The owner of a longstanding business says he has been forced to shut shop because of the effects of creating a Mini Holland.
Asghar Jilow has run Eastman Army Camp in Walthamstow High Street for the past 19 years, but says he will close his doors as his profits have been cut by 45 per cent since the cycling measures were put in place in the East London borough.
He told the East London Guardian: “Since Mini Holland was introduced I have not had many customers.
“They tell me it takes them too long to come here. After Mini Holland closed the secondary roads all the traffic has to use the main roads and it has caused gridlock.
“Lots of customers from Chingford and Leytonstone have stopped coming. When customers do come in they are unhappy with the situation. A journey that used to take 10 minutes now takes 40 minutes.
“I feel like I’m going to lose something big and it’s very upsetting.”
He said: “I have asked councillors to help but nobody is looking after the businesses in the high street.
“I have to close the shop. What else can I do? I can’t afford to open the same shop somewhere else.
“My wife says there’s no point in doing it when the money isn’t coming in.
“This shop is half of my life – it’s my livelihood. If I can’t come to work every day I will miss it.”
A spokesman for Waltham Forest Council said: “We understand that some businesses and traders feel that the Mini Holland programme has had a detrimental effect on their takings, however there are many factors which influence where people choose to shop.
“Recent research conducted to help us develop the High Street Strategy found that trips by car only account for 13 per cent of visitors to the high street.
“We would also like to stress that there is extensive consultation with local residents and businesses before any changes to road layouts are made as part of the Mini-Holland programme.”
Mr Jilow disputed this, saying: “Most of my customers come by car because how could you bring heavy and bulky equipment like tents on the bus? There’s only one or two other shops like this in east London.
“I work here up to 12 hours a day and I was never consulted by the council. I am very disappointed with them.”
In November we reported how initial figures suggest that the overall volume of traffic in the Walthamstow Village area has been cut by about half since work was completed on the Mini Holland cycling scheme. While traffic has risen on nearby main roads, it is nevertheless estimated that even with these included the wider area has seen a 16 per cent drop.
Initial traffic data show a 56 per cent drop in the number of vehicles on 12 key roads within the area.
35 thoughts on ““I’ve had to shut my shop because of Mini Holland””
Offer online delivery. Bet he
Offer online delivery. Bet he has loads of options, but prefers to spend his energy collecting pointless signatures and giving sob stories to the local rag.
Lets see the accounts anyway, see if this 45% figure is true. Shop was probably dying regardless.
unconstituted wrote:
He does. The shop is online.
His is clearly a business that requires the ability to park nearby if buying bulky goods. The mini Holland system prevents this. Council need to help him out by subsidising a move to a more suitable place.
Having said that, his customers can still easily get to the shop and have any bulky orders shipped (of course thay can also do it online). Everyone (him, council, customer) could try harder in this respect.
Looks prety busy to me.
Looks prety busy to me. 🙂
Then what’s the problem.
Then what’s the problem. Maybe people just don’t want to buy his stuff.
Lets see the accounts.
OK. Just had a look for his online shop.
http://www.armysurplusuk.net
One look at it and you’ll see exactly why he’s not making sales. Pathetic looking web 1.0 nonsense.
Embarassing. Yet he has the audacity to come and blame the council for his income?
I think you’re seriously
I think you’re seriously underestimating laziness, Unconstituted. I’ve experienced this effect myself due to a temporary road closure, the shops were dead because people had to walk a bit further than usual.
Yorkshire wallet wrote:
Yeah but at the same time, people will willingly park some distance away from the shops in a mega-mall car park.
Used to live near Chingford
Used to live near Chingford and work in Walthamstow 8 years ago. Was often quicker to walk home from work than drive it.
If they were that bothered
If they were that bothered that a journey used to take 10 minutes (in London traffic) that now takes 40, why not just walk?
KevM wrote:
I have some sympathy with this bloke.
A 10 min journey at 20-30 mph = 2-3miles = 40-60 mins. Do this each way carrying something heavyish and you’d go somewhere else.
I’ve a friend who runs an army surplus place and he gets a lot of trade from a particular type of person (normally male, middle aged, a bit over weight and slightly on the odd side). They turn up withouth any real idea of what they want if anything at all, wander about for a while, have a chat, he’ll put a brew on for them and after a bit they’ll probably buy something relatively obscure and expensive.
Not the kind of people who just buy stuff on line because they want to browse and handle things and are really paying for the human interaction by buying stuff.
I can really see these people being turned off by not being able to park nearby.
As stated above, in the short term at least, the council should try and help this person to find a new shop appropriate to his needs.
DrG82 wrote:
I love a good browse. It’s something the younger generation don’t appreciate because their exposure to physical goods is less than it was back in the day. I used to go into Leeds and waste a day in record shops, games shops and even (the shame, the shame) Games Workshop and places like Beatties.
It was all about the browse.
I don’t want to instantly be guided to the right thing in the right section, I want to find it myself and maybe along the way see something else that sparks my interest. Hate going into Game and they jump on within seconds.
FERK OFF, I’M BROWSING!!
Yorkshire wallet wrote:
Modern shops hate browsing: browsers are using up their floor space for too long but not buying anything, so they are not profitable customers. We’re only a couple of steps away from William Gibson’s story where shops check your credit rating and take a deposit before letting you through the door IMO.
(I also spent hours in Leeds city centre buying nothing, back in the day. That games shop in the Merrion Centre that was like a little cave filled with lead miniatures and obscure RPG rulebooks… Ah, happy days)
brooksby wrote:
It’s many years since I went shopping in Leeds, but my highlights were Jumbo Records and an excellent guitar shop somewhere up near the Merrion Centre.
