This is the worst recession since the war. That’s fine, we understand the maths, but it’s not exactly armageddon out there. We anticipated rubbish piling up in the street, factories standing silent, children roaming the city in search of food… We just checked, it’s fine – Westfield is packed, Oxford street was heaving. The rubbish maybe piling up – that’s Southwark for you – but this new era feels remarkably like the old one.

Forgive the insensitivity if you have been directly affected, but on a city wide scale the impact has been less than feared. This series was conceived with visions of a Flickr pool bursting with boarded up shops and repossessed docklands apartments – so far as we can tell some restaurants in the City had some really great lunch offers, someone stuck up Japanese names on formerly American banks and M&S did a 25% off day – then everyone carried on much like before. The housing market crashed, then went up again. The stock market crashed, then went up again. The pound crashed, then went up again… This is a dull bounce, not a great depression.

On the high street we’ve lost some friends: Zavvi (nee Virgin), Borders and Woollies are gone, but each had their problems long before any Americans started missing their mortgage payments. It’s not like Londoners have stopped buying books and movies; we have found better or cheaper ways of getting them. Over Christmas, as we tried to find a replacement bulb for the Christmas lights we briefly mourned Woollies passing – but that’s no basis for a national network of 815 stores.

We found two things that have been irrecoverably cancelled because of the recession: the 2010 Motor Show at ExCel and the Chanel Pavilion by Zaha Hadid; that’s it. Some shiny cars parked up in E16 and another Hadid? We’re getting a pool that looks like Michael Phelps’s shoulder blades mid-butterfly – who needs another one?

In construction there’s a few projects that look pretty sickly, but few concrete deaths:

Silvertown, complete with aquarium and surf centre, looks nearly dead – which is a great shame, but Silvertown has been a charming wasteland for four decades and so it’s continued lack of transformation is hardly a surprise.

The whole Thames Gateway scheme seems pretty much mothballed, port, housing and all (but with no binding deal at Copenhagen the not-to-be future residents of River Road Dagenham won’t know their luck).

The Cheese Grater – it’s not dead, but it’s not being built either. The soaring brilliance of our favourite kitchen equipment themed office tower is still on hold – our fingers are crossed – but next year the empty site is being transformed into a temporary public space by British Land, joining the Park House site on Oxford Street in this unexpected and very welcome trend to put empty sites to temporary public use.

However, these setbacks seem insignificant in the face of what is happening: with the Heron Tower soon topping out, the Shard starting to rise and our rather spiffing Olympic Park looking better every day 2009 has made more contribution to the state of London than most years in our cities history. The forums and journals remain busy with future plans and planning applications; development at Battersea, Elephant, Brent and others may have slowed but this city is still growing.

Whatever trouble remains ahead, London starts the new decade in better health than most would have dared predict a year ago. Farewell recession, Happy New Economic Cycle.

]]> News broke before Christmas that the Office of National Statistics have revised their figures for July to September to show a tiny fall in GDP. Come the next announcement Britain looks likely to climb out of recession. Even as you read this the recession might well be over…

This is the worst recession since the war. That’s fine, we understand the maths, but it’s not exactly armageddon out there. We anticipated rubbish piling up in the street, factories standing silent, children roaming the city in search of food… We just checked, it’s fine – Westfield is packed, Oxford street was heaving. The rubbish maybe piling up – that’s Southwark for you – but this new era feels remarkably like the old one.

Forgive the insensitivity if you have been directly affected, but on a city wide scale the impact has been less than feared. This series was conceived with visions of a Flickr pool bursting with boarded up shops and repossessed docklands apartments – so far as we can tell some restaurants in the City had some really great lunch offers, someone stuck up Japanese names on formerly American banks and M&S did a 25% off day – then everyone carried on much like before. The housing market crashed, then went up again. The stock market crashed, then went up again. The pound crashed, then went up again… This is a dull bounce, not a great depression.

On the high street we’ve lost some friends: Zavvi (nee Virgin), Borders and Woollies are gone, but each had their problems long before any Americans started missing their mortgage payments. It’s not like Londoners have stopped buying books and movies; we have found better or cheaper ways of getting them. Over Christmas, as we tried to find a replacement bulb for the Christmas lights we briefly mourned Woollies passing – but that’s no basis for a national network of 815 stores.

We found two things that have been irrecoverably cancelled because of the recession: the 2010 Motor Show at ExCel and the Chanel Pavilion by Zaha Hadid; that’s it. Some shiny cars parked up in E16 and another Hadid? We’re getting a pool that looks like Michael Phelps’s shoulder blades mid-butterfly – who needs another one?

