Welcome to Soho Housing Association
Difficult Trading Conditions for our Commercial Tenants
We sympathise with the difficult trading conditions our commercial tenants are experiencing and which is consistent across the whole business environment.
Our aim is to provide well managed affordable housing to enhance and sustain the diverse communities in the heart of London.
This can be challenging in an area with no development land and very high property values – in essence we need to provide housing such as a 2 bedroom flat worth around £500,000 at an annual rent capped by government at about £100 per week. We do this with a combination of grants from the Homes and Communities Agency, occasionally from the local council, from commercial borrowing and from income generated from our residential and commercial properties.
Whilst our primary concern is the provision of housing and services to our residents we also support various other social enterprises and charities such as the local Family Centre, housing and homeless organisations such as St Mungo’s and Centrepoint to whom we provide over 100 beds in 3 local buildings.
Where possible we will support other community organisations such as the Soho Society although we are not generally able to discount the rent paid by commercial businesses.
Recently there have been book shop closures on Sandringham Parade, Charing Cross Road - as a direct result of the poor economic climate.
Where businesses fail the loss suffered by the Association is often considerable. In addition to several months unpaid rent we face additional costs for dealing with refurbishment, re-letting and potentially long void periods without rental income.
We understand that the trading environment is challenging. Supermarkets are heavily discounting books and book sellers face competition from major online sellers such as Amazon and technological advances such as digitalization.
As even the largest of book retailers struggle (earlier in 2009 Borders (UK) went into administration) it is understandable that the Publishers Association is encouraging retailers to look at new ways of addressing the shift in our buying habits.
At Sandringham Parade, Charing Cross Road, a traditional location for bookshops, there are a number of empty shops and there has been a noticeable decline in the appearance and quality of the parade over recent years. The Association is implementing a strategy to improve the quality and presentation of the shops for the benefit of retailers, visitors and residents alike. Our vision is to create an attractive and successful retailing environment maintaining a range of good quality uses including traditional bookshops. We will invest in improvements to shops and greater control will be exercised to ensure that tenant signage preserves the character of Sandringham Flats. We will also ensure that shops make good neighbours for our residents. To achieve this, we are investing in improvements to empty shops for re-letting and working to attract good quality tenants and uses with sustainable business models. We will continue to let and encourage booksellers at a fair, unsubsidised, market rent.