Save Our Spaces respond to City Council's claims of "misinformation"
A petition against the sale of the premises has now gathered over 400 signatures since it was launched last Friday.
In response to the petition, the City Council claimed it was “misinformation” that the sale of the premises represented a “loss of community space” as “the property sits within the Council's investment portfolio and has commercial tenants only.” They also claimed “the proposal would see two of the existing businesses [presumably Castle News and Classy Barbers] retained and continuing to operate from the property.”
Local campaign group Save Our Spaces commented: “it is unsurprising that the neoliberal technocrats of the City Council do not consider 11 New Road to be public/ community space as they they consider all publicly-owned property to be part of their own private asset portfolio to be unilaterally disposed of however they see fit. The reality is, however, that 11 New Road is a publicly-owned building, accommodating three vibrant spaces open to the public, providing much-appreciated services to thousands of members of the public every week.
“Their treatment of the nail bar in particular has been nothing short of horrendous. Whilst the business was expanding over the summer, investing in new equipment, and employing new staff - including a family with three young children, who moved from London to work in the nail bar just last month - the Council were secretly negotiating with St. Peter’s College behind their back to sell their premises and turf them out at the earliest opportunity. Have they offered them viable alternative premises to relocate to? Of course they haven’t. They even barred them from addressing today’s Cabinet meeting to approve the sale.
“And if the Council and the College are sincere in their claims that at least the existing ground floor tenants supposedly have nothing to fear, why is there no legally-binding agreement with the College to guarantee their access to these premises into the future? The reality is that two of the three businesses - Castle News and American Nails - have no security at all, and every reason to fear imminent eviction once the sale goes ahead, given the College's plans for the building, whilst the other has no security beyond the last few years left on their existing tenancy. Why has the Council not made a long-term extension of their leases, on secure terms, a condition of their sale of the property to the College? Instead, they’ve done the exact opposite: the City Council appears to have deceived the owner of American Nails and Castle News into signing a new lease in July, which she was led to believe was a simple extension of the existing tenancy, but was in fact a "tenancy at will" agreement, with zero security, and from which she can be ousted at any time. Their whole behaviour just shows total contempt for their tenants, who have been shown less than zero consideration during this whole process, not to mention their employees and customers. We are all just collateral damage as far as the Council is concerned.”