Protesters fighting against price rises at Tesco's Leamington store take their campaign to Warwick

Protesters fighting against price rises at Tesco' s Leamington town centre store have taken their campaign to the company's larger supermarket in Warwick.

Six months since they began their protests, they now want to spread their claim that Leamington shoppers are being unfairly penalised by Tesco's 'greed'.

The price hikes have come about because the store in the Parade has changed from being a Metro to an Express branch.

Tesco says the change has been made due to changes in shopping habits - but that has not satisfied protesters who were joined by Warwick and Leamington MP Matt Western during their protests outside the Leamington store.

Now the campaigners have taken their message to Tesco's supermarket in Emscote Road in Warwick.

Campaigner Peter Glanfield said: "About 2,000 shoppers have already signed the petition demanding that the Parade store becomes a ‘superstore’ with the same prices that shoppers with cars can get at Emscote Road.

"With an area of 24,000 sq ft and 22 checkouts the Parade store is so large that it can’t even open for the extended hours permitted for normal, small Express stores. The store is fast becoming known locally as Tesco’s ‘Fake Express’ store!

"Those who travel there on foot and by bus are still battling with price rises of about 15 per cent on average above the normal Tesco superstore prices.

"Most of the older and vulnerable shoppers in Leamington can in practice only shop in the town centre and feel both angry and frustrated."

The protesters have met with Tesco bosses to try to find a solution.

Firstly, in November, the protesters were told at a meeting with the Tesco area management team that it costs them more to process small purchases at their checkouts.

"Well, perhaps a few pence more per basket at most, but certainly nowhere near a 15 per cent average price rise across most items," said Mr Glanfield.

"They failed to back up their argument."

Then in December, with support from local MP Matt Western, they had a video conference with the managing director of Tesco convenience stores in the UK.

Mr Glanfield added: "The argument to justify the huge price increases then changed to the assertion that delivery costs to the centre of the town were high and also that some of their goods had to be stored upstairs before being brought down to the customer shelves.

"But this of course doesn’t really hold any water either since M&S just down the road manage exactly the same issues with no apparent difficulty and have comparable prices to the Tesco ‘Fake Express’ for goods which many customers perceive as being of a higher quality.

"Tesco had yet again failed to come up with any justification at all for the re-branding of the store."

A spokeswoman for Tesco said: "“Over the last few years, we have seen our customers’ shopping habits change and we have taken the decision to re-brand all of our Metro stores to better reflect this.

"Our Metro format was originally designed for larger, weekly shops, but today nearly 70 per cent of customers use them as convenience stores, buying food for that day so the majority of them will be rebranded as Express stores.”