In construction there’s a few projects that look pretty sickly, but few concrete deaths:

Silvertown, complete with aquarium and surf centre, looks nearly dead – which is a great shame, but Silvertown has been a charming wasteland for four decades and so it’s continued lack of transformation is hardly a surprise.

The whole Thames Gateway scheme seems pretty much mothballed, port, housing and all (but with no binding deal at Copenhagen the not-to-be future residents of River Road Dagenham won’t know their luck).

The Cheese Grater – it’s not dead, but it’s not being built either. The soaring brilliance of our favourite kitchen equipment themed office tower is still on hold – our fingers are crossed – but next year the empty site is being transformed into a temporary public space by British Land, joining the Park House site on Oxford Street in this unexpected and very welcome trend to put empty sites to temporary public use.

However, these setbacks seem insignificant in the face of what is happening: with the Heron Tower soon topping out, the Shard starting to rise and our rather spiffing Olympic Park looking better every day 2009 has made more contribution to the state of London than most years in our cities history. The forums and journals remain busy with future plans and planning applications; development at Battersea, Elephant, Brent and others may have slowed but this city is still growing.

Whatever trouble remains ahead, London starts the new decade in better health than most would have dared predict a year ago. Farewell recession, Happy New Economic Cycle.

]]> http://londonist.com/2009/12/recessionist_taking_stock.php/feed 0 http://londonist.com/2009/02/free_tonight_60.php http://londonist.com/2009/02/free_tonight_60.php#comments Thu, 05 Feb 2009 15:34:04 +0000 Talia http://londonist.com/?p=11461 Want to make money while you drink? Those folk up at the Boogaloo in Highgate have come up with a clever scheme to get you spending your pennies by actually giving you some of theirs. Tonight is the launch of ‘Recession’, a club in a pub night that’ll play fun indie & electro and pay you an actual £1 for every hour you stay. Sounds like a winner? Check it out. (Image / bagelmouse)

In the 1980s gay London existed at the fringes: in scruffy pubs, in basements and behind unmarked doors. The gay liberation movement was making political progress in the face of Thatcher’s Government, prevalent homophobia and the tragedy of HIV, but in the champagne fuelled boom years of Chancellor Lawson there were few places for gay bars in London’s bustling west-end. The (then) unfashionable district of Earls Court had been a hub for some time, but a large part of the scene was scattered around the fringes of central London.

As the fortunes turned, and the Dom Perignon gathered dust, there was a breakthrough: some smart bar owners got their calculators out and worked out the gay men, without the financial pressures of dependent family, would have a few more pounds to splash out during the downturn (this was before Aussiebum’s £25.99 pants).

For Westminster Council, which in 1986 used new licensing powers to close down many of over 200 sex establishments in this historic vice quarter, the new cafe bars of the 90s gay scene were the lesser evil. License applications were regarded more favourably from venues open about their gay orientation; less fighting and no street vomiting, so they argued). Though the historic industries of Soho have proved remarkably resilient to soaring rents and hostile neighbours, trend setting venues like the Village and the Edge redefined what a Gay Bar could be – opening the scene to many more people and playing a big part in building the diversity that London enjoys today.

While fears that the gay scene would be pushed off Old Compton street by a recovering straight leisure industry in the mid 90s proved false, in the last few years a combination of rents, property development and Crossrail have shaken the communities hold on London’s Gay Village. Bars like Trash Palace have moved out to the Zone One fringes, the Astoria stands ready (seemingly for an eternity) to be demolished and a new scene has grown up, dominated by the Arched clubs of Vauxhall and garnished by the check-shirted antics of Hoxditch and Camden. None the less, Old Compton remains the finest thousand feet of homosexuality anywhere in the world, and it could only happen thanks to the combination of London’s unique nature and the difficult economic times.

It’s too early to say what this all means for the 2010s: a resurgent gay Soho? A neighbourhood finally gentrified? Perhaps this part of London is destined to welcome it’s next bunch of miss-fits. The forces are in motion: London will take the hit of the recession and will – as it has many times before – surprise us again.

Photo by Simon Crubellier via the Londonist Flickr Pool

Blogging, much like joining a convent, is a noble tradition of sacrifice. We write for your education, fulfillment and the small furtherance of the misguided belief that our opinions matter.

We were excited, therefore, to discover a new breed of bloggers: they are called journalists. They are different in many ways: they work in offices, use PCs rather than coffee stained Macbooks and carry crude iPhone-like devices know as ‘Blackberries’, but most crucially, they get paid actual money.

