London Chinatown is the largest Chinatown in Europe. It is a centre for Chinese businesses, social, recreation and community activities for the Chinese community, it is also a world famous tourist attraction and it represents the Chinese identity of a multicultural London.
On the East side of Chinatown there is an area that stretches from Newport Place to Newport Court and onto parts of Charing Cross Road and this area is known as Sandringham Building. It was built in the 1980’s on wasteland and the freeholder is Westminster Council. It consists of a majority of retails shops that bring an unique Chinese cultural characteristic to Chinatown; it has a Chinese newsagent, an artisan shop, a jewellery shop, grocery shops and a Chinese fishmonger. It is also home to the Pagoda, which is situated on public land in Newport Place and was funded by Chinese community businesses to protect the Feng Shui of the Chinatown community. The shopkeepers of Sandringham Building have worked hard for 20 years to build up the area to become a busy, vibrant and integral part of the London Chinatown.
The property developer Rosewheel brought the 200 years lease of Sandringham Building in May 2003 and in June 2004, they served Notices to Quit to the tenants so that they could re-develop the area to make way for a Trocadero style shopping mall. After the development Rosewheel is hoping to target high street brand names and they have informed the existing tenants that they are not in a position to compete with the likes of Tesco and Next.
There is evidence to prove that Westminster Council has been in discussion with Rosewheel about the re-development plan since February of this year, yet the Chinatown community has not been informed of the plan. The Chinatown community only learnt of the re-development plan after Rosewheel took action to evict the tenants.
We understand that the re-development plan will have two phases. Phase 1 is to evict existing tenants and merge existing units into bigger units to attract high street brand names. Phase 2 entails Westminster Council giving up the car park, removing the refuse depot and the Pagoda. The Chinatown community called a public meeting with representatives from Westminster Council to discuss the plan, and a vote was taken and the meeting voted unanimously against the plan.
If the plan goes ahead, Chinatown will lose its cultural characteristics and the damage to the Feng Shui Pagado will signal the end of Chinatown. The re-development plan will also push up rent in other parts of Chinatown forcing even more Chinese shops out of businesses. The building work for this re-development plan will last for at least two years, it will also bring a lot of disruption to the Chinatown community. Disruption such as congestion, air and noise pollution, which will cause environmental damage and irreversibly harm to the trading environment of all the shops and restaurants in Chinatown. We can foresee that more Chinese shops would be forced to close by such adverse trading environment even before the completion of the re-development.
This re-development plan is a Westminster Council conspiracy with the property developer Rosewheel, who have made a decision on the future of Chinatown behind backs of the Chinatown community. No consideration had been given to the impact of the livelihood of the Chinatown community.
Min Quan and the affected tenants have launched the Save Chinatown Campaign. We will organise a series of activities to stop this conspiracy. We call upon you to take part in these activities and sign our petition to register your objection to the re-development plan.
HANDS OFF LONDON CHINATOWN