What the community garden has been - until this week - (above) and what it looked like before (below)...

While the national media has understandably focused on the potentially devastating impacts of the recent Tory-Liberal budget, several local issues are coming to a head.

One of those is the community garden in Brighton's Lewes Road, where Tesco now wants to build yet another supermarket.

I mentioned this in an earlier blog post in April during the election campaign on small businesses.

Read here - 'Small-businesses-need-some-big-imagination' 

Community gardeners have made the garden into a really wonderful, vibrant green oasis in a part of town short on public green space. Perhaps even more important, they've made it into a vital community hub.

However, this week, they are facing eviction and have been told they must leave.

The prospect of another Tesco supermarket in Brighton is the last thing we need, and local opposition is growing.

It will drive out the unique mix of smaller independent food retailers.

And there's already a Sainsbury's and a Co-op just nearby.

So as the local MP, I'm seeking a meeting with Tesco's, to make the case that another supermarket would have a devastating impact on smaller shops in the Lewes Road area of Brighton.

I'm also lobbying the Coalition Government to bring in a competition test to protect neighbourhoods from supermarket dominance.

I've written to Eric Pickles, the Tory Communities and Local Government Secretary, to ask him to introduce legislation to protect high streets from the impact of the giant chains.

In particular I want to see urgent reform to the antiquated planning system to ensure that the diversity of the retail landscape becomes a planning consideration, which it isn't at present.

For example, legislation could make the identity of the proposed retail occupier a consideration for planners.

The Government could introduce a local economic yield test to assess how much any new development will benefit the local economy, and a retail diversity test to ensure that all types of shops are protected.

It could force planners to assess the contribution to the community of a proposed development - for example, whether it would increase accessibility to healthy food for families on low-incomes.

I hope we can succeed in persuading Tesco but if we fail to persuade them, then I, along with my Green councillor colleagues, will encourage a community boycott of the store.

You can sign an online pledge on boycotting Tescos, should a store be built, at the Brighton and Hove Green Party site here:

http://www.brightonhovegreens.org/localsites/bh/campaigns/pledges.html