The Supporters' Club Card is here -- Please Sign Up for it
The card is here — click to sign up. It gives you an automatic 5% discount at the three North London Open Spaces cafés run by Hoxton Beach.
On October 13, Mr Justice Sheldon gave us permission to bring a legal challenge to the City of London's decision to hand four cafés to the Daisy Green collection, who run more than 20 Australian-themed cafés across London. Of the five cafés involved, four went to Daisy Green. One of those was ours; another operator who lost his own café was offered our Highgate site instead — a café that was far from being his first choice.
The hearing must take place before December 17 — so we need to raise a lot of money, quickly.
Your support got us here. 25,000 signatures on this petition show the strength of feeling that the park cafés should be affordable, accountable and locally owned. When we first raised a legal challenge, the City told us our objections were groundless and hopeless. The courts turn down four out of five claims for judicial review. But you generously helped pay our legal costs through our GoFundMe appeal, and our legal team showed there was a case to answer.
We think the Supporters' Club is a way to bring people together and fill the cafés through the quieter winter months — a well-earned discount for supporters, and a reason to come in for everyday necessities: freshly baked bread (we bake significantly later than the high street chains), directly imported organic wines, and things you never realised you wanted — olive oil soap from Marseille, lavender essential oil from Provence, Kentish honey, our own-recipe mango pickle (Amba) from Mumbai.
Our legal challenge was about fairness: the winners appeared to be given help not available to Hoxton Beach; café customers and park users weren't consulted; there was a veil of secrecy over the process; and the agents brought in to help had a long-standing relationship with the winning bidder. Hoxton Beach had built a booming business at cafés previous operators had given up as hopeless — and weren't even shortlisted. The City of London Corporation went to some lengths to avoid the open procurement process that ordinary local authorities are legally obliged to undertake.
People have supported this campaign because they believe London's real glory is its diversity, its sense of fairness and its creativity. These are the qualities that make real businesses with a solid future.
Please download the card (for the moment you may need to check junk-spam folders), come to the cafés, and give this campaign the final push to take it over the winning line.