Selfridges’ Duke Street entrance

• ALTHOUGH we have every sympathy for Selfridges – full year sales in 2019 up 6 per cent to £1.85billion – we were disappointed to see the usual inaccuracies about Soho being trotted out in the objections to the grant of a sexual entertainment licence to the premises on its doorstep at 37 Duke Street, (Selfridges objects to new ‘strip club’ bid, August 28).

One objector suggested that activities such as the ones proposed for 37 Duke Street, while unacceptable in Mayfair, are fair game for Soho, that is, that Soho’s residents are immune to late-night noise and are indifferent to the sexual exploitation of women.

Soho is a residential area with 3,000 residents, 800 social housing units, a school and several churches.

Its residents are impacted in exactly the same way as Mayfair residents would be by loss of sleep from the over-intensification of late-night economic activity that creates noise nuisance. We are not different animals.

It is also worth remembering that it was Soho’s residents that played a key role in the removal of the worst aspects of the sex industry from Soho in the 1990s.

This was not out of prudishness but because of genuine concern to protect women from criminal exploitation and violence. The casual suggestion that Soho residents are indifferent to these issues is strikingly unfair.

Mayfair residents take note that Westminster City Council’s laissez-faire attitude to the needs and concerns of residents might easily spread from Soho (where it is endemic) across Regent Street to Mayfair’s more refined avenues and boulevards.

A better approach would be for all residents to work together to protect their communities from the council’s lack of action on noise nuisance rather than playing one city-centre community off against its neighbour.

TIM LORD
Chair, The Soho Society, W1