Hampden Park Sainsbury’s branch accused of ‘not caring’ about disabled customers

Margaret Griggs regularly uses the Sainsbury’s in Hampden Park and claims there are no wheelchair trolleys.

She said she’s been asking for some accessible trolleys since before the first lockdown more than two years ago.

Ms Griggs said on April 19, “We were told a week ago at the help desk in store, ‘we have one but it is broken’.

“Is this discrimination or do they not care about their disabled customers?

“My money is as good as anyone else’s money.”

Ms Griggs said there are plenty of wheelchair trolleys at nearby stores like Morrisons and Tesco.

A spokesperson for Sainsbury’s said, “Our Hampden Park store currently has one wheelchair trolly available for customers to use as some are temporarily out of use.

“We’re sorry for any inconvenience this may cause and can reassure our customers that more will be available soon.”

Brian Day, chair of Eastbourne’s Access Group, said he is ‘astounded’ by the reply from Sainbury’s and ‘this blasé attitude is not to be expected from a national supermarket chain which is supposed to care about its customers’.

He said, “I am disappointed that the customer service staff did not offer to accompany Ms Griggs around the store with a trolley to assist her with her shopping which would have been the logical thing to have done.

“It’s certainly not good enough to have a pitiful one wheelchair trolley in a store the size of the Hampden Park branch.

“As Ms Griggs has stated this has been the case for a few years now despite her requests so it seems that local branch management are either not hearing about this from their customer services desk or, are ignoring the situation.”

Read more news from Eastbourne:

Eastbourne RNLI volunteers rescue dog 100 metres offshore

New art initiative starts in Eastbourne town centre cafe

Man arrested on suspicion of being drunk and disorderly in Eastbourne