The Nour cash and carry in South London claim they’re threatened with eviction by the property development company of DJ and landlord, Taylor McWilliams.
A Change.org campaign has been launched by a Brixton business against DJ Taylor HK of the Housekeeping DJ collective and his company’s plans to develop Brixton market. McWilliams is the founder and chief executive of property investment company Hondo Enterprises.
According to the Change.org petition, the family-owned grocer “Nour has been a staple in Brixton for over 20 years and is a vital resource to ethnic and immigrant communities selling low cost, high-end groceries.” It states that the shop serves 90% of the restaurants in the market.
The owner of Nour say they have been told they must vacate the property in Brixton Market on 22 July 2020 to make way for a new electrical substation, and that Hondo say that the UK Power Networks specified that the new electrical substation “had to go in Nour’s unit”. However, the Save Nour, Save Brixton campaign, stated in a Facebook post that the Director of Network Operations for UKPN told them that “UKPN would never stipulate an exact location for substation, nor order one to be built.”
Taylor McWilliams, who DJs under the name Taylor HK and is part of DJ trio Housekeeping, bought Brixton Village and Market Row where Nour is located, for £37.25 million in 2018, through his investment firm Hondo Enterprises. The company has also bought Brixton venue Club 414, which had been in business for 30 years. Despite promises to “reopen in the coming months”, with a search for “a new tenant that will be able to retain the diverse, fun and world-famous atmosphere of 414,” the venue remains closed.
According to the Save Nour GoFundMe Page: “Taylor has a vision of what Brixton should look like – but he doesn’t appreciate what makes Brixton great. His vision relies upon social cleansing and cultural erasure.”
A statement from Hondo said Taylor McWilliams had received death threats as a result of the campaign: “In stark contrast to the false and appalling allegations circulating on social media that Taylor, and Hondo Enterprises, “don’t care about the community”, in fact, nearly £2 million has been spent on the infrastructure at the market, making sure that local traders can continue to work there”.
The Fundraiser is on Change.org