, shopping campaigner, said: "As the big supermarkets chalk up ever-bigger profits, they put more and more local shops out of business. The big stores are huge energy-wasters, they rely on goods transported hundreds of miles from producer to packager to depot to store, they encourage customers to drive to their stores, and they suck the income out of the area.

"We call on people to think about the consequences of where they shop, to think about local shops as the first option, and use farmers markets and local fruit and veg stalls."

The campaign follows a planning application put forward by private developer Grainger to transform the Wards Corner site, which includes space for a small supermarket despite a major Tesco store being just minutes away in High Road, Tottenham.

Grainger insists its plans will support local trade and has made room in its design for unit spaces that could be rented by small businesses. Lagu Sukumaran, who owns the Fair Deal supermarket in West Green Road, is supporting the campaign.

Mr Sukumaran said: "Big supermarket chains could never provide the service local businesses provide to the community.

"We serve the neediest and most helpless in the community. When people are short 50 pence we let them go. If elderly or disabled people cannot get to the shop, they can phone us and we will deliver it to their door.

"Tottenham is also amazingly diverse and its residents are our customers. They want specific products from the Caribbean or Africa, Latin America, China and now Eastern Europe.

"Our suppliers are people within the community who make these products in small rented units and sell to us. This is their livelihood - they could never sell those products to the multi-nationals."

Friends of the Earth is now calling for Haringey Council to oppose new supermarkets in its planning policies.