Depending on your age and cultural experience, ‘Alphaville’ could be a dark French science fiction film from the 60s, a German electro-pop outfit from the 80s, or a vintage toy shop in lower Manhattan. However, if you’re wearing pinstripes and your office postcode starts with EC, you’ll know that it’s the news-breaking blogosphere outpost of that most colourful of newspapers – the FT.

We tracked down Tracy Alloway and Sam Jones, two of the crack team behind the Financial Times’ hit blog to learn a little of their lives on the front line of the recession and the exciting world of the media elite.

It was a suitably austere occasion held at popular city lunch stop ‘The Bleeding Heart’; we enjoyed Roast Barbary Duck Breast with Caramelised Citrus Endive, Vanilla Mash and Sauce Bigarade. Sam had the Daube of Scottish Venison, Tracy opted for the Risotto of Beetroot and Manchego Cheese.

It’s been a busy time for Alphaville since the crunch bit: they post an impressive 50 or so stories a day, with 24 hour coverage provided by the core team in London and their imperial possessions in New York and Tokyo. Despite this worldwide network, and in a most unbloglike manner, the office opens at 0700 and during the hectic days since August the team have been clocking up the hours in a most unjournalistic fashion.

So what of this recession? It’s been an exciting time to be in financial journalism; a years ago few people knew nor cared what a Collatoralised Debt Obligation was – now these phrases pop up in Newsround. ‘CDOs are now sexy’ as Jones puts it.

Looking to the future, we thought to seek career suggestions. The car business, telecoms, technology and property are all industries to flee with whatever you can carry – ‘hopefully Foxtons will go bust’, adds Jones. We’re recommended law, the Civil Service and auditing as potential safe ports from the storm, though jobs in these economic evergreens are in high demand – single vacancies for audit posts in the City apparently receiving upwards of 2000 applications.

After a refreshing sip of the Sancerre we turn to Alloway for the international view. First out of the gate is France, apparently its long standing economic mediocrity will prevent most people from noticing even if there is a world wide recession. Worst place to be? Here apparently… Great, we’re stuck on a financial services dependent island, with little manufacturing base to fall back on and a collapsing currency.

Perusing the dessert menu, we ask, so what’s to be done? Jones, in a personal capacity, tentatively endorses Brown’s ‘buy now, pay during the next government’ spending plan, with the caveat that he didn’t help us avoid the current mess. But he’s not ‘thinking what they’re thinking’ – labeling the Shadow Chancellor’s shiny new ‘don’t tax, don’t spend’ policy ‘a disaster’.

So where can we jet off to to get some winter sun and escape all this doom? Sadly sterling’s recent stumbles make most of the world rather pricey; Iceland is Jones’ suggestion, but we’re not rushing to book.

PS. Got a tip, story or idea? Send your recession related info and thoughts to recessionist@googlemail.com

The terrible stomach churning uncertainty that has embraced our fair city is only slightly tempered by the satisfaction that we called it right – the Office of National Statistics has spoken and the initial estimates for the third quarter of 2008 are that we dived into the recessional darkness. The ONS tell us the culprits were the manufacturing and service industries – so most of them then – only airlines, agriculture, forestry, fishing and, oh yes, the Government bucked the trend.

Of course, we need not remind you that despite what Gordon may or may not have said one quarter of retraction a recession does not make. While the markets don’t seem to be pricing in any sudden Christmas recovery – it could happen, maybe. We’ll know three months from now.

There is plenty of trauma about: the Maths and Stats graduate’s favourite Goldman Sachs is laying off 10% of it’s workers (with London set to take a big hit) and the New York shopping trip we were planning is going to involve more Central Park and rather less 5th Avenue at this ($1.55 to the £) rate. That said, London has become a very cheap place for a break if you have dollars in your pocket, so perhaps this year the Christmas shopping tide will turn in the Yankee’s favour?

If that wasn’t retro enough very important people are now dusting off Keynesian economics – we don’t want to bore anyone with the details but suffice it to say they really are looking in the back of the cupboard on this one – and Mandelson is promising ‘no return to the 80s’, having seen this moustache we can understand his fear.

All this pales into insignificance however before the greatest sign of impending doom – the BBC have seen fit to commission a new graphic and themed web page: ‘the downturn‘. The recession now joins such important news stories as ‘Alien Invaders’, ‘Oscars 2008′ and the US election in having it’s own special report page complete with crashing arrow and cleverly integrated word-graphics – for, as Chris Morris taught us, text alone can’t quite convey the sense of panic they wish to instil.

