Colonnade traders in Bexhill handing in their petition on June 23 2025

Colonnade traders handing in their petition on June 23 2025.

Transcript

00:00Hi there, I'm Charlotte Arundel. I'm one of the traders at the colonnade down at

00:05the seafront in Bexhill. We've come here to the Town Hall today to hand in our

00:10petition. The petition is about the closure of the colonnade with no

00:17guarantee that any of the traders there can come back after a winter refurb.

00:24There are a couple of reasons why we haven't been given a guarantee. One is

00:30that the council, Rother Council, may be devolving the colonnade to a different

00:37organisation because Rother Council won't be existing in a couple of years. The

00:44second reason is that we've been given no guarantee, even if Rother did still own

00:52the colonnade, that we can come back to our shops. It might be that it does

01:00continue with Rother's management but we have also been given quotes of four and

01:08a half times the going rate of anything else in Bexhill for the rent and there's

01:14also a potential for Rother to charge a turnover rent which could be between five

01:19and fifteen percent of our turnover in addition to much elevated rents. We've

01:27been trading at the colonnade for 13 years and we would like the council when we

01:34hand in this petition to debate the petition with a full council meeting and

01:41to take seriously our campaign to be reinstated at the colonnade. We would be

01:48totally happy for a spring relaunch with a mix of the existing and new traders and

01:55whether Rother is our landlord or somebody else all negotiations are still

02:02taking place. We feel that we should be allowed to come back as we are the

02:11survivors. We've seen 20 plus businesses fail at the colonnade while we've managed

02:18to survive even through Covid etc. We would like the council to put a value on

02:26on what we do which is beyond the rental income from the council because we

02:34believe that the colonnade is a community asset and that it should be treated like

02:42a precious resource and that the regeneration of Bexhill through the arts

02:49is an incredibly important factor that should help Rother to determine our

02:58continuation at the colonnade. So with four and a half thousand signatures the

03:03council just has to listen to their own constituents who are fighting to support

03:08these businesses and keep these really vital businesses going. These are

03:14entrepreneurs on our seafront who are under threat of losing their businesses and

03:19the council has to listen. We can't have the kind of nonsense that we've heard where

03:26the council is telling councillors not to support these businesses. These

03:31businesses are fantastic for our town. They're at the heart of our seafront with

03:37our high streets collapsing around us with shops closing every day. Everybody

03:43should be pulling out all the stops to help and support these four local

03:49entrepreneurial businesses.