Oriental City’s future looking bleak
London's Oriental City is to be knocked down after Development Securities, the new property owners, have proposed to rebuild the site with a DIY store, 520 property flats, gym and a primary school. Oriental City, famous for it's Food Court which contains a wide range of Asian restaurants providing reasonably priced authentic food as well as it's SE Asian supermarkets, currently attracts around 10,000 visitors per month.
Without trying to sound too much like a luddite1, I do think it's a massive shame if we lose another slice of cultural diversity for yet another generic DIY superstore. What makes it particularly disappointing is that Oriental City not only provides a unique drawing point for the community and the area, but that it's already fairly successful; indeed, both the traders and the visitors wanted to stay. Sadly, the call belongs to Brent council. Despite my late posting of this news2, there still hasn't been any final decision.
- On the contrary, I think some redevelopment work at OC wouldn't go amiss at all. [back]
- Had forgotten about it and was only just reminded [back]
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Aw man, this is the first time I’ve heard of Oriental City.
They can’t close it down — I’ve never been!
I live just down the road from Oriental City and visit the supermarket regularly.
I just love the place; the food, the shops, the lot. Okay, it’s a bit shabby, but there’s always lots of people there having a good time. And where else can I satisfy my occasional craving for a curry doughnut?
Really upset about this. Is there a petition going? Although if there’s a lot of money involved its probably a foregone conclusion
I think we have far too many DIY, gym etc in place. There is no need to build more flats either, all because the demand caused by people buying to let for investment. Keep this place so families and friends have a good place to go together.
G
Why not add a second floor to the DIY store, with it’s own entrance and lifts, and recreate Oriental City.
What a tragedy for multicultural London. And what a great idea to solve the problem as suggested above….a second floor on top of the proposed B&Q. Simple and relatively cheap.
Isn’t there an empty site across the road? Why can’t they use that? I take the trip across London to Oriental City with my family once a month as it is like going on holiday for the price of a travelcard. It would be a tragedy if it closed for yet another bland corporate site. Nobody travels for an hour and a half across London to visit a DIY store!
There isn’t an empty site across the road but there is a newly-built block of flats! I am very unhappy about the redevelopment plans. Instead of knocking the place down, I would spend more money on refurbishing Oriental City and improving some of the facilities. I’ve written to the Mayor to try to get the redevelopment overturned (as have a lot of other people) but I fear the redevelopment seems inevitable. We need a miracle.
Well, it’s official. Yesterday, the Mayor declared he could not stop the redevelopment of Oriental City.
AGAINST DEVELOPMENT-My family eats out in Oriental City every Sunday. Who’s to blame?
The previous owner, Dato L ( equiv. to Sir ) sold this property to Brent Council.
I have been to the Labour MP and the British Muslim Council but to no avail.
As far as the councillors are concerned, they have their bonuses to look after, and they are the rightful owner, so they could do what they like.
WHO’S TO BLAME?
There is an online petition until 21 March. I know its short notice, but sign up if u sse this b4 then:
http://www.gopetition.co.uk/petitions/save-oriental-city-campaign.html
I am a big fan of oriental city, i visit there with my mates, we actually visit oriental city from south london, this shows how much we love it. i am just pleading to whom it may concern that it should not be demolished.As the previous comment goes to show it is a part of London’s mulitcultural society.Oriental city in my opinion should stay.
Please goto this site and do the e-petition and save the oriental city need as much support as possible
www.saveorientalcity.co.uk
This is the real chinatown
Don’t knock the oriental city down it’s the only place u can get good asian food in london u can make it more applying sum more ppl will visit please please please
Is this racism? No consultation with the communities who will be adversely affected? No relocation? No public enquiry.
Its about time to close this place down. Its full of shops selling fake LV & other couterfeit items, pirated DVDs, dirty food. No insurance, no toilet facilities, youngers hang around smoking drugs, & full 0f 500 illegal workers out of the 800 workforce. I never see 800 workforce, who made that comment????? Oh, yes, Mr Liu, the so called Fai, owner of China City Restaurant (part time) but a godfather of the 14k triad (full time). Just amazed why he get so invlove when money from drugs & guns are much bether.
please dont close the oriental city as the plce is nice and very friendly people
We need this building to stay as it is. Because we do need to develope more understanding between the East and the Western people.I go there every week and I meet my friend there. It is the only place to meet friends, there is no other such building for miles around. There are too many flats being built in this area already. If this develope does take place I for one will never visit it, or the do it yourself store. It is so good to be able to sample the foods from a lot of other parts of the world. Plus which is very important the umemployment will sky rocket in the area.
I am utterly astounded at the crass stupidity to replace this wonderful place with another pointless DIY superstore. Whoever is responsible for this madness should be shot! I have brought my two young children to Oriental City on several occasions during our trips to London and consider it to be an amazing opportunity to educate them about different foods and cultures all coming together under one roof. If you have not visited this place I urge you to do so quickly and sample its uniqueness for your selves and fight bitterly hard to oppose it’s destruction.
[…] If-else blog […]
i cant believe the goverment is so greedy to demolish something us people care about oriental city is great to go to its helped the community understand us chinese as a culture it has been accepted here for a long timw why distroy it the goverment will annoy all the chinese comunity it is not good whta theya re doing believe me they have the power to sort it out but they have been paid off so thats why they aint doing anything
There is an building opposite Asda that could be used to house a diy store!
I travel 40-50 miles just to go to Oriental City on my birthday. :( Did it last 2 years and am planning to do it this year for my 30th. (Anyone know if it’ll still be open in May?). I certainly won’t be doing the same for yet another DIY store. I’ve got two B&Qs, 1 Wickes, and a Homebase within 5 miles of my house. No huge asian shopping centres though, so I know what I need more. :(
Another Chinatown is going to be destroyed! Why is that? It a nice place not only for young and old with the brilliant food court. I am going to miss the Hainanese Chicken rice there!!
Is there a date for closure yet?
I visited Oriental City for the first time this week and I was rapt! Good quality food in the food hall and fairly reasonably priced and all food cooked freshly as far as I could see. It reminded me of similar places in Singapore and even the Central Market in Adelaide, South Australia where I have had many a good meal. It surely must be unique in the South East of England and must not be lost.
Long may it prosper!
The closure of Oriental city is another way of saying, we don’t give a s**t what you C**nks think. hey’ll also be saying stuff about how B & Q will provide wider employment opportunities for the Oriental community who’ll swap their businesses for sitting behind a cash till in overalls, because hey, that’s how the Chinaman usually is right? The closure of Orintal City marks another formof blatant racism in the so called Multi Ethnic city. However we are also to blame because if the Orinetal community has no idea on how to unite against this. Had it been any other race there wouldn’t be a closure, but if there was, they would work togther regardless of which country they dervied from and organised a march in the middle of London. As it is, the Far and South East are still playing yellow against Brown, so I’ll be very (pleasantly) surprised if I see a group of Indonesians, Chinese, Japanese, Koreans, Bruneins, Borneons, Malays, Thais, Cambodians, Vietnamese, Filipinos…who else have I missed out, come together outside the Mayor of Londons house and scream to have our beloved shopping plaza in Colindale back. Again people, I stress this closure is pure racism and nothing else.