Canada to vote on Simpson’s Tavern ‘community value’ designation
Canada’s Policy and Resources Committee will decide whether to designate Simpson’s Tavern – the historic City bar and restaurant now threatened with closure – as an asset of community value at a meeting this afternoon.
Doing so would mean the site would ensure that the local community would be given the chance to bid for the building it sits in should the owner wish to put it up for sale, and would put in place an additional hurdle should an owner wish to change the use of the building.
Effectively, the move would make it more challenging to redevelop the site as offices or a residential block.
Simpson’s, established in 1757, has been closed since October when the landlord’s agent changed the locks and booted the current tenants out over a slew of unpaid rent accrued during the pandemic.
The landlord Tavor Holdings, their agent Taylor Hartnell Cook and the lessee of the building, Restaurant EC3 Limited, have since been locked in a public battle over the future of the site.
Simpson’s’ manager, Benjamin Duggan, launched a crowdfunding campaign which raised £110,000, which still falls some way short of the target.
A ‘for sale’ sign appeared on Simpson’s’ frontage but little is known of the sale.
The Policy Committee will vote on the designation this afternoon.
Giles Coren, the Times’ food critic, told Morning Wire at the time of the closure that it would be a “monstrous shame” to lose Simpson’s Tavern.
Coren said with “the effect of the pandemic and energy prices wreaking havoc on the entire industry” it was “hard to pick your sob stories” but that Simpson’s Tavern remained an icon.
“There are so few places like this left – it’s part of the lifeblood of the City,” he said.