Hove has become a battleground between an increasing number of supermarkets.

Shopkeeper Paul Cottingham has been in charge of Cullens on Church Road for 13 years, but this year could be his last at the store.

In many ways Church Road is the final frontier in a war largely won by Tesco.

Late last year, the chain opened a superstore on the other side of the street, 200 yards away from Cullens.

It then opened another outlet last month 300 yards in the other direction, in Western Road.

Now it has bought all but a handful of the Cullens stores in a multi- million pound deal.

The branch in the Droveway will become a Tesco Express - making it the sixth Tesco in Hove.

Mr Cottingham is fighting back. He has taken over the Cullens premises in Church Road himself and from next month it will be known as Cottinghams of Hove.

He said: "I admire much of what Tesco does. The store near us is big with a wide range of produce, much of it cheap.

"But not everyone wants to go to Tesco. We have a wide range of products and we offer personal service."

Mr Cottingham, who lives in Saltdean, has been in retail since the day he left school and went to work for Evershed, the Shoreham-based wholesaler for Spar.

He joined Cullens in 1989, taking a post at the head office in London.

Then the opportunity came up to take on the franchise for the store in The Droveway, Hove. Shortly after he also took on the Church Road store.

When the strain became too much, he gave up the Droveway store and concentrated on Church Road, aiming to turn it into a market leader and even employing his mother at the hot food counter.

For the past 13 years he has bought, sold, taken stock, hired, fired and served without many breaks and with even fewer complaints.

Only he really knows why he has stuck at it so long and especially in recent years when Tesco has creamed off a lot of the profits.

He said: "You ask any retailer why they stay in their job. It just gets stuck in you.

"Retail is always changing and you are always trying to keep up with those changes.

"There have been many times when I have had the opportunity to get out of it but I like it. No two days are the same. There are always fresh challenges."

The shop itself has changed immeasurably over the years.

When Mr Cottingham first took on the franchise, it was little more than a delicatessen, which also sold bread.

He said: "Most convenience stores don't carry the wide range of fresh food we now carry because they only stock things people want in an emergency, like beer and cigarettes.

"We want people to have a special reason to come here other than it is the only shop open near where they live. The battle we have is to create a niche."

Once Cottinghams is free from the Cullens imprint, it will be able to buy from local suppliers.

Fruit and veg will be bought from a local market, while a deal has been signed with a local dairy for milk, cheese and butter.

The main strength of the business will be what Mr Cottingham calls food for home - English and foreign dishes cooked lovingly by a chef called Big Dave.

Mr Cottingham admits he will never be able to compete with Tesco on cans of beans or packets of cornflakes but says he will be able to offer good deals on a wide variety of goods with keener and more competitive pricing than in the past.

It will also try to retain the rather upmarket image Cullens has had since it was founded 127 years ago.

Cottinghams will also continue to stock the odd quirky item of food and offer the personal service not normally available elsewhere.

Cullens has a healthy customer base of 6,000 who use the store every week, including Chris Eubank and Norman Cook.

But the Tesco store hit like a hammer blow when it opened last year.

Mr Cottingham said: "We never believed the superstore would hit us as hard as it did and we haven't seen any signs of recovery yet. It has been overwhelming."

By streamlining every aspect of the business - from stock to staff - he has bought himself enough time to get through to the summer. He will then be pinning his hopes on the relaunch.

He said: "The biggest threat is our own complacency. If there is one thing I have learned over the past six months, it is that we used to turn up, open the doors and let people come in to fill up their baskets.

"We were relatively successful at that but now there is so much choice you have to fight for every customer.

"We have to keep people coming in by consistently communicating what we are doing.

"The situation now is almost like a Spanish tourist resort with 15 restaurants in a row all competing for the same business. We have to take the same approach to custom they do.

"People know what to expect in Tesco. It is very straightforward - they are not innovators."

Ironically, it is perhaps the competition, the thrill of the chase, which keeps Mr Cottingham going in the face of such overwhelming odds.

He said: "I enjoy being successful and I'm a very competitive person.

"To use a football analogy - at the moment we are 4-0 down. We have to win 5-4. That's got to be the dream."

Wednesday March 31, 2004