Well-heeled locals in a leafy north London suburb have claimed a ‘hideous’ new shop is going to send their house prices plummeting.
Residents living in upmarket Haverstock Hill in Belsize Park, where homes can sell for £700k, said the branch of Leyland hardware store will ruin the ‘elegance’ of their high street.
Belsize Park is known to be home to the rich and famous, including stars Helena Bonham-Carter, Jude Law, and Cameron Diaz, who are often seen walking its attractive tree-lined streets.
But fuming locals described the new DIY store’s bright blue signage as ‘visually offensive’, ‘garish’ and ‘ugly’.
One resident fumed: ‘This is the worst and tackiest signage in the whole of Belsize town. It cheapens the area and will reduce house prices’.
The much-maligned store has already got planning permission for the corner spot at Haverstock Hill but is awaiting a decision on its application for the signage.
Local Alan Selwyn blasted it on Camden Council’s planning portal.
He raged: ‘The four large illuminated fascia signs and the two either side of the door are garish and inappropriate and excessive at the most prominent part of this largely restrained parade within the Belsize Conservation Area, being the first building of the parade on rising up Haverstock Hill and turning into the elegant residential street.’
Ilana Walters, said: ‘The nature of Leylands as a DIY shop with its visually offensive branding will do severe damage to the appeal of Haverstock Hill as a retail area and Belsize Grove as a residential street. This also presents a threat to independent local businesses along the Haverstock Hill parade.’
David Greene, said: ‘This shoddy proposal is totally out of keeping with its context.’
Objector Carlos Filipe Correa Mendes Menezes concluded: ‘There is so much potential for good commercial use of this space that will benefit the broader community directly that I cannot adequately convey my disappointment that this is the planned usage of it.’
Saul Galpern, who has lived in the area for 25 years, described the store as ‘dreadful, awful – the design, the colour’.
He told MailOnline: ‘The design and the logo are so bright and ostentatious and I know lots of people are not happy about it.’
Mr Galpern went on to reference the McDonalds in Belsize Park which residents had previously successfully lobbied to make more ‘in keeping with the area’.
Fast food chain McDonald’s eventually agreed to ditch its red and yellow colour scheme for darker shades in Hampstead Village in the 1980s.
A group of regular customers at the local existing DIY store – Belsize Hardware – had strong opinions on the bold new Leyland signage.
Adam Richardson, who has lived in Haverstock Hill for 32 years said the ‘major issue is it completely kills the notion of a little shop’.
He acknowledged ‘Belsize Park has changed like every local High Street has changed’.
Mr Richardson added: ‘At its kindest it’s just bullying by a large retail chain forcing change on the community.’
Another resident who has lived in Haverstock Hill for 35 years – and in the area her whole life – Laura O’Connor, said it was ‘ridiculous’.
She explained they were ‘just taking the character away’.
A man passing by who frequents the area added the store was ‘horribly ugly’.
In a statement, Martin Hastings, CEO of Leyland, insists the store understands and appreciates the ‘unique characteristics of the Belsize Park area’.
And not everyone MailOnline spoke to was against the change – Carol Cook, whose daughter lives in Belsize Park suggested of the store that ‘people need it’ and if she needed it she would ‘go in there’.
She said she was ‘not used to the posh areas’ but that if decorators needed to go ‘miles away’ for paint they would end up charging more and that the street already looked like it had ‘a range of all shops’ so was not too bothered about the colour scheme.
The owner of the neighbouring Frame Factory shop, Dean Phipps, joked he ‘wished it were a Wetherspoons’ but thought the new shop would be good for trade.
He said his store – which had been on the High Street for 40 years and of which he was owner for six years – ‘uses a lot of paint’.
The comments come as Mr Phipps’ store has the same landlord as the Leyland site.
Some other shops were not so positive – not least the Belsize Hardware store nearby which locals had feared would be affected.
Shop staff Rawa Faraj and Mahdi Rehmani reflected on the local reaction.
Mr Faraj said: ‘A lot of people are not happy.
‘They signed a petition because they are so happy we are here and we offer very good customer service.’
When asked about the difference between their independent store and the Leyland chain, the pair said they ‘had more variety’ and ‘different types of stuff’.
Store regular Sam Dunmore who has lived in Haverstock Hill for 23 years agreed with this and said the shop was ‘not needed’.
She said ‘we definitely do not need a builder’s merchants’ and she suggested the community should have more of a say on what was needed in the village and not.
Leyland CEO Mr Hastings, said: ‘We understand and appreciate the unique characteristics of the Belsize Park area.
‘For that reason, after taking advice from Camden Council, we made significant changes to the store’s appearance so that it is more in keeping with the existing businesses and street scene.
‘These alterations included smaller signs and toned-down exterior lighting. We have also painted the external brickwork a much darker blue than our usual brand colours, which is not dissimilar in style to the dark grey the previous occupants used.
‘We have invested significantly in transforming the building, which was empty for some time, for the benefit of the Belsize community. The response from customers and passers-by has been overwhelmingly positive.
‘We look forward to being part of Belsize Park for many years to come.’
Properties in Haverstock Hill had an overall average price of £704,917 over the last year.
Sold prices in Haverstock Hill over the last year were 27% down on the previous year and 20% down on the 2021 peak of £882,065.
In 2013 the residents’ association recommended the pavement in Haverstock Hill for local listing.
And in 2015, at precisely 5pm Tesco confirmed they had pulled out of their proposed store opening in Belsize Park following months of the campaigning from the local community.
A spokesman for the Belsize Village Association said at the time in reference to the ‘highly successful NO campaign’: ‘It’s just great. Everybody said you won’t be able to beat an organisation as large as Tesco, and it just shows that you can.’
