[imagesource:albany&york/facebook]

Squatters who took over a Gordon Ramsay pub in London have announced that they plan to turn the Grade II-listed building into a cafe and art gallery welcoming ‘the victims of gentrification’.

The York & Albany gastropub near Regent’s Park has been the scene of an ongoing legal battle between the celebrity chef and a freeholding film director named Gary Love.

The £13 million (R307 million) property was however ‘taken over’ by a group of around six squatters this week. The group locked themselves in, boarded up the windows and placed a sign in the window with a “legal warning”.

A notice taped to the door said the group ‘had a right to occupy the venue’, which they said was not a “residential building” and was therefore not subject to 2012 legislation which made it an offence to squat in a residential property.

Ramsey did however phone the fuzz, but the coppers said it was a ‘civil matter’ and could therefore not attend to it. We would have loved to be a fly on Ramsey’s wall after that particular conversation. To piss the angry chef off even more, the squatters told anyone who would listen on Sunday that they had plans to turn the former nineteenth-century coaching inn into a community café and art gallery to support ‘victims of gentrification’.

“We are occupying the York and Albany Hotel in Camden as the collective Camden Art Cafe. We aim to open our doors regularly to anyone and everyone, particularly the people of Camden who have been victims of gentrification and parasitic projects like HS2.”

“We provide free food, drinks, and a space to display their art without the ridiculous red-tape galleries that require people to jump over. We believe all of us and our art deserves dignity.”

 

View this post on Instagram

 

A post shared by A.W.S. (@autonomouswintershelter)

“Camden is a borough with one of the biggest wealth disparities in London, so it seems only fitting that £13m properties that most locals would never be able to afford to visit should be opened up to all.”

One has to wonder if the bobbies would be so chilled if they set their eyes on Buckingham Palace. Then again, it is a private residence.

“At a time when Camden market has been bought out by a billionaire and many longstanding local businesses are being evicted from their units, it’s even more important that we all band together in all the forms of resistance that we know and can.”

HS2 refers to the first new intercity railway to be built in north London in over a century and saw many properties being bought up and people evicted for the project – until Rishi Sunak decided to cancel the line.

The occupation of a person’s non-residential property without their permission is not itself a crime in the UK, although police can take action if crimes are subsequently committed, including damaging the property or stealing from it.

Gary Love purchased the property in 2007 and leased it to Ramsey on a 25-year term for an annual rental of £640,000 9R15 million).

Shame, the uber-wealthy can’t have anything nice anymore. What a Kitchen Nightmare for Ramsey.