Over a week has gone since I had my response from Asda explaining I didn’t know where I live, but they seem to have ignored my further email (despite Will telling me that I shouldn’t hesitate to contact them if I require any further assistance). Obviously I’ll continue chasing up on the subject.

It also seems that no-one else has had any response, with the sole exception of the Clapham Junction Town Centre Manager who has had a call from them.

Apparently the message was: “We are very sorry you are unhappy about the name. We have no intention of changing it, because it would be confusing.” When asked about the naming in 2008, or on the website, Asda just apologised (apparently not knowing the area or the history).

[I’ll add that I’m fully aware of how places change over the years. I just think that (a) Battersea is worth defending and (b) Asda have an atrocious attitude on this, which is basically just to tell anyone and everyone they are wrong – without even checking their own history. Then again, it is Asda so I’m not sure why I expected better.]

No sooner do I press publish on my previous post than my email pings with bad news from the front. Lorinda Freint, the Clapham Junction town centre manager, had also raised the issue of the store being nowhere near Clapham and got this reponse:

Thank you for taking the time to email ASDA regarding our Clapham Junction store.

I am sorry to learn of your disappointment as you believe we are incorrectly naming our store.

I have followed this important issue up with Mick Beck the General Store Manager, who has confirmed that the store has always been called ‘Clapham’. As the store is just off the Junction we believe it is valid to call the store by its current title. We also feel if we were to change the stores name, it would lose some of stores current identity.

I will happily pass your comments onto the Suggestions Team who can consider this matter further for you.

Thanks again for taking the time to contact us, please let me know if I can be of any further assistance.

Kind Regards
David Raggett
ASDA Service Team

The Stalinist approach to revising history is astonishing. Given that they themselves rebranded their store two years ago reveals a shocking lack of self-awareness.

Airbrush, airbrush, airbrush: Pictures like this are being touched up in Asda's Department of Truth as you read

They themselves have in the past accepted the store is in Battersea. They changed their branding. But now a new manager knows better.

I can’t help but find it incredibly patronising to be told by someone in Leeds that we don’t know where we are. As if local people, supposedly their customers, are so moronic we do not know where we live or what our area is called. Nor have memory enough to recollect (or just dig out the photographic evidence) that their assertion is at best a reflection of being too lazy to check and at worst a blatant lie.

If they can’t be bothered to even look at their own website to see that even they still refer to it as Clapham Junction in Battersea it makes you wonder how much effort they put into anything else. There’s clearly an attitude that the customer is always wrong, and a little tiresome.

It occurred to me that I’d not provided any update on the naming of the Lavender Hill Asda store.

And the updates are actually quite exciting.

I replied to the email to me that suggested that the store is in Clapham whatever I thought. I also spoke (via Twitter if that’s a real conversation) to one of their PR team (@dom_asdapr) who suggested that ‘Junction’ is implied, or at least it was when he lived in Tooting eight years ago. He further suggested that if there is concern they could put something about it on their blog and rename it based on the response.

If it comes to the latter, since geography is not a matter of fact but the opinion of the internet people, I’m going to campaign for it to be named after the ice planet Hoth. They’d need tauntaun parking too.

While I’ve not had any further responses several others who wrote to them have posted their, far more positive, responses on Streetbook.

Biscuit wrote asking exactly where in Clapham the store was (having seen their posters) because he wasn’t aware of any Asda stores in the Clapham area. They responded:

The poster was referring to the ASDA store at Clapham Junction, the store we have is in Battersea. We don’t have another store in Clapham.

Micky G and Gail both had the same response to their complaint:

The Marketing Team have come back to me regarding your complaint in connection with Clapham Junction.
This is an oversight on our behalf and the marketing will be changed immediately.

It seems there’s three different positions:

  1. They are in Clapham
  2. They are in Battersea
  3. They don’t know and will ask

But option two is probably the winner. The responses that Asda is in Battersea were fairly clear, and I’m not you can put much store in a late night Twitter conversation with someone in PR (sorry people in PR). I’m just not going to say anything about the email I got.

Is it too early to call this a victory for the people of Battersea? I’m not sure, however, I’m impressed at what could be achieved by just a few people, with the facts on their side, getting together on a website and taking up an issue with a corporate giant may achieve. Dare I call it an example of the Big Society? Yes. Yes, I dare!

I had a response from Asda following my complaint about them branding their Lavender Hill store ‘Clapham’.

Hello James.

Thank you for contacting ASDA about the name we have given to our ASDA Clapham store.

I’m sorry to learn of your disappointment at ASDA naming the store Clapham instead of Battersea. I can assure you ASDA welcome all customers, whatever there background. We certainly don’t want to offend anyone with the name of the store.

