It was the great Fleet Street legend Keith Waterhouse who said you should never write a column based on personal grievances. You hate your local greengrocer? So go and buy your salsify, candy beetroot and romanesco somewhere else. Having a massive beef with BT? So what, most people I know think they’re useless anyway. Sick to death of your neighbour leaving his bins out all week? Well, tell it to the judge but please don’t put it in a newspaper article.
Planning issues, though, or problems with landlords, public services or managing agents? Well hello.
To wit: for decades now, the Church Commissioners have been unsuccessfully attempting to turn Connaught Village into Marylebone High Street. They have wasted years trying to reimagine our little part of the Hyde Park Estate as a rich mix of restaurants, high-end retailers, bakeries, food shops, florists and hardware stores. Just like, er, Marylebone High Street, which is only a postcode away. The area isn’t exactly starved of bold-faced names — Tony Blair lives here, as does Claudia Winkleman, Jennifer Saunders and hip art duo Rob and Nicky Carter (who have produced a number of front pages for the Evening Standard).
The landlords who own Marylebone High Street are good at planning and have created a haven in London
But the only things we can buy locally are overpriced milk from the impossibly small mini supermarket, a bridal gown and a Middle Eastern meal from a restaurant that’s identical to the other 7,000 Middle Eastern restaurants on the Edgware Road, just 50 metres away. Of course, if one of our daughters decides to get married and wants to go out for a shawarma afterwards then we’re quids in, but you get my drift. Regularly voted one of the best streets in London, Marylebone High Street is largely managed by the main local landlord, The Howard de Walden Estate, and boasts an elegant variety of boutiques, cafes and small retailers. Essentially, they are good at planning, having created a haven in the middle of our frantic city that appeals to locals, other Londoners and tourists. Central to their success is a history of carefully curating the street in an orderly fashion — encouraging the right anchor brands, never being too greedy, and keeping out the kind of places that would spoil the area.
Sounds simple enough, eh? You would have thought so.
The Church Commissioners’ attempts at imitation have been little short of embarrassing. Since last summer both our local cafes have closed — Le Pain Quotidien and an independent Argentinian place called Abasto — while our only serious restaurant, Kurobuta, didn’t survive lockdown. Places here come and go with alarming frequency, while long-standing tenants are priced out because of rent increases. There used to be a wonderful vintage clothes store called The Dresser, which was one of the few genuine destination shops in the area, but even they eventually moved on due to the rent increases. Sadly, Connaught Village was actually far more alive 25 years ago; these days it is in decline, its only relevance being as a rat-run for local traffic.
You can tell how inexpertly the area is managed by going on to their website, which contains entries and photographs of at least four establishments that are no longer there. Rather embarrassingly, they are still advertising Christmas. That’s Christmas 2023. They also appear to have hired a new PR company, as the website is full of such breathless copy you wonder if the bods who wrote it have also bulk-bought oxygen cylinders.
To the cynical — as well as to many people who actually live in the area — the reason for this tardiness might be the simple fact that the Church Commissioners just don’t need the money. They are the 13th largest landowner in the country, so it might not be so surprising that they don’t have much laser focus when it comes to this tiny part of London. Their total investment fund is worth just shy of £10 billion, so why should they worry that they can’t seem to hire the right people to manage a small village in W2?
I’d love to stay and complain a bit more, but I’ve got to get to the shops as I’ve got my eye on a chalk-white, V-fronted basque. After all, you never know when you might need one.
