If town hall planners can’t save Portobello, what are they for?

12 April 2012

So long, Good Fairy. Hello, Ugly Sister. No, this is not a pantomime script — although it might seem like one. I refer to The Good Fairy arcade in Portobello Road, home to 50 bustling antique stalls of the sort that make the road in west London so famous. Now the planning officials in Kensington town hall have done their worst and decreed that in its place is to be built a five-storey retail and loft-style apartment complex.

Doubtless the new development will contain the sibling of one of those chain stores that populate London and Britain's cities and towns — and deprive them of so much of their traditional character. Goodbye colour, welcome uniform blandness.

This week's decision is the third blow to the historic Portobello market recently: a large AllSaints clothing shop has been allowed to open on the site of another antiques arcade, Lipka's, on the corner of Westbourne Grove. Meanwhile, at Van's arcade, a further 11 antiques traders will lose their stalls.

The moves have not been allowed to occur without significant protest. Famous local residents, including screenwriter Richard Curtis, who wrote the hit film Notting Hill, have lined up to voice their anger. The Save the Portobello Market page on Facebook has 33,972 supporters.

And still the property developers and bureaucrats do not budge. While it would be naive to expect the former to concede — the UK is awash with examples where projects have gone ahead despite large-scale opposition, and a large brass neck is de rigueur for anyone determined to be successful in the industry — the behaviour of the council is a different matter.

The borough planning officer, Luke Perkins, says he is powerless to intervene to protect the antiques trade because technically there is no change of use involved: their business is retail and the new occupants will also be in retail.
Yes, Mr Perkins, you are, of course, correct. But where's your spine, man? Where is the backbone that says no, we want Portobello to retain its unique character — and not become like every other shopping street in London, with the same shops selling the same items?

Because make no mistake, that is where the old familiar market is headed. Uniqueness and charm are disappearing — to be replaced by yet more coffee shops and branded tat. Antiquarius in Chelsea's King's Road, the location of 50 small businesses, has gone, to make way for a US fashion chain. Kensington Market, beloved of vintage clothes buyers and collectors, is no more. In Islington, Camden Passage saw 40 antiques traders disappear from its mall. At Camden Market, the 19th-century Stables Market is all gleaming steel and glass — with all the feel of a superstore.

It's not just the antiques trade that is under attack. The main shopping streets in the West End — Piccadilly, Regent Street, Oxford Street — have seen individual boutiques vanish. Nearly always, the new arrival is a branch of a large chain.

Perhaps this is what we want — for our beloved city to become one giant globalised shopping mall without distinction and with stores that exist in every major retail centre in the world. If so, we are going the right way about it.

Of course, Portobello is scruffy. Its facias are not gleaming and pristine, and ersatz. It's also the case that by only opening at certain times, the market is denying the landlords the income they could make if Portobello was like any other row of shops and open all hours. Landlords are businesses and they want to maximise their returns.

But hang on a minute: surely Portobello and all the other areas where similar arguments have been made were there well before the landlords came on the scene? If you buy a road that contains a market that's been there for ever and operates only two days a week, that's what you get. You should not have the right to turn it into a seven-day-a-week precinct for shops that will pay you more in rent.

Mr Perkins says his hands are tied (in which case you do wonder what he is for). And they are. But that doesn't mean he can't attempt to break free. Say no. Tell the developers you will see them in court. You may call their bluff, you will certainly see if they are serious and, who knows, a friendly judge may find a way of coming down on your side.

At least try to show solidarity and some indication that you care that 50 stallholders are going to lose their employment, and a slice of Portobello that sells vintage jewellery, luggage, ceramics and books will be consigned to closure.
One of the tenets of English planning law is that many people objecting to something is not reason enough for throwing it out. Perhaps it's time this rule, which surely favours the developer, was changed.

When David Cameron spoke of delivering government back to the people during the election, he was widely derided. It wasn't clear, not least from the Tory leader himself, what exactly he meant. Neither was it apparent how his flagship "Big Society" idea would translate in practice. Since becoming Prime Minister, he has put some flesh on the bones, accusing the state of being "often too inhuman and clumsy" and saying it was time to put "people power at the heart of government".

Specifically, this included planning and the examples given were of communities overruling moves to scrap local pubs and post offices. But The Good Fairy is no different from a pub or a post office — it's also a focal point, a beating heart, a building that provides soul.

For too long, we've allowed London's heritage to be torn up. At some stage we should put a stop to it. This could be that moment. After all, a nearby homeowner is one David Cameron. This is his chance to really show us how Big Society can work. It's his opportunity to play the Good Fairy — for real.

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