Businesses at Bexhill's Colonnade, in East Sussex, face eviction

Read more at https://www.sussexexpress.co.uk/news/people/businesses-at-bexhills-colonnade-face-eviction-5048690

Transcript

00:00Last May, we were told by the council that the colonnade would be closed for a six-month

00:06refurb and we, at that point, were asking if we could come back to our shops after the

00:13refurb and were told there was no reason why we couldn't come back.

00:18Then in the middle of February, we were told that the kiosk would be marketed and we could

00:24reapply for our own shops, but we were still fair enough with that.

00:30And then at the end of February, we got told that because of devolution, the council couldn't

00:36give us any guarantee that the colonnade would be reopened in its current form or when it

00:43would be reopened.

00:46So we have been in limbo.

00:49We don't know what's going to happen.

00:52We're reaching out to potential new landlords because Rother isn't going to exist.

00:59We were told there were three options for people to take over, potentially organisations

01:05to take over.

01:07One was Bexhill Town Council, one was East Sussex Council and one was the Delaware Pavilion.

01:16So what we're now trying to do is reach out to them and reach out to Rother to say, does

01:24the colonnade need vacant possession for those organisations to take over or could we still

01:35be here as tenants?

01:37Because if we reach out to the people who are potentially going to be our new landlords

01:41and they say we would prefer that there were still tenants in the colonnade, then we're

01:47not caught in this limbo waiting for devolution to happen, which could be months.

01:55The colonnade could be closed for years, by which time we might even be retired before

02:00we come back to work.

02:02So yeah, that's the position at the moment.

02:05Sonia and I have both been here for 13 years.

02:09We were part of the original pop-up.

02:12So that was in October 2011 and then we relaunched with the first wave of people that were in

02:22here and that was June 2012.

02:25So we've been here trading ever since.

02:28We're here all year round.

02:29There are some weather conditions that mean that we can't be here.

02:33We're devastated.

02:34We're absolutely devastated and really unsure as to what the future holds.

02:40We were hoping to have a six month plus pop-up shop if we were able to come back, but now

02:49we're in a position where we may not return.

02:52So we're in limbo and we don't know what to do.

02:55So we're reaching out to as many people as we possibly can who have any kind of influence

03:01or who could work collaboratively together to try and get this issue resolved.

03:09It's totally counterproductive for the colonnade to be left empty and I'm sure that that's

03:15not what anybody wants, but that is what we fear.