The co-owner of the South Kensington business says he may end up unemployed
The co-owner of a family-run laundrette which has been operating for 25 years in South Kensington says the business is now at risk of being turfed out of its premises.
Jersey-based company Adhara Property Holdings Limited, which owns the building, was granted planning permission to turn three stores into one larger retail unit, at a Kensington and Chelsea Planning Sub-Committee at the end of May. A greengrocers and a café will be affected alongside the laundrette.
Nasim Ahmed, 48, who co-owns the laundrette, says he now faces an uncertain future, with the prospect of an eviction looming. No notice has yet been served but once it is, Mr Ahmed says that he will have six months to leave the premises.
“Mentally it is disturbing as it’s always there. When you have a job you don’t have to worry about what you’re doing,” he said. “In six months I don’t know what I will do – I’m not qualified to do anything else.”
People come to the laundrette, located on Glendower Place, from all over the borough, including Notting Hill and Portobello. Mr Ahmed has been looking for an alternative site, but due to how expensive the area is to rent, he thinks he would have to leave South Kensington.
“We will have to close completely if we go to a new area – our customers won’t come there,” he said, adding: “We bring in a lot of value, customers trust us with their clothes and their belongings.”
The co-owner attended the Planning Sub-Committee on May 28, to tell councillors that the decision would effectively put an end to his long-standing business.
He told the committee: “If you vote yes today, you are are voting to physically remove my shop from this high street – you are voting for closing down a business that has served this community for a quarter of a century.”
Mr Ahmed said that he was “disappointed” that they sub-committee chose to grant the application, especially as his business had managed to survive both the 2008 financial crash and the Covid- 19 pandemic.
“This [decision] is in the benefit of the landlord but they always promise they protect small businesses – the reality is the opposite,” he told the LDRS.
There is no change of use required in the application which means it is not within planning policy to object to an amalgamation, the sub-committee heard. It is no longer the role of Kensington and Chelsea Council to “try and curate what it might see as the best balance of uses in a centre,” read a report to the Planning Sub-Committee.
The application would also see an increase of five square meters of commercial floorspace, deemed to be in effect new retail space refreshing a shop front and preserving the aesthetic of the area.
A Kensington and Chelsea Council spokesperson said: “We appreciate that there are always a range of feelings around planning applications, and we are committed to supporting small businesses, independent traders and a diverse local economy wherever we can.
“At the same time, planning decisions must be made based on the powers available to us. In this case, there was no proposed change of use, and the council cannot use the planning system to choose future tenants, decide whether a unit is occupied by an independent business or a larger retailer, or intervene in commercial lease arrangements.”
Adhara Property Holdings Limited did not provide a comment on the planning application.
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