So the record has been set and the bar raised: the 62 quarters from 1992 to 2008 stand as Britain’s longest period of growth. Fairwell old friend, the Brown Bubble has popped – everyone better grab a sponge.

For a minute there it appeared we were on the brink of apocalypse. Then it seemed OK. Then we were back to searching for clean underwear. And repeat. It’s been a busy few days for London’s financial markets, and it might not be over yet.

It seemed in August that the worst of the credit crunch was behind us and the problems ahead were more straightforward issues of the business cycle and housing market. Yes, Mr Darling was prattling on about the worst economic crisis in 60 years but no one remembers 1948 as being a particularly bad year for the economy, unless you lived in west Berlin, and so we assumed the stress was getting to him and went on our merry way. Obviously he was onto something, even if he got the year a bit off (twenty years off by some guesses )…

Tonight, for 4,500 of our city’s fair citizens the word downturn doesn’t quite cut it as they went home yesterday with a box of ill-gained office supplies and no job to return to. The good news is that Lehman’s employees will get paid for the work they did this month (as little as it may be for some) but the collapse also leaves a pension scheme in deficit and no doubt a long queue at the receivers for everyone from the market traders who are out of pocket to the stationery company whose invoice has not been paid. All in all it’s an almighty mess.

Canary Wharf Group now has a million square foot of empty offices that are going to be pretty hard to rent out in the current market (but don’t panic – CW group is insured on the rent by none other than the very recently US majority owned AIG insurance group, so American taxpayers will be picking up the tab – cheers y’all). But there’s nothing like an empty skyscraper to deter developers from putting up more.

It’s also well established that the the ravenous property market in London is fed by the bucks these boys and girls bring home and a bonus shortage and big redundancies in the city will mix it up in the prime commuting territories for owners and landlords (argh!) and renters (hurray!) alike.

As much as they may deserve their place in the hall of fame of ‘love to hate’ targets, our dear bankers are a precious commodity. They suck in money from all over the world and dish it out again in our Michelin starred restaurants, award winning theatres, champagne bars, charity balls, Filofax shops and Saville Row tailors. There is bound to be something in this great city that you value that depends on our more numerate and less risk averse friends for financial sustenance.

When they sneeze, we all catch cold.

By JamesU

Image by Dean Nicholas

After the usual screams of anguish from the Evening Standard editorials have died away there are some more ominous signs in last week’s traditional September bundle of joy: the TfL new year fare package. “Tough choices around some unfunded transport projects” are to be made, and politics aside, Recessionist sees little light, and quite possibly fewer trains, in the tunnel ahead…

‘Tough choices’ – have been responsible for many of the irritating abnormalities of the London transport system – lines that stop for no good reason (Bakerloo, Victoria), stations that nearly interchange but don’t quite make it (a few more of those already planned in Shepherd’s Bush), the mysterious single leaf doors on the District Line’s D Stock trains (cost less apparently) and the irritating fixed staircases on the Victoria Line (‘sure, we’ll put the escalator in later mate – won’t take a minute’).

Recession is a vicious cycle for our embattled transport planners: firstly the government has less money to spend, then there are fewer people topping up, buying travel cards and purchasing tickets as people commute and shop less. Fares rise to make good this shortfall, further deterring people from nipping out on the train. Finally, that very reduction in numbers is used by budget strained politicians and managers as justification to reduce the service and cancel improvement work, making traveling by rail all the more unpleasant, at the very time that falling demand in construction makes it cheapest to do the job.

Between 1989 and 1993 the number trundling into London on the rusting, if patriotic, red white and blue trains of Network South East fell nearly 200,000. On the Tube the annual ridership fell 83 million from its boom-time peak. Those who could switched off the neglected trains and into cars (oil, after all, could be picked up for $16.75 a barrel in those days), and it’s possible a few local money savers might have pulled the bike out of the shed, but many swapped the morning slog into the office for a nice bit of nail biting in front of TV AM while hoping that the next letter on the doormat wouldn’t be one of the 60,000 repossession orders issued in ’93.

Crossrail has been remembered as the big ticket victim of the last downturn (more on that later), and its smooth sailing through the current storm is far from certain, but the lack of investment in the 90s in the tube and railways set back London significantly. On the other hand the Heathrow Express and Jubilee line extension got built in spite of the leaner years and anyone who journeyed into town from parts east of Westminster will testify that they didn’t exactly skimp on the architecture.

