Former Castle Point MP Bob Spink has thrown his weight behind a campaign to save pounds and ounces.

A European regulation, which will come into force on January 1, will make it illegal to sell goods by imperial weight.

Instead, shoppers will have to buy their products by the metric grams and kilograms.

Mr Spink, who hopes to snatch back the Castle Point seat at the next general election, is backing the Conservative Party to fight the changes.

He said: "It is going to cost a lot of money for local traders to convert their pricing machines and scales. It will also cause a lot of confusion for elderly folk. To my mind, this is not going to gain an awful lot.

"I am a traditionalist and I think it is just change for change sake.

"Very little help has been given to the small traders and it is yet another burden for the smaller shops at the heart of our community."

Mr Spink supported Hadleigh butcher Brian Reeves when he popped in to buy his Christmas turkey weighed in pounds and ounces for the last time.

Mr Reeves, owner of Reeves butchers in London Road, said: "If we were given the chance we would rather not have to do it but it is going to happen.

"It is a bit too late protesting about it now.

"We have known about this for years and we have already had our scales converted."

But Mr Reeves did feel the change would cause confusion for some of his customers.

He added: "I think there will certainly be a lot of confusion, not from the traders, but from the customers, particularly elderly ones.

"They will come in here and look at a price and think it is an awful lot of money for what they think they are getting.

"It is going to take a fair bit of explaining.

"I think it needs a bit more publicity and people need to be made aware of the quantities they should ask for."

Imperial turkey - MP Bob Spink buys his last bird in pounds and ounces from Hadleigh butcher Brian Reeves

Picture: MAXINE CLARKE

Converted for the new archive on 19 November 2001. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.