Stamford Hill Sainsbury’s to be replaced with supermarket, mayor confirms

The former Sainsbury’s supermarket site in Stamford Hill. Photograph: Josef Steen / free for use by LDRS partners

Hackney Council has confirmed the former Stamford Hill Sainsbury’s site is to be replaced with another supermarket.

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.

While the mayor said she could not give assurances on which supermarket chain would step in, members of the public Facebook group ‘Stokey Folks’ shared rumours that the decision had in fact been made.

“Hope the rumours are true [that it will be an] Aldi or a Lidl,” Jones wrote.

Another user reported that they “spoke to two different security guards” who both confirmed it was set to be the latter.

Sainsbury’s closed its Stamford Hill store on 1 February after the landlord decided to redevelop the site once the lease expired.

It followed the closure of a nearby Asda supermarket by Clapton Common, which folded in 2022 because the chain no longer deemed it profitable.

Supermarkets in Stoke Newington have triggered public campaigns in the recent past.

In 2011, the Citizen reported that hundreds of protesters dressed as zombies took to the streets to rail against plans for a Sainsbury’s store near Abney Park cemetery, with residents describing the move as a “cynical attempt to drive out local business”.

The Town Hall rejected Sainsbury’s planning application in 2013.

“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.”