This links to Andy Haldane’s @thersaorg.bsky.social lecture on declining social capital and fewer public spaces as the very wealth hoard assets. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oFF_fPuO66A
We need to address the get out clause of fiduciary responsibility. The funds that own everything are legally obliged to maximise profits, that needs to change asap. The DCMS should persuade local authorities to give business rate discounts to social and culturally valuable businesses.
No idea if this is the best place to go to, or if it will even be read, but I just sent an email here asking for them to step in to help protect a beloved cultural institution https://www.london.gov.uk/contact-us-form
Yeah. His quieter business line is to buy pubs in gentrifying areas via Isle of Man holding companies, close them down and let them rot until the local council has no option but to approve change of use. A lot of what's bad about London can be pinned on Asif Aziz.
Urgh. It would be funny if the council compulsory purchased sites like that and auctioned them off to somebody who could prove they would do something with the lens.
Posting a link here so other people don't have to Google
Criterion Capital founder Asif Aziz "is said to have turned up in
London one day, out of nowhere, to buy property in an auction. He has been accumulating more and more property ever since” (Private Eye)
The things that make a place attractive to residents, and visitors, are the things that developers want to replace with housing to accommodate the people who came here to live by the thing that's no longer there.
It's an institution and it's made so many cinephiles feel at home, like literally, in their living room type of vibe. The corporate entities shall not have it.
A petition may be useful to raise awareness, but a petition with 10,000 signatures is counted as a single planning objection, so people should pledge to respond individually to any planning application with a bit of research on grounds for refusal etc.
Comments
They have zero interest in something they have no knowledge about ,
Criterion Capital founder Asif Aziz "is said to have turned up in
London one day, out of nowhere, to buy property in an auction. He has been accumulating more and more property ever since” (Private Eye)
https://www.private-eye.co.uk/pictures/special_reports/tax-havens.pdf