Elephant & Castle Shopping Centre traders’ fury at lack of help to get relocation premises

BY PETER LANE

A group of traders staged an online protest after developers failed to relocate their businesses as demolition of their mall looms.

The traders are due to be evicted from the Elephant and Castle Shopping Centre when it will be flattened from September 24 to make space for a new development.

Elephant and Castle traders and campaign groups Latin Elephant and Up the Elephant used Twitter to sound the alarm about the site developer’s alleged negligence to relocate traders’ businesses.

Plans for the regeneration of the Elephant and Castle site had been approved as long as they found new affordable locations for the market traders.

But with only a month and a half before the demolition of the shopping centre only three of the 50 traders have had their businesses relocated. Traders collaborated with the two campaign groups to produce a stream of online content including videos, photos and tweets to raise awareness of the cause.

LatinElephant, a charity that supports ethnic minorities in the Elephant and Castle area, and organisers of the campaign reported the initial success of the campaign.

LatinElephant said: “More than 15,000 people have viewed, engaged, commented, retweeted and liked our page dedicated to these hard-working traders still looking for a relocation space in #ElephantandCastle.”

The development on the Elephant and Castle site will include a new college building for the University of the Arts London, leisure and office space, and a station centre along with 979 homes of which 161 of which will be affordable housing. Muhammaed Jamal supports his wife and four children through “Jamal’s Jewellery”; a single unit selling jewellery, perfume and cosmetics.

Mr Jamal has been trading from the centre for eight years but without being relocated he sees little hope for finding a new location or starting a new job.

He said: “I’m more than 55 now, and can’t find any other suitable job, and I’ve also got an illness I take medicine for. Customers ask ‘where are you going?’, I said I still can’t find relocation.”

Despite applying to the council for relocation he was informed that he wasn’t even on the waiting list.

He said: “One lady told me I am not on the waiting list because there are so many people and the relocation spaces are limited.”

Computer repairman Samuel Botchway, has been trading in Elephant and Castle for nine years.

He said: “It is quite disturbing because this is how we get our daily income, to feed our families.

“Most of us have kids who attend school here. We need money to help them, buy food and whatever they need.” Samuel was informed that after the demolition of the shopping centre he would be given a new location to continue trading from.

“At the moment we don’t know what we are doing now. We need people to come to our aid, to help us to secure a shop, to put our goods in and restart to live again. We would be much happier”

Muhammed Raza, owner of a men’s clothes stall since 2006, has watched the steady decline of footfall to the shopping centre.

“The market is dead now,” he said. “Before it was alright, but slowly, slowly they are closing down shops, big stores – Tesco, Poundland, Boots are going. It’s really dead now so it’s really hard to survive.”

Raza emailed developers Delancey and associated consultancy Tree Shepherd – but was told he would need to find new premises himself. He said: “Tree Shepherd called me and said ‘if you find yourself any shop, we’ll help you’, I said what kind of help? Because I’m looking for a shop but if I look myself, shops are £15,000, £20,000 – I can’t afford that rent.”

Rahmat Saadat came from Afghanistan 17 years ago and has made his home and work in Elephant and Castle.

He said: “This was always a good place to trade and work, with different communities coming from different backgrounds” By selling baseball caps, hats and accessories, he has built up a thriving business, that he will be sad to see taken from him.

“This place is important for me, because I have my customers with whom I have built a relationship with,” he said.

“I want to remain in this area so it would be good to get support from the council or whichever organisation that can support us.”

A spokeswoman for Delancey said: “We are very aware of the important role independent traders play in supporting the local community in Elephant and Castle, and we want to see this continue after the centre closes in September.

“As well as creating nearby affordable retail space at Castle Square and Ash Avenue at Castle Square other landowners and Southwark council have created new space in the vicinity too.

“We have also established a range of other support measures. Initiatives have included a relocation fund to support the cost of moving, developing an online database of available properties in the area for the local traders to find appropriate alternative premises to suit their business and providing an independent business advisor – Tree Shepherd – to give business planning advice and support throughout the relocation process.

“We are aware that 19 market traders did not obtain space in the three closest locations to the shopping centre. From these 19, there are now eight traders who still remain trading in the market and who have not found suitable facilities for their businesses to date and Southwark council has provided and already distributed a £200,000 fund for those traders. Tree Shepherd’s services are still available as well.

“In addition to supporting with relocation, we have looked at ways to provide further financial support to help make this last year of trading as easy as possible.”