A STRIP club in West Hampstead is set to close down and be converted into a “high-quality nightclub”.

Owners of Secrets said they decided to close the club, which has been open since 1999, after deciding Finchley Road “wasn’t quite the right location” for a table-dancing club. The club will reopen under events company Aquila, who, according to planning documents filed at the Town Hall this week, are “at the forefront of London’s Night Club industry”. They said “careful research has established that Finchley Road would be a suitable location for a high quality nightclub. The market need is established.”

Secrets owner Stephen Less, who also runs strip clubs in Eversholt Street and Gray’s Inn Road, told the New Jour­nal: “We were running it as a table dancing club and we thought it wasn’t quite the right location for that. Also, when the council cut back on parking, our customers need to be able to park their cars and come in. It might not affect the footfall, but we don’t rely on footfall.”