Despite a petition with over 3,500 signatures, Retailer Planet Organic is set to open a new branch on Broadway Market next month. The petition set up to stop the plans was set up by local business owners on Change.org.
Within Broadway Market is independently-owned and family-run business Figs and Grain, managed by Mr Sucu and his son, Sulayman, who are opposed to the new tenants. Mr Sucu said last week that if “the landlord wants to sell so he’s going to sell. We have tried speaking to him but he won’t change.”
But Mr Sucu asserts that self-preservation is not the sole reason for the protest: “People think we do it just because we are organic but it will affect everyone. The Pavilion Bakery will be affected because they sell bread, the butchers will be affected because they sell meat. Everyone will be affected.”
It is not just local businesses who are against the new store.
An expensive place to shop anyway, according to Haggerston resident Sarah Vero, it would be “better to have the independent businesses there…bringing in a corporate giant would change the character of the street and risk pushing the existing shops out”.
