Hackney (Parliament Politics Magazine) – Hackney Council confirms a new supermarket will replace the former Stamford Hill Sainsbury’s, ensuring continued local access to essential food retail services.
Following the store’s closure in February, residents wrote to Hackney North and Stoke Newington MP Diane Abbott to raise concerns about a lack of access to similarly-sized grocery shops.
Abbott asked the Town Hall what steps it was taking to ensure residents still had access to large supermarkets and “affordable, healthy food”.
Later, responding to resident Kirsty Jones’s enquiry, Mayor of Hackney Caroline Woodley revealed that council officers had confirmed the site’s ground floor would be home to a new supermarket in the future.
However, the council
“has not received any planning applications to change the use of the former Sainsbury’s site”
, she added.
Members of the public Facebook group “Stokey Folks” spread rumors that the decision had already been made, despite the mayor’s statement that she could not guarantee which grocery chain would take over.
“I hope the rumors about it being an Aldi or a Lidl are accurate,”
Jones commented.
Another user claimed to have “spoken to two different security guards,” both of whom attested that the latter was the plan.
After the lease ended, the landlord opted to renovate the property, so Sainsbury’s shuttered its Stamford Hill location on February 1.
It happened after Clapton Common, a nearby Asda store, closed in 2022.
In recent years, public campaigns have been sparked by supermarkets in Stoke Newington.
Hundreds of zombie-clad demonstrators demonstrated against plans for a Sainsbury’s store near Abney Park cemetery in 2011, according to the Citizen. Locals called the move a “cynical attempt to drive out local business.”
In 2013, Sainsbury’s planning proposal was denied by the Town Hall.
“The joke at the time was that if it was a Waitrose then Stoke Newington residents would have let it through,”
said Hackney local Danielle Collavino.
On the Facebook group post that revealed a new supermarket chain was heading to Stamford Hill, one user commented:
“Hope it’s a Waitrose.”
How does Hackney Council plan to balance commercial development with local access?
In order to satisfy the demands of the borough, LP33 directs development to make sure that the proper amount of residential and commercial expansion takes place in the right places at the right times. In order to protect grocery access, this involves keeping accessible retail locations that benefit the neighborhood. For example, the Stamford Hill Sainsbury’s might be replaced with a comparable-sized supermarket.
The Economic Development Plan places a strong emphasis on fostering an atmosphere that supports local companies and guarantees that economic expansion benefits all citizens. This entails offering reasonably priced workspace, business assistance plans, and employment access programs with the goal of lowering disparities and promoting inclusive prosperity.
In order to guarantee that developments satisfy community needs rather than imposing ideas from outside sources, Hackney Council pledges to involve locals in planning decisions.