Soho killjoys are the worst kind of Londoners
The Soho Society has declared a Nimby campaign against all new licensing applications. If they don’t want to live in the party centre of London they should leave, says James Ford
What is the collective noun for a bunch of party poopers? A kennel of killjoys? A complaint of curmudgeons, perhaps? Well, if left to their own devices, it seems that such a group will call itself the Soho Society. That can be the only conclusion when this group of residents vows, at its recent AGM, that it will challenge all licensing applications in Soho. Worse still, this will include all licensing renewals and extensions (whether permanent or temporary), not just new applications. This, dear readers, is a declaration of war on your night out.
The reaction to this decision has been swift and hostile. The Spectator has gone so far as to decry that “Soho Nimbys are the worst in Britain.” Unherd laments that “curtain-twitchers have killed Soho”. And the Mayor of London has vowed to use new licensing powers, which he is due to get later this year, to overrule the society. (And you know it takes quite some doing to put The Spectator and the Mayor of London on the same page on any issue).
Perhaps the Mayor’s intervention will save the day. Maybe he will overrule every vexatious objection. But it seems likely that licensed businesses in Soho will face escalating costs nonetheless in fighting these objections in court in the meantime. One business – the Green Room Distillery – faced legal costs of £44,000 when it was targeted by the Soho Society last year. (The Society claimed, erroneously, that the distillery might explode). These legal costs are an additional burden on top of everything else that hospitality firms are facing at the moment: increased business rates, rising national insurance bills, as well as increased energy costs.
Buzzkill
The Soho Society has form when it comes to being a buzzkill. Back in the pandemic Soho was pedestrianised and restaurants were encouraged to offer al fresco dining. But the Soho Society objected vehemently, and the al fresco dining was scaled back significantly.
This puts the mayor on a collision course with Westminster City Council. The local authority, which has just gone Conservative again, funds the Soho Society and has given it a formal consultative role when it comes to planning and licensing applications. The council, which is already in a disagreement with the Mayor over the pedestrianisation of nearby Oxford Street, is unlikely to react well to a further imposition of mayoral authority.
The Soho Society, which represents about 10 per cent of local residents, was founded in 1972 with the stated aim of “making Soho a better place to live, work and visit”. One of its first campaigns was to prevent Soho being bulldozed in 1974 as part of the Greater London Development Plan to make way for high rise office blocks and walkways. One wonders why they bothered when their current campaign looks set to make London’s beating heart into a soulless, tepid den of luxury flats, ad agencies and coffee shops. If the Soho Society truly wanted to preserve the Soho of the 1970s, it would be lobbying for the return of the crooked sex shops, strip clubs and peep shows that characterised the area then. Some changes, it seems, are ok with the Soho Society. It is in favour of gentrification, but not the grubby business of commerce.
If the Soho Society truly wanted to preserve the Soho of the 1970s, it would be lobbying for the return of the crooked sex shops, strip clubs and peep shows that characterised the area then
The Soho Society represents the very worst kind of Londoners: those who want to live in central London, but without the sights, sounds and smells of central London. London works because it is not a series of self-contained neighbourhoods but rather an eco-system of inter-related villages. Each village has its own character and plays a unique role in the city as a whole. Soho is, unfortunately, the entertainment district for London. The Fun Zone. Party Central. Thousands may call the place home, but thousands more come to the area to dine, drink and dance the night away. Soho was an entertainment district way before the Soho Society established itself. It is to that far larger group of party goers – not the few party poopers – that Soho belongs. If the members of the Soho Society don’t like living in party central, there are plenty of other areas they can live in.
James Ford was an advisor to former Mayor of London Boris Johnson