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Saad Saraf |
Firms warn studios sale will force them to move
Too-good-to-refuse deal goes ahead despite tenants’ objections
SMALL firms claim they are being squeezed out of Camden after a last-ditch attempt to block a secretive Town Hall land deal failed this week.
The council announced on Monday that the sale of James Cameron House, a council-run complex housing small businesses in Castlehaven Road, Camden Town, will go ahead “within days”.
The light-industry site is being sold for an undisclosed sum to Ground Gilbey, whose shareholders are also the owners of Stables Market and Hawley Wharf. They include multi-millionaire Richard Caring.
Ground Gilbey made an offer described by a council report as “sufficiently in excess of market value”. The sale, worth at least £2.5 million and possibly more because of tax clauses tied to the land in the 1980s, will go ahead despite the fact that negotiations were handled “on the basis that the council is not a willing vendor of this property”.
It was delayed while the council investigated an official complaint from tenants, which was dismissed on Monday.
Saad Saraf, whose business, Media Reach Advertising, has occupied a Cameron House unit for 16 years, said tenants were furious because they had made repeated approaches to the council over the years asking to buy their studios but had been told they were not for sale.
He added: “This has been sold without consultation and with no opportunity for tenants to come up with a counter offer. How do tax-payers know they are getting the best deal if it is secret? How does the council know someone may not have offered more?
“This leaves us having to look for alternative locations, and we will probably have to move out of Camden. The businesses here have local staff.”
Camden’s own planning rules have been overturned to ensure the deal goes through. In a behind-closed-doors discussion of the sale in February last year, the then-Labour executive was told by Town Hall experts that the council’s planning policies would “strongly resist the loss of employment floor space, particularly as the property is fully occupied and is considered suitable for small businesses”.
Cameron House will join acres of adjacent land under the Camden Market Estates umbrella. Its £12 million glass-and-chrome redevelopment plans for Stables Market were revealed last year.
A council press official said: “We put the sale on hold while we carried out an investigation into complaints from tenants. That investigation concluded last week and found that tenant complaints are unfounded.”
Tenants at Cameron House have been told leases are safe under the new owners.
n Several businesses based in archway studios at King’s Cross goods yards received notices to quit last week.
A sculptor, barrow-makers, media businesses and nightclubs are among independent traders being asked to move to make way for the £2 billion King’s Cross redevelopment. Sculptor Richard Aumonier, given three months’ notice to quit his arches workshop last week, said: “One of the great under-represented and uninvolved groups in all this are the small businesses in the goods yards.
“We accept the inevitability of the development, and I think it is a good thing for Camden, but many of us are going to find it difficult to keep going because this place is unique. We are going to drift off like shadows, and something is going to be lost.”
Landlord DHL Exel said it was obliged to give notice under a long-agreed timetable for the handover of the goods yards to developer Argent.
JOHN and Chick Sullivan’s family have been in the barrow making business since 1830.The couple are among the businesses who will have to find new premises when the King’s Cross development starts. Their market stalls are a regular sight in north London markets, and they have used two arches since 1982 for their trade – the making and maintenance of market barrows.
The pair, who live in Chalk Farm, have a lease that will run out at the end of June and face the prospect of having to re-locate their artisans workshop,
Mr Sullivan said: “We have to move our business elsewhere and get rid of a lot of our stuff, with the builders coming in. They told us we had to be out by the end of the summers.”
John and Chick have hired out over 500 barrows to market traders – barrows they have built using ash undercarriages and oak wheels.
Mr Sullivan said: “So many people know about us we’ve never had to advertise – I suppose seeing our barrows out there are adverts themselves.”
Mr Sullivan trained as a coach builder with Robsons, a firm in York Way, becming an apprenticeship in 1944. He built troop canteen trucks during the war and then lorries for Harrods. He said: “Back then, every thing but the chassis was made of wood. I did my training then joined my father in the family business.
“Making these barrows is a craft. You use ash for the undercarriage and oak for the wheels.”
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