So when transport bosses like Peter Hendy starts talking about ‘further savings’, you can probably forget about jumping on a tram across Waterloo Bridge, file away your dreams of catching the Bakerloo or Metropolitan lines to Watford Junction, get used to cramming onto short trains on the Circle line, and prepare to wait a bit longer at Camden Road.

By JamesU

Image by Chutney Bannister via the Londonist Flickrpool.

Since time immemorial people have cried out – ‘what we really need is a 23,000 seat multi purpose arena somewhere near Woolwich’. Of course this dream was finally attained last year with the reopening of the Millennium Dome O2 – back in the day, however, the plan was to install this pivotal piece of infrastructure in the heart of Canning Town and use its honeypot-like draw to redevelop the derelict Royal Docks.

Where now stands the ExCeL Centre (Alight here for Boxing, Fencing, Judo, Table Tennis, Taekwondo, Weightlifting, Wrestling, Boccia, Paralympic Table Tennis, Paralympic Powerlifting and Wheelchair Basketball) and its adjacent wasteland was to be a palace of sport and the arts known as The Londondome (being the eighties conjoined words were in and random capitalisation of mid-word letters was out).

The Londondome was to comprise a multipurpose arena suitable for hosting Gladiators, Torville and Dean performances and other attractions of the age with an adjacent 20,000 square metre conference centre (Wish You Were Here Live, perhaps?) and a 500 room hotel. The scheme was topped off with nearly 2,000 homes, a ‘Covent Garden style town square’ (the 80s equivalent of the now de rigeur ‘continental style plaza’), one quarter of a million square metres of office space and windswept parking for 13,000 Ford Scorpios and Renault Espaces.

Two and a half million people were expected to head out to this 75 million pound jewel, but nowhere felt the chill of the 1991-92 downturn like Docklands. This and the two other consortia schemes set up by the London Docklands Development Corporation to develop the Royals disappeared, leaving nothing but a few press releases and optimistic brochures as evidence of the grandeur of their ambition.

It’s worth wandering down the edge of the Royal Docks today; despite the millions of pounds that have been poured into this patch of Newham and evident signs of progress in parts, this is still – nearly 30 years later – unfinished business. Had 1991 turned out differently, perhaps E17 would have played to sell out crowds in E16, and, come the 30th Olympiad, a maturing Londondome would be enjoying a fresh coat of paint and preparing to host the table tennis.

By JamesU

Check out previous recession blogging using the Recessionist tag.

Image reproduced with kind permission of Stewart Innes, Royal Docks Trust

It’s been, as the PM likes to put it, 62 quarters (that’s 16 years to you and me) since we last had a technical recession (that’s two quarters in a row where the total value of everything we make, buy and sell in the UK falls). That is, by any country’s standards, rather good – the American’s can’t claim half as much – but they don’t call it a cycle for nothing: where there’s ups, there’s downs. Introducing Recessionist.

Just south of Shadwell station is Tobacco Dock, a lavishly built shopping centre which opened in 1989 and promptly failed in 1990 as shoppers and cheap credit became rare. Due to some mysterious force it remains open and perfectly preserved; one small corner of the early 1990s that stubbornly refuses to wake up to the new millennium.

Local boy Lawrie Cohen saw potential in the 200 year old, grade 1 listed, squat brick warehouse as the Docklands transformed in the 1980s boom. Twice the size of Covent Garden the centre was an enormous undertaking and brought in support from the Government, the Docklands Development Corporation and the ‘it’ architect of the day, Terry Farrell. The flagship stores were Next, the Body Shop, Cobra and Monsoon but it also boasted Justfacts – London’s finest Filofax accessories shop – and Uneasy, the UK’s first shop selling modern designer chairs, and nothing else.

Uneasy is how the owners were feeling a year later when the customer starved tenants were in open revolt. Filofax accessories and designer recliners were not top of anyone’s shopping list in the dark days of 1990 and the project soon collapsed with debts of £100m.

Since then plans have come and gone: a Sealife Centre, “turbo rides”, a cinema and a factory outlet re-launch were all pitched and failed. In a desperate attempt the receivers brought in Gerald Ratner, of “…because it’s total crap” fame, but even his oratory couldn’t bring in the punters.

The site was bought for a bargain £8m by a secretive Kuwaiti company called Messila House, who told the Times in 2005 that they were going to re-launch the centre only to promptly disappear and never mention it again.

