Fighting a planning case and running a campaign are challenging but hopefully these steps will help:

Step 1 - Know your enemy

Do some research on the supermarket's own website, and on some critical websites such as Corporate Watch, Friends of the Earth, NEF, Tescopoly etc.

Step 2 - Build local support

• Develop clear messages about the impact the store will have to help you get across your concerns to the press and public. Write some 20 word sound-bites stating exactly what you want.
• Run a positive campaign, suggesting creative alternatives for the use of the land, and more ecologically and socially sound ways to buy food such as farmers' markets and food co-ops.
• Draw up a list of local media contacts to inform of developments.
• Write and distribute leaflets to those likely to be affected or concerned by the development.
• Contact small retailers, local residents, environmental and community groups.
• Make links with small local business organisations e.g. the local Chamber of Commerce or local branch of the Federation of Small Businesses. Or even another supermarket that will be adversely affected by the application, especially for financial resources!
• Be sensitive to the views of local traders who may have reasons for not wanting a high profile involvement in the campaign.
• Contact some of the groups listed in the directory for tips on how to build your campaign and for ideas for text for leaflets and press releases.
• Invite local celebrities, supermarket campaigners from elsewhere and 'experts' to address a public meeting. Another format would be a 'debate' with the supermarket concerned.
• Talk to local councillors who may be happy to help in private, although may not be so open about supporting you publicly. Remember the personal politics that are likely to be involved too.
• Take direct action to put pressure directly on the supermarket concerned and to raise the issue directly, or via the media, with local people (see section on direct action).
• The local media loves planning battles, but be aware how you may be portrayed. It's best to tap into local concerns so as not to come across as 'mad environmentalists'.

Step 3 - Be clear about the planning process

• Get to grips with the local planning system, see the FOE (www.yourplanningrights.co.uk) and CPRE (www.planninghelp.org.uk) planning websites for easy to digest guides to the local planning process. Familiarise yourself with Planning Policy Statement 6 which sets out the government's national policy on town centre and local retail development and especially the parts of it that will help you frame your objections. Find out what the regional and local policies say about retail development in your area.
• To find out more about a planning application, check the council's website, the government's Planning Portal website (www.planningportal.gov.uk), look out for site notices, check the local press, talk to local councillors, get a circulation list for new applications and share the task with like-minded groups.
• Make 'face to face' contact with your local planning officers to make them aware of your concerns. They can also explain local policies to you. It's always good to keep on friendly terms with them - its amazing how much more co-operative and indiscreet local government officers can be if you're nice to them. Sometimes applicants have had pre-negotiations with the Council before making an application. Ask the planning officer if this has taken place.
• Find out which planning officers are dealing with the application; when the planning committee meetings are; who the committee members are and which of them might be sympathetic to your arguments; also which councillors might be sympathetic to your arguments and how you can influence the full council meeting. It might help to draw a diagram of who makes decisions at various stages, and how they can be influenced.

Step 4 - Develop your arguments

• It's best to concentrate your fire in a complex planning case. Rather than trying to say something about everything, work out your strongest arguments bearing in mind what PPS6 requires the local authority to consider when looking at an application. These considerations will mainly be the use of the sequential approach, traffic impact of the new store, its impact on the vitality of the existing town centre and surrounding retail centres and the need for a new store. Check out the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister's website www.odpm.gov.uk for details of previous planning cases to see what arguments have been used to beat the developers and see the local groups directory to see what arguments worked when the objectors won.
• Look out for the supermarket's strategy. They will employ a PR firm and sell messages about new jobs and other benefits to the area. They may also be offering 'planning gains' in the form of new roads, playgrounds, football stadiums etc. Prepare your counter attack. Argue that these 'benefits' will not outweigh the negative impacts. Strong local opposition to a development, together with sound arguments, could persuade the planning committee to reject it.
• Hold a letter writing evening to get loads of objections in.

Step 5 - Dealing with Appeals and Public Enquiries

• Even if the planning committee reject the application, supermarkets frequently go to appeal. If it's of regional or national importance, it might also get 'called in' for a public inquiry. So be prepared for a long and complex battle fighting the planning case. Supermarkets will use their financial muscle to get the best lawyers, planning and transport consultants. Take them on yourselves by all means (see the directory for details of folk who have successfully done just that) or get some help from friendly planners and legal contacts.
• The appeals procedure: if the application is refused by the planning committee, the supermarket has six months in which to apply to the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister who may appoint an independent inspector to look into the case. If appointed, the inspector looks at the original reasons for refusal, the applicant's case and the position of other interested parties. A report will then either grant or refuse permission. This can be appealed at the High Court but this is rare. However, with so many appeals being lodged it would probably take at least ten months before an inspector could even get started. The alternative is for the supermarket to submit a new request for planning permission, but they can't do this for another two years.

