Anti-Tesco campaigners are to stand a candidate at next month's Birmingham City Council elections, in Hodge Hill where the supermarket giant wants to build a store on playing fields.
Residents association official Roger Gordon aims to put pressure on the council not to sell part of the Brockhurst Road recreation ground to Tesco. The company already has planning permission for a 65,000 sq ft store, but cannot go ahead unless it can acquire the land.
Mr Gordon, who will stand as an independent, claims the council is deliberately delaying a decision on the playing fields sale until after the elections.
Veteran Labour councillor Mike Nangle is up for re-election, but the Hodge Hill ward has become increasingly marginal in recent years. The Liberal Democrats, who share power at the council with the Conservatives, are targeting the ward and were only 300 votes behind Labour in 2006.
Mr Gordon said he would highlight the lack of sports facilities in Hodge Hill, which he claimed would be made worse if Tesco managed to buy the playing fields.
"The council has failed to reinstate the recreational facilities in Stechford Hall Park," he added. "The tennis and netball courts are derelict, as are the bowling green and the pitch and putt course.
"Even the children's play area is a scene of devastation. Ward End Park is also in a deplorable condition, with the greenhouses long-since gone along with several cricket squares and the two bowling greens that used to be available and well maintained.
"All of this in a ward, sections of which are in the top five per cent of the most deprived areas in the whole of the UK, and which has the highest concentration of youth in the city."
In return for planning permission, Tesco agreed to finance a "substantial regeneration package" to help improve local sports grounds and for road improvements. The company says the cash, which includes #500,000 for a local school, will deliver better leisure facilities for the area, despite the loss of part of the playing fields.
