Asda is planning to build a superstore on the Old Kent Road, Southwark, South London between Ossory Road and Malt Street with over 500 car parking spaces.
The Old Kent Road already has Tesco, Aldi, Lidl, McDonalds, PC World, B&Q, Halfords and Toys R Us, but what the 100,000 people who live within a one mile radius of this site do not have are decent community facilities.
Traffic, pollution and respiratory disease are at an all time high along this most polluted stretch of road in London, which also, ironically, has the lowest car ownership in London.
Since the Asda site was squatted in September, the Ossory Road Yard has hosted community events, children’s weekends, discussion groups, banner and puppet making workshops and an anti-war forum. With more time they want to build a kid’s adventure playground, plant on the land and create a genuinely community-run space.
The current occupants have been given ‘notice to evict’ and are expecting bailiffs to arrive in March.
Come and help build defences, create anti-Wal-Mart art installations, green the land or get in touch with them to co-ordinate anti-Asda actions in your local area. They have a warm and welcoming space available with guest rooms and a communal kitchen and lounge, but bring what you expect to find and call to let them know you are coming.
Contact the Ossory Road Social Centre on 07769 791387 or 07742 452 456480. Or email: ossoryrd@breathe.com. Just in case you were in any doubt, or if you want to persuade your friends:

The Competition Commission report into supermarkets in 2000 illustrates how Asda uses its power to bully suppliers. Its investigation found 18 Asda practices in dealing with suppliers that adversely affect the public interest. These included requiring suppliers to make a payment for better positioning of their products in stores, forcing suppliers to agree to a lower price than originally agreed, and changing quality and packaging demands without adequate notice.

Nine Reasons not to shop at ASDA

1) Asda is owned by Wal-Mart, the biggest and one of the most aggressive companies in the world.
Wal-Mart is, according to the Global 500 list, the largest corporation in the world by revenue ($219 billion worth of sales in 2001). With over one million employees in over 4,600 stores worldwide, it is not only the largest retailer in the USA, but also in Mexico and Canada. It also operates across Europe, South America and Asia.

2) Asda has contributed to the demise of urban high streets and small independent retailers.
According to the New Economics Foundation, between 1995-2000 we lost roughly one-fifth of our local shops and services – including cornershops, grocers, high-street banks, post offices, pubs and hardware stores – the very fabric of our communities – as a result of supermarket expansion.

3) Asda misleads its customers about its prices.
Asda may not be as cheap as it seems. In the last 4 years, Asda has been investigated 5 times by the Advertising Standards Authority, as supposed price cuts turn out not to be as good value as they seem. In 2001, a Norwich Asda was fined for misleading customers about the amount it had actually cut prices. Recent research by food group, Sustain, has shown that it is up to 30% cheaper to buy your food at your local grocer, butcher or market than at a supermarket.

4) Asda treats its suppliers with contempt.
The Competition Commission report into supermarkets in 2000 illustrates how Asda uses its power to bully suppliers. Its investigation found 18 Asda practices in dealing with suppliers that adversely affect the public interest. These included requiring suppliers to make a payment for better positioning of their products in stores, forcing suppliers to agree to a lower price than originally agreed, and changing quality and packaging demands without adequate notice.

5) Asda is bookies’ favorite to take over Safeway
If Asda get the go ahead to buy Safeway it will put Asda on level pegging with top dog, Tesco, in terms of market share at around a massive 25% each. The additional buying power that Asda/Wal-Mart would gain from the Safeway takeover would tip the balance of power even further away from suppliers to big retailers.

6) Asda tries to present itself as ‘the store of the community’, when really it is sapping it of money, resources and life.
In-store weddings, in-store kid’s education programmes (the Big Sum, the Big Read etc) MPs surgeries and the ‘Get Involved’ programme that sees Asda workers giving up time to support good causes in their communities, all sorts of business in the community awards, including the Nestle award for social commitment (yes, it really exists), but in fact Asda has a devastating effect on local communities.
Supermarkets are responsible for destroying local independent retailers who just cannot compete with their buying power and low wages. Shoppers become totally reliant on car use to get to their local supermarket which increases pollution and congestion.

7) Asda has strong links with the Conservative party
Asda has strong links to the Tory party through former CEO Archie Norman, who is currently a Tory MP and former close advisor to William Hague. Norman has also been dubbed ‘the Green-belt destroyer’.

8) Would you really want to work for Asda?
Wal-Mart is notoriously anti-union and has regularly been found to flout labour laws. In the US state of Maine, for example, it was fined for 1,400 violations of child labour laws in every one of its stores. Numerous lawsuits have been filed against it for disability discrimination and discrimination against women. Since becoming part of Wal-Mart, GMB union reps say it has been subtly clamping down on union activity.

9) And have you been into an Asda store recently?
Once you have evaded the ‘personal greeters’, the supermarket experience is frankly overwhelming. They are huge cavernous impersonal spaces, with aisles upon aisles and rows upon rows of things – almost too much choice. The fresh produce often looks tired, and not as fresh as it might be. Even if it looks nice, the taste invariably lets you down. You walk about in a trance induced by strip lights and piped music and an endless mantra of special offers over the loud speakers.

Across the USA, from Puget Sound to the Gulf of Mexico, from Maine to Arizona, communities are fighting the Wal-Mart/Asda juggernaut. Its expansion across Britain is not inevitable if we unite to oppose it.
By the way, we’ve singled out Asda for this campaign. It would be just as easy to find 9 reasons not to shop Tesco, Sainsbury, Safeway etc

Further Reading on Wal-Mart

1) ‘How Wal-Mart is Destroying America and The World and What You Can Do About It’ by Bill Quinn. Ten Speed Press. 2000.
2) ‘In Sam We Trust The Untold Story of Sam Walton and How Wal-Mart Is Devouring America’. By Bob Ortega. Times Business 1998
3) www.walmartwatch.org