Park bun fight... 4,000 sign petition to save Spencer’s Café in Ealing

Community rallies to prevent closure of Spencer’s Café in Ealing
Rejected bid: Alan Dillon has run Spencer’s Café in Walpole Park for nine years. He said: “I have built it and made it work and they now want to give it to someone else”
Alex Lentati
Ben Morgan19 December 2017

Angry customers have rallied to support a family-run coffee shop in a west London park that faces closure at the end of next month.

Organic coffee specialist Spencer’s Café was opened nine years ago in Walpole Park, the grounds of the Pitzhanger Manor House and Gallery, Ealing, by Alan Dillon and his family.

When its operating contract was due for renewal in the autumn, Mr Dillon applied to the Pitzhanger Manor and Gallery Trust, which now oversees the manor and park. The trust is carrying out a £12 million restoration of the Grade I listed manor designed by Sir John Soane in 1800 as a “west London retreat”. Mr Dillon, 54, who is helped by his wife and daughters, was stunned to find that despite him having started the business from scratch his application was rejected at the first stage of a “competitive tender” process.

Mr Dillon said: “It was totally shocking. I was asked to apply for the tender, but not to get through to the second stage after running this for nine years is insulting. I even offered thousands of pounds more than I’m currently paying but they still rejected me. We don’t want to go.

“Nobody knows who is going to take over, but we think it will be a big high-street name. There was no cafe for years in the park before I opened. I have built it and made it work and they now want to take my hard work and give it to someone else.”

He has received supportive letters from west London MPs Rupa Huq,

Zac Goldsmith and Sir Vince Cable, the Lib Dem leader. Mr Dillon set up an online petition which has attracted more than 4,200 signatures.

He said: “We have had the same customers for nine years. There is a lot of anger from them, they are outraged. But the upshot is that I employ a couple of people who will be put out of work.”

The manor will reopen next year along with a restaurant, whose operator is yet to be announced. Restoration work is being carried out in a partnership between Ealing council and the trust. A spokesman for the trust said: “Alan Dillon and his team have provided good service since the previous cafe closed during the renovation work. That was why Mr Dillon was warmly invited to take part in the tender process run by the trust.”

It claimed that Mr Dillon’s bid had been unsuccessful because it “did not score highly” against competitors.

A statement added: “We understand Alan Dillon’s disappointment that he was not successful but the trust followed carefully a publicised tender process. The trust must do what it believes to be in the best interests of the wider Ealing community and of the success of the manor and gallery when they reopen for the benefit of the whole community.”

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