Last time I was there I was astonished at how that end of the city has changed. I came out of the top end of the Merrion Centre expecting grotty backstreets and was shocked to find a huge arena. Must be getting old!
srchar wrote:
Have to admit I haven’t been back up north for the best part of twenty years… Arena? What arena?
DrG82 wrote:
who knew he also offered those services!
The red flag is “I was never
The red flag is “I was never consulted”. I bet he had endless consultation letters and leaflets through the post, posters in the street, coverage in the local press. Consultation isn’t someone coming in to the shop to talk to him (who he’d probably have told he was too busy to speak to anyway). He probably just binned the leaflets etc as “junk mail”.
Agree with DrG above.
Agree with DrG above.
I have some sympathy for Mr Jilow. Probably outside his comfort zone, but perhaps diversify into bicycles and coffee? Not Army surplus though, please.
He’s nowhere near Mini
He’s nowhere near Mini Holland, at least he’s nowhere the village which is the picture at the top of this article. He’s down walthamstow market. I’ve been in there a few times and he’s way overpriced. Most people going to the market would walk or use public transport. This has nothing to do with Mini Holland.
kobacom wrote:
Indeed. This is his shop, just next door to Argos. His business has failed either because his prices are too high, or because there’s no demand for army surplus on Walthamstow High Street. Mini Holland might have happened about the same time his business started to go down the pipes, but that’s pure coincidence.
Walthamstow has changed a lot in the last ten years – it sounds like Mr Jilow’s shop hasn’t.
kobacom wrote:
THIS ^^^
kobacom wrote:
But he’s not complaining about the traffic in the mini Holland. He’s saying that it has pushed the cars out to the main roads, which are now much more congested.
Of course all of London is more congested than it used to be, which is exactly why we need the mini Hollands.
Were are his customers going?
Were are his customers going? How many army surplus stores are there within 10 minutes of this place?
I didn’t realise you needed a
I didn’t realise you needed a car to carry a tent. I’ve been getting my Glastonbury packing wrong all these years by strapping it to a backpack and taking the National Express.
timfearn wrote:
Here’s one for your next Glastonbury trip – send us a pic of you carrying this on your back along with all theother stuff you need for the festival (this is one of the smaller type, only weighs 60kg).
http://www.anchorsupplies.com/tents/9-x-9-ex-british-army-frame-tent-unissued.html
Something doesn’t ring true
Something doesn’t ring true about Mr Jilow’s story. Walthamstow High Street has been a pedestrian zone for years as there’s a market along much of its length. So no one has been able to park outside his shop for a very long time. He sounds typical of high street retailers who overestimate the numbers of their customers arriving by car and immediately thrust the blame for declining sales on what they perceive might be preventing them driving to their door.
In any case many of the nearby side streets have visitor parking, and at the end of one of them, Buxton Road, there is a Lidl with a car park, which though small has signs directing drivers to two other car parks, both within 200 metres. That Lidl also probably stocks product lines similar to much of his range, cheaper, too, probably, and in bright colours, not army surplus shades of gunge. Not to mention the competition from the Argos literally next door to him.
As others mentioned Orford Road, pictured above, is nowhere near Walthamstow High Street and any changes to infrastructure here would therefore have no impact on the high street.
It’s ok, I’m sure somebody
It’s ok, I’m sure somebody with a beard will turn it into a coffee shop and make a killing.
Ah. Diddums.
Ah. Diddums.
IMO, the worst thing about
IMO, the worst thing about this story is the irresponsible journalism – that this story is being presented as fact and was posted in the East London Guardian without someone doing some actual research first.
And, that they were so desperate for headlines, they would listen to any sob story.
Or, this story has been handed to them on a plate for more nefarious reasons. It seems engendered to increase conflict. There are certainly a couple of commenters that seem to be there to disparage any positive comments about the scheme.
(Interestingly, if you read some of the comments, it turns out the shopkeeper apparently doesn’t have a totally blameless past.)
Seems like quite a few of us
Seems like quite a few of us from E17 on this board!
Yes its the village, complete with the most hipster Spar in the country- (specialty line = bacon jam, they won’t sell it to you unless you have a beard)
And yes, its nowhere near his shop. Brave effort to sell army surplus from a shop front when Europes longest street market is camped outside five days a week. (Second pic must have been taken on a Sunday)Plenty of competition for cut price clobber, and everything else comes out of the Argos catalogue.
So people need to take away
So people need to take away an army surplus tent by car?
Do they issue motor vehicles to squaddies to carry their tents and luggage?
“…could you give me a hand with getting this rocket launcher on the roof of the volvo Martin, I can’t get the damned thing inside the car…here take this bunjee will you…”
emishi55 wrote:
They only sell 4 different tents (and not exactly army surplus afaia) in about the 40-60 quid range at a brief search. Heaviest is over 4kg, postage over a tenner. OTOH, stuff under 1kg is max 6.50 (Iirc), which probably covers most things.
Don’t be facetious.
Don’t be facetious.
When I’m buying a bag full of knives, I want to park my car as close as possible.
11hours and still no comment
11hours and still no comment on the cock tavern.
standards are slipping people!!
At least as far as the bid is
At least as far as the bid is concerned, the shop is in the mini Holland area. About the centre of the Blackhorse village area on the map on page 11.
http://www.enjoywalthamforest.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/mini-holland-tender-13-dec.pdf
Argos sell tents too, don’t
Argos sell tents too, don’t they? Isnt’ that his real problem? Presume they also have the same challenge regarding heavy pick-ups, too? Unless they’re also closing, why doesn’t he check out where their customers park up, and advise his own to do the same? The Mini Holland bit is clearly just an excuse.
Maybe his camoflauge is just
Maybe his camoflauge is just too good!