Having spoke to the General Store Manager, he confirmed the store is in Clapham, this is the reasoning for the name of the store. Also if we were to change the name of the store it would lose it’s identity in the local area.

Again, I’m sorry to hear of your disappointment, I hope all your points have been covered in this email. If you require any further assistance please do not hesitate to contact me.

Kind Regards

Will Hayton
ASDA Service Team

I only moved to Battersea 13 (fourteen, if you round up) years ago so I’m quite happy to admit I’ve been wrong all this time and have somehow fooled myself into…

Hold it. No. Of course I’m not wrong. Even as a relative newcomer I have seen enough evidence, both objective and subjective, to know I live in Battersea and the Asda store is in Battersea. Of course areas change, but not at the whim of one person (unless Wal-mart have staged a coup d’etat I missed and their manager is now some sort of regional governor). I could pretend I’m typing this in Manhattan. Or on the moon. But that doesn’t make it so.

Happier times: 2008, when people knew where they were
I will be replying to Asda, but decided to hold off my reply to calm a little. The odd thing is that the more time passes the angrier I get about Asda’s attitude.

I’d love to know the manager’s connection with the area prior to managing the store. Very often in retail the managers (because of the nature of their career progression) manage stores some distance from their home – this is particularly true in London where moving can be expensive. But even putting that aside…

Has he had a chat with one of my neighbours who obviously mistakenly believes she has lived in Battersea for the best part of 80 years – all that time a few hundreds yards from the store (or the railway yard that preceded it).

Or perhaps he’s raised it with the council, who – in 2008 – mistakenly passed a motion that highlighted SW11 is Battersea (opens PDF).

I’m sure he’s popped into the Royal Mail delivery office next door to the store and told them how wrong they are to call themselves the Battersea Office. And while he was at it had a word with Battersea Library and Battersea Arts Centre. I can only imagine how foolish they must all have felt having the wrong names all these years.

And I’m sure they’ve had a chat with their press office and the previous store manager. Pointing out their total ignorance when in 2008 they changed the name of the store to reflect it’s true location of Clapham Junction, Battersea.

It seems an age ago, in the early days of this blog, that I celebrated Asda ‘moving’ to Battersea. Unfortunately it appears they have decided Battersea isn’t for them, and have moved back to Clapham.

Following the lead of a few on Streetbook I’ve complained to Asda about this using their contact form. Here’s what I said:

I’m disappointed that following your recent refurbishment of your SW11 store you decided it brand it Asda Clapham.

It’s unfortunate because it isn’t in Clapham, it’s some distance from it. In fact the SW11 postcode puts you firmly in the heart of Battersea (the post office neighbouring your store, or the Battersea Delivery Office, would be happy to confirm, I’m sure).

What makes it doubly disappointing is that it’s less than two years since you responded to local complaints and named the store ‘Clapham Junction, Battersea’ to accurately reflect its location.

While I understand the confusion, being near to Clapham Junction, there are several other local landmarks that give away the true location; you can see Battersea Library from your car park. Then there’s Battersea Arts Centre just up the road (it used to be Battersea Town Hall).

‘Clapham Junction’ was a marketing decision. At the time it was built Clapham was seen as more up-market than Battersea, so the Clapham label was attached to help attract development to the area.

But today people are proud to live in Battersea, it’s a much nicer neighbourhood than Clapham. Given the history behind the naming, I can only assume that if you don’t rename it’s because you believe the community you serve is so downmarket you want to avoid association with them! Surely this can’t be true and you have plans to correct the name.

I’ll post any reply I get.

Battersea, according to flickr (screenshot from http://boundaries.tomtaylor.co.uk/)

I love things like this. It is the geek in me. The map above is from a project called Boundaries by Tom Taylor (and thanks to Robert Brook for bringing it to my attention). It essentially takes the data that flickr users input when they upload their photos. While there’s complicated background to it which you can find via the Boundaries site, users are essentially asked where the photo is; although GPS data has already given a precise location no-one lives at a GPS co-ordinate, they live in a neighbourhood, or an area, or a town.

This data can then be used to map where people think areas are, not where they are told they are. And some if it is remarkably accurate. Take the map of London, for example, or the counties around London.

I love it for three reasons:

1. It’s proof of the value of having data opened up. People will use it for wonderful things.
2. It shows that, actually, a lot of people (well, flickr users) know they are in Battersea – not Clapham.
3. It’s just intrinsically interesting.

Of course, there are downsides…

Clapham, according to flickr users (screenshot from http://boundaries.tomtaylor.co.uk/
Clapham, according to flickr (screenshot from http://boundaries.tomtaylor.co.uk/)

A lot of flickr users also wrongly think they live in Clapham. Enough to create a huge map swathe reaching all the way down to Brixton all the way up to the Thames.

