Tuesday 22 February 2011

Shepherd's Bush Market traders confusion


The historic Goldhawk Road Terrace of shops are in confusion over what they want their fate to be. Our Council is quoting the owner of A Cooke's Pie and Mash Shop on Goldhawk Road, Mike Boughton, 59, as saying this:

"I have been here for 41 years and the business has been here for 111 years. I hope to keep the business running in new premises on Goldhawk Road and we are talking to OSBL about how that can be achieved."

But it seems either our Council have made that quote up out of thin air or Mr Broughton didn't check with his erstwhile fellow traders first, for this has provoked a curious reaction. First of all the owner of A Cooke's Pie and Mash Shop Twitter Feed, which was set up only days ago and which you can view here, denied any knowledge of wanting "new premises". He/she said this:

"Do not want new premises! Want to save the existing shops. They are so much a part of the local community".

So when I asked about the quote Mr Boughton had given, which says the opposite and which I had produced on the campaign groups' facebook site, which you can view here, - it promptly got deleted by Coll McDonnell who runs the facebook site! Obviously Mr McDonnell only wants supportive comments on there.
 
Incidentally Mr McDonnell is not above a bit of content thievery either as the main picture he is using is taken from this blog without any reference to it.

27 FEB UPDATE - Coll has been in touch to point out that the person responsible for censoring their facebook site was in fact not him, but his fellow administrator. He doesn't go so far as to name that person but is adamant it wasn't him. And, in fairness, he did take down the nicked pic and replace it with one of his own. So well done Coll.

 
My other inquiry, to try and understand what seems to be the shifting line taken by the dwellers of the Terrace, was to Aniza Meghani (pictured above with Coll McDonnell) who stood up at this meeting to berate Council Leader Stephen Greenhalgh. Her reply was thus:
 
"Thank u for yr email . Our lawyer Michael Webster of Webster Dixon , is representing us and will reply on behalf of us"
 
He hasn't been in touch.
 

So what to make of all this? I can only assume that some of the owners have indeed approached Orion with requests to be bought out and that the quote given by the owner of A Cooke's Pie and Mash Shop is indeed genuine and reflects what is actually going to happen. And in the face of a determined Council and even more determined developer this mix of division, confusion and general haphazardness is hardly going to put them off.
 
Which as a Bush resident I think is a shame because the more I walk past that Market having seen the models at the exhibition the less I really want a huge seven floor luxury flat complex dominating the Bush - that's what this is starting to be all about for me now.

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