Step 6 - And if they win

• As the law stands at the moment, objectors have no right of appeal. Despite widespread support for this right of appeal and the fact that the lack of such a right appears to contravene article 6 of the Human Rights Act, third parties (e.g. the opponents of supermarket developments) do not have the right of appeal against a planning decision. It may be possible to start a judicial review of the local authority's decisionmaking process, but this is potentially very costly. Seek advice from a solicitor if you want to follow this up further. Even if the store gets permission, it may still be worth fighting the access roads/car parking applications, as if refused this might make the store development unviable.
• Check that the supermarket adheres to the conditions of the planning permission and delivers on any promises they have made to the council.
• In several cases, stores have been designed specifically to allow expansion at some later date (often despite assurances to the contrary) so be ready to fight again in the future.
• Develop a campaign to support your local shops/reinvigorate the town centre. Campaigners in Leominster set up a loyalty card scheme 'Loyalty to Leominster' to help raise awareness of the need to support local businesses if they were to survive after the opening of the new supermarket. Transform your town into a 'local food town' like Castle Douglas (see local campaigns section) or create and distribute a local food directory. A list of the local food directories already available is at the local food works website www.localfoodworks.org. Contact the 'Tools for Local Economic Renewal' project at nef which provides workshops and resources to local communities to help them take action to revive their local economies (see Resources section).

Finally, enjoy your campaign. Good luck!

Direct action is not just something to turn to as a last resort as the contractors move in, but a tactic that can be used throughout your campaign. It's proved effective in stopping other developments around the country. It gives your community the chance to impose direct financial costs on the corporation that has ignored its views and to raise public awareness about the proposed development.

Direct action early in your campaign might also put the developer off, draw some unwelcome publicity for the corporation and boost your support among the local community. Local people managed to stop a supermarket development in Yeovil by squatting on the roof of the building proposed for the redevelopment. Squatting has also bought time for campaigns in Brighton and on the Old Kent Road, London. Once one store has a foothold in a town or community, its rivals will be watching very closely, eager to pounce too. Towns rarely stop at just one major store. So even if direct action doesn't stop the store it's targeting, the next developer may not want to face that kind of opposition. Contact your local Earth First! group for tips or to see if they want to join the campaign (see Useful Contacts section).

When you set up a campaign against a supermarket development in your area, there are undoubtedly going to be a range of different responses from total support to downright anger. In Castle Douglas, Dumfries and Galloway, a group of residents, so annoyed at the success of the anti-Tesco campaign, set up a pro-Tesco campaign canvassing on the opposite side of the road with a petition FOR Tesco.

It is understandable that people want better, closer and cheaper shopping facilities, especially the elderly and infirm. To some people, a campaign against a big supermarket chain is seen as an attack on their right to access these facilities, or at least an attack on what is perceived as 'decent' competition which could improve the existing shopping facilities. These debates represent the conflict between self-interest and a wider vision of what's best for the community and the wider environment as a whole.

The evidence, some of which we have detailed in this briefing suggests that a new supermarket development is not a good thing for local communities. The cheap food that supermarkets say they provide also comes at a much wider cost -in terms of exploitation of overseas workers, environmental destruction and animal abuse, and the costs we pay as taxpayers for tidying up after industrial farming. Supermarkets may seem an obvious way to tackle food poverty, but there are numerous options for inexpensive food provision without the enormous disbenefits of another supermarket development. It's not negative to campaign against a supermarket, its positive for the community, local economy and the environment.

Of course, sometimes opposition to a supermarket will also be motivated by self-interest. As you may discover, the campaign will bring together strange bedfellows who wouldn't necessarily have common ground on any other issue e.g. N.I.M.B.Y's, members of the Campaign for the Protection of Rural England, traditional conservatives, conventional family farmers, wholefood shop owners, environmentalists, anti-globalisation activists, squatters, butchers, vegans etc

In an ideal world it would be possible to stop shopping in supermarkets and find alternative, more socially just ways of sourcing our food. Unfortunately, until we slow down our busy lives and farmer's markets become as accessible as supermarkets, this is an unrealistic proposal. It is also a disempowering demand and could turn potential allies off your campaign. One way around this is to call for people to remember that they have food choices and that they can shop less at supermarkets and more elsewhere. You could help people make these choices by producing and distributing a leaflet with details of the alternative sources for food shopping in your area (including independent grocers/greengrocers/butchers, veg box schemes, farm shops etc).and distributing a leaflet with details of the alternative sources for food shopping in your area (including independent grocers/greengrocers/butchers, veg box schemes, farm shops etc).