Today the sole tenant, Frank and Steins cafe, continues to trade to a bunch of loyal locals and workers from its lonely unit in the basement. A grand piano sits mournfully in Henry’s Cafe Bar, which limped on until 2004 thanks to the alcohol demands of nearby News International. Snippets of 1990s nostalgic abound: the centre map shows us the way to Our Price records and stickers in windows invite us to pay for our purchases with Eurocard or Access; no chip and pin here.

A lone security guard promises great things are planned and raves about the quality of the restoration, ‘any day now’ he says, ‘look at the quality, all the best’. We wonder if he has been driven mad by the futility of guarding an empty mall from no-one.

The building is beautifully restored in a manner that in the 1980s would no doubt have been considered ‘sympathetic’. Two rusting fake pirate ships, built to entertain the children, add more of a Clyde than Caribbean atmosphere. The PA system shouts out ‘you’re on CCTV, you’re being watched’ as we explore the deserted plaza but watched by who, and why?

Perhaps 15 years from now we’ll walk around the soon to open Westfield Centre with similar fascination. Only time will tell but for now there’s at least one place in London where it’s always recession and never recovery.

By James Upsher

]]> Like the Edmonton IKEA, a recession is something that only reveals itself when you’ve zoomed passed it, shouted yourself blind at the map reader and urged a fiery hell on whoever designed the nonsensical road system. However, we’re taking a leap in the statistical darkness and starting to plan for the worst, on the understanding that if we turn out to be way-off we’ll quietly forget this idea, and if we’re right we can twirl our figurative moustaches in satisfaction and bask in warm glow of our prophetic wisdom.

It’s been, as the PM likes to put it, 62 quarters (that’s 16 years to you and me) since we last had a technical recession (that’s two quarters in a row where the total value of everything we make, buy and sell in the UK falls). That is, by any country’s standards, rather good – the American’s can’t claim half as much – but they don’t call it a cycle for nothing: where there’s ups, there’s downs. Introducing Recessionist.

Just south of Shadwell station is Tobacco Dock, a lavishly built shopping centre which opened in 1989 and promptly failed in 1990 as shoppers and cheap credit became rare. Due to some mysterious force it remains open and perfectly preserved; one small corner of the early 1990s that stubbornly refuses to wake up to the new millennium.

Local boy Lawrie Cohen saw potential in the 200 year old, grade 1 listed, squat brick warehouse as the Docklands transformed in the 1980s boom. Twice the size of Covent Garden the centre was an enormous undertaking and brought in support from the Government, the Docklands Development Corporation and the ‘it’ architect of the day, Terry Farrell. The flagship stores were Next, the Body Shop, Cobra and Monsoon but it also boasted Justfacts – London’s finest Filofax accessories shop – and Uneasy, the UK’s first shop selling modern designer chairs, and nothing else.

Uneasy is how the owners were feeling a year later when the customer starved tenants were in open revolt. Filofax accessories and designer recliners were not top of anyone’s shopping list in the dark days of 1990 and the project soon collapsed with debts of £100m.

Since then plans have come and gone: a Sealife Centre, “turbo rides”, a cinema and a factory outlet re-launch were all pitched and failed. In a desperate attempt the receivers brought in Gerald Ratner, of “…because it’s total crap” fame, but even his oratory couldn’t bring in the punters.

The site was bought for a bargain £8m by a secretive Kuwaiti company called Messila House, who told the Times in 2005 that they were going to re-launch the centre only to promptly disappear and never mention it again.

Today the sole tenant, Frank and Steins cafe, continues to trade to a bunch of loyal locals and workers from its lonely unit in the basement. A grand piano sits mournfully in Henry’s Cafe Bar, which limped on until 2004 thanks to the alcohol demands of nearby News International. Snippets of 1990s nostalgic abound: the centre map shows us the way to Our Price records and stickers in windows invite us to pay for our purchases with Eurocard or Access; no chip and pin here.

A lone security guard promises great things are planned and raves about the quality of the restoration, ‘any day now’ he says, ‘look at the quality, all the best’. We wonder if he has been driven mad by the futility of guarding an empty mall from no-one.

The building is beautifully restored in a manner that in the 1980s would no doubt have been considered ‘sympathetic’. Two rusting fake pirate ships, built to entertain the children, add more of a Clyde than Caribbean atmosphere. The PA system shouts out ‘you’re on CCTV, you’re being watched’ as we explore the deserted plaza but watched by who, and why?

Perhaps 15 years from now we’ll walk around the soon to open Westfield Centre with similar fascination. Only time will tell but for now there’s at least one place in London where it’s always recession and never recovery.

By James Upsher

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