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Thousands of People Support London Cafes Fighting Against a Chain TakeoverAt the beginning of December, the City of London Corporation put the leases for four park cafes – Parliament Hill Fields, Parliament Hill Lido, Golders Hill and Queen’s Park – up for tender. The future of the cafe at Highgate Wood is also up in the air. It was announced on 19th December that Aussie restaurant group Daisy Green, which currently operates 21 sites in the capital, would be taking them over and the current operators would be evicted within weeks. On the new operators, Gregory Jones, chair of the City of London Corporation’s Hampstead Heath, Highgate Wood and Queen’s Park Committee, said: “Daisy Green demonstrated the strongest blend of quality, sustainability, affordability, and community value – all central to our role as stewards of these wonderful places. Their commitment to enhancing facilities, keeping menus fresh, and celebrating the distinctive character of each café will ensure visitors continue to enjoy warm, welcoming spaces for many years to come.”Locals, including MPs and celebs like Benedict Cumberbatch and James McAvoy, are unhappy about the changes, believing that bringing in a new chain operator will destroy the fabric of the community. A petition launched to save the cafes has already received over 13,000 signatures at the time of writing. Now a crowdfunder is running to raise money for a legal challenge to force the Corporation to re-run the re-tendering process in a fair and transparent manner – Patrick Matthews, who runs the cafes at the Lido, Queen’s Park and Highgate Wood, argues that the re-tendering has been run as a commercial exercise to raise money and without any community input.
