The
Situation Now
Sainsbury’s demand £1 million to leave White Hart Lane alone.
As you know, in June last year, a
postal referendum was carried out by the Electoral Reform Society in the
White Hart Lane area of Barnes.
It asked people a simple question :
Do you want to see a Sainsbury’s store opened on the site of the Old Car
Showroom at the top of White Hart Lane.
The respondents were carefully
chosen to correspond with what Sainsburys themselves identified as their
target market.
Out of 4,756 ballot papers returned,
4,062 voted NO. A majority of 85%.
On the strength of this, Sainsbury’s
were forced to agree to a meeting in August to discuss the implications of
this resounding NO vote..
The meeting was attended by three
members of the WHAG, our local MP, Susan Kramer and Zach Goldsmith, the
Conservative candidate for the area.
The meeting was notable for three
statements from Justin King, CEO of Sainsburys.
1. “We never wanted to find
ourselves in this situation in Barnes.”
2. “It’s all about the wallet.”
3. “If someone were to make a
viable commercial offer for the lease, I would seriously consider it.”
Whilst nobody doubts the sincerity
of the first two statements, recent events have cast huge doubts over the
last.
All present at the meeting took that
last statement to mean that if a company were to make an offer allowing
Sainsbury’s to walk away with no financial loss , Mr.King would seriously
consider accepting it.
Nothing Mr.King said afterwards has
denied that interpretation.
In the ensuing months since the
meeting, the WHAG and its friends have done their utmost to find a company
willing to make an offer to Sainsburys which matches the description above.
After many false starts, this
January we found a company who seemed able to do just that and whose
presence we felt would be welcomed by the residents.
This company duly made an offer
which would have allowed Sainsburys to walk away without any financial loss
and with the thanks and goodwill of the neighbourhood.
Justin King’s response was stunning
and revealing :
Instead of the £32 per square foot
the property was valued at, he has put a “key money” value of £250 p.s.f,
arguing that this is compensation for “loss of business opportunity”.
So instead of paying £128,000 pa for
the lease, the cost would rocket to a ludicrous £1 million.
This response means that :
1. The company concerned has had to
back out, as indeed would any other company…except perhaps Tescos.
2. There is absolutely no point in
looking around for any other possible contenders, as Mr.King, we now know,
never had any intention of making it possible for them to make a “viable
commercial offer.”
Since that meeting, the WHAG
campaign has been deliberately low-key, in the belief that no Chief
Executive of a long established and much-loved national company could
possibly be anything other than open and honest.
Instead, we have spent our time
looking for a business which could meet what we supposed were his terms.
This, clearly, has been time wasted.
More shamefully, it shows the
contempt in which Justin King holds the people whom he has said would be
his prime market.
I’m sure he thinks that this latest
bombshell will crumple all local resistance.
I ask you now to prove him wrong.
The WHAG’s campaign will now be
fully re-started, with the aim of exposing Mr.King’s cynical attitude
towards the neighbourhoods his company invades to the full scrutiny of the
national media.
And asking you all to vociferously
and publicly announce that if this store now opens, you will boycott it
completely until it has to close on economic grounds.
And then we’ll see whether it is
worth £1 million or not.