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Demolition threat to City shopping parade
Carolyn Armstrong12.03.08
One of the City's last remaining parades of independent shops faces demolition.
The 12 shopkeepers at London Central Markets in Farringdon Road have been given six months' notice after landlord Thornfield Properties was granted planning permission by Islington council for a 10-storey office block.
Some of the traders, including a butcher, greengrocer, deli, menswear shop and hairdresser, have been there for up to 30 years and fear they will be forced out of business.
Alan Fineman, 50, manager of Penessi menswear, said: "Small businesses just can't survive things like this. People are really upset and frightened for the future."
Nigel Armstrong, 50, of Meat City butchers, said: "This is the only retail parade of this standard and quality in the City. If I go - with rents and rates the way they area - this will be end of my business."
Deli owner Keith Alford, 41, said: "I'm just a small person going down the pan. They're bastardising London and the authorities don't want to know. There is no love for small businesses any more."
Thornfield Properties chairman Jason Marcus said all the leases for the retail units had break clauses in them in case of redevelopment and the tenants knew this when they signed them.
Cllr George Allan, chairman of Islington Council's south area planning committee, said: "It is of course unfortunate that retail premises have to go in the short term. But unfortunately there are no planning reasons to not allow the redevelopment of this undistinguished 1960s building.
"The new building does include retail units, and in the longer term the opportunities for a wide variety of retail premises are good in the Farringdon area, in the light of the nearby redevelopment of Farringdon Station and Smithfield Market."
The Evening Standard campaigns to protect small shops and preserve the character of high streets. Some councils are considering using planning powers to block new developments which would sweep away unique traders.
Reader views (6)
Typical of "BIG BUSINESS" in the World---another 10 story building half full. Part of Red Ken's scheme to close out Smithfield Market area. Soon nothing but dull skyscrapers in London for the Tourists to gawk at. At the exchange rate I will stay in the USA and visit Chicago----in 10 years London will look just like it---NO INDIVIDUAL shops or Identity. London is going down the pan bit by bit. So Sorry, I love London and all the UK's Great people and shops.
- Theron Helton, Illinois, USA
It isn't only rents, rates, developers and big business that are threatening the future of small businesses.
The miles of red tape and bucket loads of regulation churned out by this Government ever since they took office have had a dreadful toll on anyone who runs a small business.
- Roger, London, UK
As a regular user of all the shops in the parade, I am amazed the developers want them to quit. There is already a significant over supply of new office space, especially with Bath House being redeveloped. Haven't Thornhill noticed the credit crisis and its likely affect on tenant demand.
I suspect these useful local shops will be shut, and will be left vacant for years, until the property market has picked up enough to justify the costs of speculative development. Given the flexible lease terms why not let them trade until actual demolition takes place, or is this part of the grander scheme to make this end of Smithfield look derelict so the "main scheme" gets approved.
- Simon, London -UK
Its not that small businesses aren't providing a service that is useful to a sufficient number of people, its that they are victims of economics. Its also questionable whether the "superior service" apparently offered by large businesses isn’t in fact simple monopolization of the marketplace and clever marketing. I've yet to experience the superior service offered by a faceless multi-nationals.
We know small traders are being attacked on all sides: prohibitive rents, land prices, bulk buying discounts open to multi-national chains and blinkered planning departments.
So instead of these shops, they have approved another 10-storey office block. How wonderful. Not everything should be dictated by market forces, capitalist expansionism and the quest for empty office space. If we continue upon this path unfettered, where anything with character is eviscerated, its going to be a pretty tedious environment to live in.
- S Luker, London
Small businesses didn't survive on "love" in the past, but because they had sufficient number of customers to be able to pay a market rent. There is probably more "love" for small businesses than there has ever been - in the sense of sentimentality from people that mostly don't use small businesses themselves, because they prefer the superior service offered by large businesses, but nonetheless expect someone else to prop up non viable small businesses on their behalf.
If small businesses don't survive, that is because they aren't providing a service that is useful to sufficient number of people.
- Oliver Wilton, London, UK
It is not just a question of a handful of small businesses loosing out. It is a question of the historic character and charm of the whole area. This is what attracts other businesses and what attracts Londoners in their thousands to use the area for shopping, entertainment, eating, drinking out, and just enjoying the fascinating historic city that is London. Demolition and injection of monolithic buildings can easily kill all that. Which do you prefer Covent Garden or Elephant and Castle? Don't make Smithfield yet another area destroyed by the dead hand of "development".
- Sheila Freemna, London, UK
