A new “battle of Soho” has erupted, pitting business leaders against Westminster council and local residents, whom they accuse of killing the boisterous vitality that makes it a world-famous destination.
A group representing some 150 business chiefs and owners led by John James, managing director of property owner Soho Estates, has written to the council, the Mayor and the new Westminster MP Rachel Blake expressing its profound frustration at what it sees as the high number of planning and licence applications being turned down by the Labour-run authority — under pressure from local voters.
But residents have hit back, saying that levels of crime, drunkenness and anti-social behaviour are out of control, particularly on hot spots such as Dean Street, Frith Street, Greek Street and Romilly Street. They insist the council is right to push back against developers who do not have to live with the consequences of their new bar, club or restaurant openings.
Sadiq Khan has also been dragged into the row following the surprise publication last month of the Mayor’s Government-backed proposal to pedestrianise Oxford Street. This would create a Mayoral Development Corporation (MDC) that would transfer planning decision-making out from the council to Khan and his officials.
Some members of the Soho Business Alliance (SBA), formed during the pandemic when many companies were fighting for their lives, are lobbying for the area covered by the MDC to encompass Soho, and even Leicester Square, in what would be an unprecedented municipal landgrab of a huge swathe of the West End. But it would give the Mayor powers to consider pedestrianisation of smaller roads south of Oxford Street and rule on planning applications that the council has been reluctant to approve.
The potential move has been welcomed by James, who runs the property company originally built up by his former boss and father-in-law, the porn and property tycoon Paul Raymond. He said the Mayor has “got to be an improvement on what we’ve got”, adding “Soho is like every high street in the country — it’s struggling for its life.”
In his letter James, who was married to Raymond’s hard-partying late daughter Debbie, said Westminster was acting “like a rural parish council” rather than London’s most important local authority by refusing so many applications.
The 71-year-old Cumbrian butcher’s son and former model added: “In Soho in 2024 there are more empty premises than I have ever seen since 1986. Many operators are considering moving out because of Westminster’s obvious bias against them.”
James, who brought up Raymond’s heiress granddaughters — the so-called Princesses of Soho, his daughter India Rose James and his stepdaughter Fawn — cited the example of the former Twentieth Century Fox building on Soho Square. It was built in the Thirties but has been sitting unused and partially derelict since 2017 and was recently occupied by squatters. James says he has also been frustrated by objections to his application for a licence at Soho Estates’ 75 Dean Street property.
He called for more licences for alfresco dining, contrasting Soho with Fitzrovia’s Charlotte Street, which has “removed parking bays and given them over to people, improving the area in the process” and Covent Garden, which “uses its cobbled pedestrianised square to enhance the visitor experience”. Both are in Camden.
An insular village
James has also blamed what he described as “a small group of local residents” who “seem resistant to preserving Soho’s diverse character and instead advocate for transforming this vibrant district into an insular village”.
He claimed that residents’ group The Soho Society “has reviewed 102 planning applications since 2022 and objected to 101 of them”.
But the intervention from the SBA has infuriated the council and angered residents, who say they are having to live with the all-night noise, public urination and crime that comes with the night-time economy.
Tim Lord, chair of the executive committee of the Soho Society, insisted it was wholly wrong to say Soho was in decline. He said: “Soho has never been busier, there are between 80,000 and 100,000 movements on Old Compton Street alone in a Saturday night. But you cannot ignore the fact that 74 per cent of all the crime in Westminster is in Soho and Leicester Square and according to the Met Police, that is mainly due to the night-time economy.”
He also rejected James’s assertion that the Soho Society was a serial objector to proposals, claiming that since July this year the society had reviewed 127 planning applications and only objected to 18, or 14 per cent.
Westminster is drawing up its own “After Dark” policy to create “an inclusive, evening and night-time plan to improve the nightlife in Westminster”, although there is growing impatience about how long this is taking.
Leader Adam Hug and other senior council figures are said to be furious about the Mayor’s intervention, which was made with almost no consultation with a local authority that was already well advanced with its own proposals for Oxford Street and the broader West End.
Councillor Geoff Barraclough said: “The suggestion from the Soho Business Alliance that Soho will magically explode into life as a leisure quarter if it commits local authority Brexit and throws in its lot with the proposed Mayoral Development Area is baseless.
“Soho’s nightlife may be world famous, but it is important to stress the district is a working area. There’s much more to Soho than drinking. The council works with a whole range of residents and local companies. There’s no appetite for the ideas the SBA is proposing.”