So not entirely good news for those of us who want to defend Battersea as something that’s not Clapham (it’s better than Clapham, better by miles).

Wandsworth Borough NewsIf not a total surprise, I was saddened to hear that Wandsworth’s local paper is no more.  Even more so that it passed with no-one noticing, the issue published just before Christmas, it was announced, was the last.  It has now been merged with the Wandsworth Guardian meaning, effectively, it is no more.

As I said, it was not a surprise, we all knew that its circulation was low and I suspect that it may well have been reliant on advertising revenue from all the ads the council are legally required to publish in their local press.  But it is worth remembering it was not always like that.

When I first got involved in Wandsworth politics it was viewed with the utmost importance.  As a council candidate I was encouraged to get letters published in it so I would have some name recognition, and I remember pushing press releases and photos (taken with old fashioned film and developed at Snappy Snaps) through the door of their offices on West Hill.  But while it might seem horribly naive, it really wasn’t that long ago that local newspapers were the main, if not the only, source of local news.

The rise of the internet
The internet wasn’t always the pervasive font of all knowledge it is now.  Many people simply did not have access, those that did were forced to endure tortuously long downloads on a dial-up connection that got cut off when someone used the phone in the other room.  Even when you were connected, there just weren’t trusted sources of local news or if there were, Google didn’t exist to help you find them.

But now the Internet is everywhere, on our computers at work and at home, sitting in our pockets on our phones or waiting to be summoned, like a genie, from our low-cost netbook.  And with it comes an expectation that curiosity about news will be satisfied immediately, not when the local paper is published next Wednesday.

The regionalisation of news
Alongside came a change in the way we view ourselves.  It has always been there, to a degree, but I think we are far more Londoners now than we were.  Most people, if asked to name their local paper, would immediately answer the Evening Standard (and some might even suggest the Metro or thelondonpaper or London Lite).  After all, many people spend the daylight hours at work in the City or Westminster rather than at home in Wandsworth.

I don’t think this is necessarily a bad thing: I have enormous pride in being a Londoner, and being a very small part of the greatest city the world will ever know.  But I don’t think that pride is incompatible with my pride in being a part of Wandsworth, or Battersea, or even a resident of the Shaftesbury Park Estate.  Each one brings with it a unique source of pride – whether it’s the joy of the Wandsworth diversity, living so close to Battersea Park or being a temporary resident in a fabulous Victorian housing project – that I just can’t get from living anywhere else.

Defending our communities
My sadness comes from the fact that a little symbol of one of those communities, Wandsworth, has now gone.  We don’t really have a local paper anymore, that you could nip to your newsagent once a week to get with some milk.  That does not mean we have lost the fight and are all part of a big homogenous London and nothing else.

The council has always defended our town centres, which provide distinct and vibrant hubs rather than giant anonymous shopping centres.  We have the amenity societies in Battersea, Putney and Wandsworth that stand up for what they believe is best about their patches.  In Battersea there is even the SW11tch campaign fighting hard against the dreadful Clapham-creep that estate agents seemed determined to impose on us good Battersea folk.

Communities will change.  That is inevitable.  Be it 100 years or 1,000 years some historian with a niche interest will look back on the communities I am passionate about with a mixture of bemusement and intellectual curiosity because the concepts and areas are as alien to him as the feudal system is to children in our schools.  But that does not mean we shouldn’t fight for the communities we love, and it does mean we should spare a moment to pay our respects to a fallen comrade:  The Wandsworth Borough News: 1885 – 2008.

The Asda store on Lavender Hill re-opened today as ‘Asda Clapham Junction Battersea’ in response to the SW11tch campaign to make sure the area is properly named.

Celebrating the 'opening' of Asda Battersea
Celebrating the 'opening' of Asda Battersea

Asda was one of the biggest offenders (Wal-Mart is the world’s largest company).  So it’s a real coup for the campaigners to get them to recognise where they live.

A common question is ‘why is it important’?  I think there are two answers.

First, you need to know where you are!  When Waitrose announced they had bought some Woolworth’s stores and would be opening new shops there was a real buzz on a Clapham web-forum.  Until, that is, they realised that Waitrose had made a mistake, and were moving to Battersea, not Clapham High Street.

But the second issue is branding.  Wal-mart do not allow each Asda store to create their own brand, perhaps focusing on different products, or creating their own logo.  It is important to have a distinctive brand that people recognise and can trust, especially when times are hard.  And it’s no less important for Battersea to have it’s own brand, so people know where and what it is – a high quality, diverse and distinctive destination.