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Do we want another mall?
• CAMDEN Passage is facing yet another attack on its future as an antiques market.
The threat this time is to the building known as The Mall, the listed former tramshed which faces onto the forecourt of the Duke of York pub.
The building has been bought by property developer London and Associated Properties. This building houses numerous antiques traders on its ground floor and basement. They have all been very worried recently, as surveyors have been seen showing people around the building.
They have good reason to be worried. A little digging on the internet reveals that the new owner’s business plan is “to generate rental growth by reconfiguring units to attract top retailers and associated high rents”.
In other words, kick out all the small businesses, join all the little shop units into one big space, and then rent the resulting enlarged space to a national multiple for much higher rents.
This is exactly what happened to the Georgian Village a year ago, when the Lib Dem council simply stood by while a national clothing retailer kicked out 38 antiques traders, and replaced them with a single designer clothing store.
Are we going to see the same thing happen again, or will the Lib Dems finally realise that if they don’t start to defend Camden Passage, which is designated as “a specialist trading area for antiques and collectables” in the council’s own policies, in a couple of years time there won’t be an antiques market any more? Just another bland, “cleaner, brighter, safer”, sanitised, characterless high street shopping mall.
This may be what the Lib Dems want, but is it what the people of Islington want?
CLLR MARTIN KLUTE
Labour, St Peter’s ward |
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