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Shop rents have been subsidised for years
• IS it just me or do others think that some people will always complain?
I’ve been trying to follow some of the discussion about the so-called sell-off of our local shops. For many years, these shopkeepers have complained about the council as their landlord. Now, when they get the chance to pay a fair price or get a decent, professional landlord, they don’t like that either.
Might this be because the council taxpayer has been subsidising their rent for goodness knows how many years? And, of course, it might be worth asking all those who say that such a subsidy is a good thing: what about shops that don’t have the council as their landlord?
As far as I know, the council has a responsibility to look after the council taxpayers’ interests first. If it wants to subsidise a shop or any tenant, then that has to be a declared public policy.
To those who now seek to blame the council for the apparent loss of small independent shops, I say: phooey! It’s lack of customers that make shops go out of business. We all may say we hate Tesco and other supermarkets but they never seem to be empty.
The council is not selling the shops but just the leases. The shops remain protected as far as planning law allows. They also get the opportunity to buy their freehold or get a new and better landlord.
When this happened four years ago to another load of council properties the same scare stories were in the Tribune. I can’t recall seeing any reports of any of those voluntary sector organisations going out of business.
But I know that one of those leading the charge then against the council, the Citizens’ Advice Bureau, has now closed. Liquidators are now carrying out an investigation into whether there has been financial mismanagement.
And, as for the Labour Party, first they claim it’s the wrong decision. Then it’s too much to expect shopkeepers to pay and now it’s not enough, so they call the Audit Commission in.
They are a shabby and opportunistic opposition who ought to keep their heads down, given the record of their government
Are you aware that Gordon Brown has done precisely what the council is proposing with ministry buildings: sold off the assets and then leased the properties back at exorbitant rents?
Let’s not forget just why the council is saddled with enormous debts – because Labour borrowed money years ago and never dreamed we, council tax-payers, would have to repay it.
SYLVIA HODGE
Thornhill Road, N1
• THE bids from property developers for the council’s commercial property portfolio were opened on Friday.
Leaseholders now wait in limbo while the council assesses the bids.
This competitive bidding process has been promoted by the Lib-Dem executive as a fair means of reaching a market value for the 220 properties being sold. Individual leaseholders who have reached this stage of the process will have to match the value bid for their property by investors in the booming speculative property market.
This is not the true valuation of the properties. It is based on the money developers will be able to make out of the properties by rent increases, re-sale and redevelopment. The council has promoted the sale on the basis of huge rent increases being achieved by the new owners.
It advertises that the current rent of £2.4 million per annum could be increased to £3.7 million per annum as 55 per cent of the current income from the properties is subject to outstanding rent review and lease renewals.
Unfortunately, the small retailers who are not able to purchase their properties will suffer large rent increases that will affect the sustainability of their businesses.
The “level playing field” the executive has insisted exists between these companies and individual leaseholders pitches small retailers and service providers against investors that exist to exploit the ups and downs of the property market.
The Islington Traders Group (ITG) has endeavoured to provide information and support to affected leaseholders to ensure they are treated fairly in the process. This has been hindered by the council’s process for the sale.
The executive has also cited the Data Protection Act repeatedly when committee members of ITG have endeavoured to compile a list of affected small businesses to facilitate their progress through the sale process.
The group now has a list because the act did not extend to protecting their particulars from publication in the portfolio promotional literature. Property developers and others hoping to make money out of the sale have had the information for approximately four to five weeks. ITG obtained a copy on May 1.
This is yet another example of the Lib Dems’ “level playing field” for small businesses who wish to purchase their freeholds and protect their livelihoods from the vagaries of new landlords.
MARGARET LAMONT
Great Percy Street, WC1
• COUNCIL leader Councillor James Kempton states that the difficult decision he and his executive colleagues have taken is basically down to a very stark choice between being a shop landlord or building new schools (Now groups face rent rises, May 11).
As a mere resident and user of services such as state schools and of small businesses like those independent, non-chain store shops in Upper Street, I don’t think I like the choice being reduced to one or the other.
Having lived in the borough for 15 years (during both political administrations), I have already seen many small, seemingly thriving shops close, presumably due to higher rents from private landlords, and be replaced by yet another restaurant, café or bog-standard high-street-familiar-name store.
Now it seems this gradual erosion of local character is to be taken to its full conclusion by the council selling off its property stock to the highest bidder, who will then put up rents in a largely unregulated market.
The cash receipts from these sales will then be used to build new schools, apparently. This justification seems to me disingenuous, at best.
Presumably, Cllr Kempton thinks those Tribune readers interested in this issue are wholly unaware of the government’s Building Schools for the Future (BSF) initiative whereby all sub-standard or ageing Victorian school buildings will be replaced by a multi-million-pound programme.
I’m no great central government supporter when it comes to the often-misguided “education, education, education” policies of the Blair-Adonis axis of spin. However, I reckon that if the BSF second wave funding bids submitted by Islington have resulted in the borough schools being shortchanged (due to bad planning or low estimates), then Cllr Kempton should go back to the government and ask for more, more, more.
The question of either subsidising small shops and businesses or letting them compete against market forces is a dilemma, no doubt. But to link it to state education provision is going too far.
PAUL GREANEY
Crossley Street, N7
• IT is ridiculous that Labour and Green councillors and others have complained about council plans to sell off small shops in Islington.
If the posters in the windows I’ve seen along Upper Street are anything to go by, I reckon most of the shops affected are fancy little boutiques and designer clothes and furniture stores.
As a ratepayer, I wish I’d known sooner that the council has been subsidising these shops – I’d have complained about it!
As far as I’m concerned, the council should be using my taxes to pay for council services, not subsidise posh boutiques I can’t afford to shop in anyway.
JIM HOWARDS
Elizabeth Avenue, N1
• COUNCILLOR James Kempton’s desire to improve the education facilities in Islington is admirable. Raising the funds for these improvements by selling off the freeholds of 200 small businesses is not.
To simplify this issue to one of shops or schools illustrates the executive’s lack of appreciation of the complex impact its policy will have on the community.
The injustice of the method of sale, the lack of recognition of the contribution the small businesses make to the community and the inflationary pressure on the supply of goods and services to the people of Islington are all major concerns.
The council has not been a competent commercial landlord but, in the past, it was concerned with the social viability of the community.
The document advertising the sale of the properties to speculative interests promotes the council’s mismanagement of the commercial portfolio as a positive feature. It is being used to inflate the value of properties, with outstanding rent reviews and lease renewals, to potential purchasers. Small businesses cannot survive the huge rent increases and redevelopment plans of a property developer landlord.
No one has said the building of schools and the supply of quality education to our children is not an appropriate use of council funds. What is questionable is how the proceeds of this sale of freeholds of business premises and homes to property developers will be used.
There are still no concrete plans for the allocation of the funds raised. Capital improvements for schools have already been funded by central government.
There has been no consultation with the community or assessment of the impact of the sale.
When these shops and services are gone, Islington’s unique character will be further compromised and the quality of life of the residents irrevocably changed.
DALE BARTER
Islington Traders Group
Amwell Street, EC1 |
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