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Brixton Village traders evicted, blame £1,000 a month rents By Angus Peters Rent disputes saw two traders evicted from Brixton Village last week as rising prices put further pressure on independent business. Locks were changed on the shops after owners failed to keep up with payment plans agreed with Groupe Geraud, the multinational that manages the site. One trader is reported to have broken back into the shop to retrieve possessions. Groupe Geraud said that the closures were due to a variety of personal factors, rather than rents being unreasonable. But some traders say a lack of promotion and subsequent decline in footfall makes it difficult to keep up with rents of around £1,000 a month. They added that they are being asked to open seven days a week, but cannot justify doing so financially due to competition from nearby rivals. “I think that Lambeth giving that opportunity to Pop Brixton has made it really hard for us,” one
trader told the Bugle. Commercial rents have been increasing faster year on year according to research carried out in March. An analysis report by Levy Real Estate and MSCI found that rental growth increased year on year from 7.8% in 2014, to an average uplift of 8.5% last year. Groupe Geraud said that these evictions were the result of personal difficulties such as health problems or lack of cooperation, not extortionate rents. Rachid Ghailane, markets operations manager at Groupe Geraud UK, said: “We always offer payment plans when we see someone in trouble.” Groupe Geraud are now trying to fill the empty spaces. An agreement between the operators and Lambeth Council means the shops will not be available to prospective foodtraders. Ghailane added: “Lot 27 has been marketed and will be classic trade only.” He said Lot 46 will also be for classic trade when advertised.
ISSUE 43 Writers: Celia Buzuk Kate Corry Zoe Darani Nikki Griffiths Julie Macauley Angus Peters Susan Sheehan Sub-editor: Jamila Omar Production: Alan Slingsby Crossword: Josie Gardiner A massive thank you to everybody involved in making this issue, and the Blog & Bugle project, a success If you would like to be a Bugle stockist please email distribution@brixtonblog.com
BRIXTONBLOG IN BRITISH LIBRARY ARCHIVE The Bugle’s sister website, brixtonblog.com, is to be archived by the British Library as part of its UK Web Archive which was established in 2004 to capture and archive websites from the UK domain, responding to the challenge of a “digital black hole” in the nation’s memory. It contains specially selected websites that represent different aspects of online life in the UK.
May 2016
The end of the occupation of the now-closed Carnegie library in Herne Hill saw one of the largest demonstrations seen in Brixton for some time. Protesters marched from the Carnegie to the Minet library in Myatt’s Fields – also closed to become a healthy living centre – to Brixton (below).
Shakespeare anniversary inspires library protest Friends of Carnegie Library last month marked the 400th anniversary of the death of Shakespeare and the fifteenth day since the protest occupation of the library ended with a pop-up event outside the library. They met on the steps of the library at 3pm to perform readings and to create a human chain to “put a girdle round the library” as Puck girdled the Earth in A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Business tenants barred from the library said they were unable to accept Lambeth council’s proposed alternative office
arrangements in Hub Brixton in Pop Brixton. Tom Barton said the space was “in no way equivalent to what we had or what we need. “Nearly all of us need desktop screens. In the cases of the graphic designers, photographers and architect-type people these need to be large. He said that hot-desking at Hub Brixton had been the only alternative offered. A council spokesperson told the Bugle that work on converting the library to a healthy living centre is due to start in the autumn, if
the scheme gets through the planning process. The occupation, he said, had forced the council “to reassess the security of the building”. It felt that, “rather than risk having to further restrict access to the businesses in future, it was better to relocate them so they could continue with their work. “Changes to the leases and relocations would have had to happen within months anyway due to the proposed building work, this has simply brought that process forward.”