We, the community in and around Clapham Park, are upset and angry that the last remaining shop on Poynders Parade, Fal’s Londis, which has served our community so reliably for so long, has been shut down in abrupt fashion with no respect for what local people actually want, or need.  We ask that Metropolitan Thames Valley Housing Ltd come to a fair agreement with our last remaining local shopkeeper to enable Fal’s Londis, to reopen immediately.

BACKGROUND

At 4am on Saturday 17th July Metropolitan Thames Valley Housing Ltd, with no warning and no regard for the impact on our local community, repossessed the last remaining functioning shop at Poynders Corner SW4 (junction of Clarence Avenue and South Circular). Fal and Dilip who run this local Londis store have been serving our community for 41 years. At the time they were trying to negotiate terms to continue trading. 

A notice of repossession is all that is left on the closed shop front. This is an insult to any idea of local democracy – and there are now NO local shops where once there was a whole parade.

The shops were originally built as part of the Clapham Park Estate in the early 60s and included a pub, fish & chip shop, bakers/café, hardware store, large post office/grocery, betting shop, chemist, an off-licence and a supermarket which became Fal’s Londis.  Over the years they have offered a wide range of fresh and other foods and household essentials. They have constantly added to and enhanced their range to meet the needs of the diverse local community they serve.  Before and after school, people would be in and out of Londis and there was a steady stream of customers all day long.  Because they served us for so many years and so unfailingly, people came to trust and rely on them and assumed that they would always be there.  During the pandemic Fal and Dilip made sure that local people could always get essential supplies and went out of their way to look after the most vulnerable. This often involved lengthy additional journeys to warehouses to try to get basic supplies when the situation was most challenging. They made up food parcels for customers and organized deliveries. They were doing everything they could on our behalf. It is a pity that their service has failed to be recognized by the landlord when the slogan ‘People Powered Living’ is emblazoned on the offices of Metropolitan's Atkins Road office. What an absolute nonsense!

The regeneration of the Clapham Park Estate has been underway for more than 20 years under Lambeth Council then Clapham Park Homes and then the responsibility was passed to Metropolitan.  Over the past 15 years the overall plans to ‘regenerate’ the estate have been delayed and altered with constantly changing planning proposals, with very little communication or involvement with the community. It is impossible for local people to keep up with the changing plans.

Metropolitan’s actions have impacted negatively on the community they serve.  Clapham Park Estate is due to eventually double in size from 2000 to 4000 homes and there is a new school now expanding on Clarence Avenue, Harris Academy Clapham.  You might expect that extra shops and services would be maintained. Instead they (Metropolitan) have gradually shut down the Poynders facilities, starting with the Bank of Swans pub. This has remained a sad sight for more than 10 years with breeze blocks cemented up inside its windows and graffiti. Then they let the Poynders shopkeepers go one by one, re-letting each of the premises through Global Guardians for short-life tenancies until only Fals’s Londis remained. This is despite the fact that the planned rebuilding of Poynders Parade is still several years away. Fal and Dilip were willing to keep trading until this time and to cease trading with only a short notice required. Locals are upset not just about what has happened to them but about the lack of planning for replacement services.

This is not a wealthy area, and a cynic would say that this could only have happened where people are less likely to be homeowners and to have the collective muscle to ensure that facilities remain at the heart of the community. Imagine for a moment what would happen if Abbeville Road was systematically robbed of all its shops and then eventually the last shop closed! It simply would not be allowed to happen because the people who live there have connections and they have more money and agency.

Poynders Parade of shops and services, though somewhat run-down and dilapidated through lack of investment, used to form the heart of the community and the people who ran the shops there came to know and be known by everyone even those who were recently arrived. Now there is nothing left despite the vision promoted endlessly on glossy hoardings of a wonderful life in Clapham Park’s ‘global village’ . This sounds like a hollow promise.  A Sainsbury’s local half a mile away cannot serve or sustain a community. 

Fal and Dilip are very upset to have their business and links to the community severed so abruptly. They are desperate to be reinstated to the shop by re-negotiation of terms with Metropolitan Thames Valley Housing Ltd.  Please sign the petition to help them re-open as soon as possible and fight to keep what remains of our community alive!