Since the closure of The Backstreet was announced, I’ve been asked questions by many, many people, and I decided to put as much information as I can somewhere I can refer people to.

This is not on the BLUF blog, because I am writing this in a strictly personal capacity. I should stress that I do not speak for The Backstreet, and I can’t comment directly on their financial situation, as I don’t know it; even if I could, it would probably be inappropriate for me to do so without their express permission.

Why is it closing?

The bar is closing because the lease is expiring, and will not be renewed. Rest assured, the people who run Backstreet have looked into their options. They’ve made the announcement, because there’s nothing else they can do.

Can we protest to anyone?

Not really; I mean, go knock yourselves out sending letters to someone, if you want.

But this isn’t to do with anyone other than the operators of the bar, and the owners of the building, who are a big property company. And, with the best will in the word, I can’t see what effective protest could be mounted there. Give the Backstreet a new lease, or we’ll tell people not to buy any of your expensive flats?

Similarly, protesting to the council won’t achieve anything at the moment, because there is no current planning application for them to decide on. They don’t have the general power to tell a commercial landlord who to let their property to.

Isn’t the bar protected?

If you’ve followed the saga of The Backstreet, you’ll know that in 2017 we fought off a proposal to redevelop the building into a block of flats. I spoke at the planning meetings and the planning inquiry.

As a part of that process yes, it is true that some measure of protection for The Backstreet as an important venue was secured, in the form of committments that would be given by the developers if they were to receive planning permission. The chief condition was that, if redevelopment went ahead, a new space for The Backstreet would be provided in the basement of the building.

However, in the end the proposal was completely rejected, and so that condition wasn’t imposed on the developers. You can’t impose a condition on a project that isn’t happening anyway.

Now, if there was another proposal to redevelop, then yes I’d go and make the same arguments again, and we’d hope that we could win a similar condition (ideally with something included about costs of rent, too). But there is no current outstanding application to develop, so there’s nothing to which such a condition could be attached.

Why can’t you get ACV status?

During the planning fight, people talked of ACV status, which is where you get a ruling that a place – like a pub, say – is an Asset of Community Value. Once that status has been granted, then if the owner of the building wants to sell it, they have to give the community a chance to buy it, at a fair market price.

There are a couple of reasons why this wasn’t an option for The Backstreet. First, it’s already owned by the company that wants to develop the land, so there wouldn’t necessarily be a point at which any ACV status could be used. And second, The Backstreet is just part of a much larger building. I could be wrong, but I don’t believe you can claim ACV status for only part of a building. Even if you were able to somehow magically buy the ground floor at the back, you’d still have to deal with the owners of the rest. More likely, you’d need to get that status for the whole building – and that means you’d need a lot more money to buy it, and if you somehow managed it, you’d own an ancient crumbling nightclub as well as The Backstreet, and you’d have even more of a nightmare making it profitable.

So, we never really explored ACV status for The Backstreet – but principally because it was already owned by the developer.

Is this because of the new council in Tower Hamlets?

I’ve seen a few comments suggesting the decision has something to do with the new council in Tower Hamlets, which has recently changed from Labour to Aspire. Aspire is a party headed by a former Mayor of the borough, and has a lot of backing from the muslim community in the area.

We have absolutely no idea what their view would be on a venue like Backstreet, should it come up at a planning meeting again, and I don’t think it’s fair to make any assumptions about that at all.

Note that the council elections were only about three weeks before the announcement of the closure; I think it’s fanciful to assume that one of the very first actions of a new council would be to try and find a way to close The Backstreet.

And, in any event, I can confirm that the end of the lease was something known about and discussed some months ago, long before the elections. The Backstreet shared some limited information with those of us who host regular nights, while they were exploring their options.

So, please, don’t try to make this into a “gays vs muslims” thing. It very much is not.

Can we fundraise to keep it open?

This has been suggested by some people; again, I stress that I do not know the state of the books for The Backstreet, or the exact figures that they have to pay in rent. But I can confidently say that between rent and business rates and necessities like insurance, we are talking of thousands of pounds a month. Unless you have some very rich people on speed-dial, a fund raiser is not going to make a huge long term difference to whether or not a place like The Backstreet survives.

What keeps them alive is regular custom, and more than just one or two busy nights a month. And, in any event, the end of the lease is not really a matter of money, unless your intention is to give it all to lawyers, which would probably use it up even faster than running a nightclub.

If there are other questions I can answer, I’ll do my best.

In closing here, I also want to say that John has given over half his life to running the Backstreet (and arguably his health, having had a stroke nine years ago). To close will be a wrench for him, far more so than for any of us as customers. We can lament the loss of a very special place, but none of us is in a position to second guess his decision.

Tags : backstreet