‘All the crescent shopkeepers have contributed to local society by keeping our high street going through thick and thin’

Open Letter to Camden Councillors and GLA

• WE speak for the majority of independent shopkeepers on Queen’s Crescent, NW5, who have kept the street alive despite the effects of supermarkets, online shopping, grocery apps and Covid-19.

Now we face a new life-or-death struggle with Camden Council’s pedestrianisation experiment which is destroying our livelihoods since its introduction at the start of July without any business planning in sight.

First, we want to apologise to all our customers who have been inconvenienced or put off by the road closures on Queen’s Crescent and around it.

In normal circumstances, customers come to us from Hampstead, Camden Town, Bloomsbury, Finsbury, Holloway, Haringey, Edmonton, Enfield, Barnet, etc.

Camden does not get this. Instead it holds itself hostage to a fairy tale about Queen’s Crescent only serving people from a small local area.

Local shoppers matter a lot but they aren’t the whole story about the people we serve. Camden doesn’t understand our customer base or how far some customers travel to shop or spend time on the crescent.

We commiserate with people living in the area around our shops who have been affected by the knock-ons of the road closures, that is, congestion, snarl-ups and pollution on main and side-roads, longer times for local car journeys to schools and hospitals, problems with deliveries (including the ones we make to you).

We know the problems you face and that the council’s Labour leadership is not listening to you.

Camden’s executive seems willing to throw us and our neighbours “under the bus” for the sake of their fantasies about high streets, “streateries”, a “15-minute city” and the like, so we are calling for help from the majority of sensible Camden councillors and the GLA, which is partly funding what’s happening to Queen’s Crescent.

Some of us shopkeepers have survived war, rule by tyrants, social disorder and economic struggle in our home countries and are very happy to live and work here in the UK.

All the crescent shopkeepers have contributed to local society by keeping our high street going through thick and thin.

Some have been working on the streets for decades. Many have invested in the shops, some during the lockdowns, on the basis they see a future on Queen’s Crescent. Now all of us are struggling.

Our future in business on Queen’s Crescent is now in jeopardy because of the road closures. Camden cannot accept a simple fact: a key economic advantage enjoyed by Queen’s Crescent till recently was accessibility to vehicles. The road closures have robbed us of that.

What’s happening on our high street, and the roads around it, is affecting the lives of ordinary people already hit by austerity; while the damage to independent shops is disproportionately impacting workers from ethnic minorities.

Please get Camden to reverse the Queen’s Crescent road closures.

Maybe then we can start a process of making a realistic economic development plan for our neighbourhood in which the work we do is better understood by the authorities.

MOHAMED ALI MEME
The Crescent Connect
BILL PATEL
David’s Newsagents
AHMAD ALKHURJEA
TIBa Store
MOHAMED ABDUL
QC Post Office
HAMAD RASTKAR
Mawhood General Store
AMIR SALIM
AlHabib Store
MOHAMUD GUURE
QC Caffe
TOM YOUNG
Costermonger
MOHAMED FARAH
Private Hire Driver
MORAN WATSON
Informal Rep for Disabled
MANI PATEL
Sandylight Pharmacy