Soho’s status as the ‘beating heart’ of London at risk as offices remain largely closed after lockdown

Creative industry bosses today sounded the alarm over the future of Soho and Fitzrovia’s status as the “beating heart” of the capital, as offices across central London remain largely empty.

The areas, which flank Oxford Street, have a global reputation as the epicentre of the UK advertising, film and TV production industries.

Soho’s restaurants and pubs have shown signs of recovery from the Covid lockdown, aided in part by Chancellor Rishi Sunak’s Eat Out to Help Out scheme, but workers are still reticent to return to their desks amid the pandemic.

Seb Juviler, founder of TV and film audio production specialist SNK Studios, told the Standard: “This area has always been part of the beating heart of London from the Sixties onwards, and I hope it will thrive once again and continue to be a creative, special place. If that were lost though, it would be a tragedy.”

SNK, based off Tottenham Court Road has worked on TV shows including Peaky Blinders and Noughts + Crosses. Around half of its workforce has returned. Juviler said a presence in the area was vital, with actors and workers needing to travel in and out swiftly.

He added: “The vibrancy that emanates from the creative industries and people who work in them spreads far and wide into everyone's lives... It affects the look, the feel, the eccentricity, food, fashion and beyond. We'll be left with a bunch of banks and (mostly empty) offices. Very dull.”

He called for Government to discount travel into central London to encourage workers back and aid businesses by extending business rates exemptions and ensuring insurers payout on Covid claims.

Raoul Shah, who has run his marketing agency Exposure from Fitzrovia since 2000, said: “We need the social energy, networking and exchange of ideas that sometimes is best done over a cuppa, in the pub, or just taking a stroll around the lesser known streets of Fitzrovia. WFH does not allow that.

“As Joe Strummer famously said: ‘without people you’re nothing’. So yes, we need people to come into town, get together and collaborate to build a new future.”

He argues tackling high rents would help businesses in the area, while extending pedestrianised areas to allow more covered seating could boost restaurants.

Footfall in the West End slumped 73% on last year in the month that followed most stores reopening on June 15, New West End Company data showed.

Johnny Hornby, co-founder of advertising group The & Partnership and chairman of Prince Harry’s Sentebale charity argues that the Covid crisis has accelerated the trend away from creative towards corporate businesses in the area.

“If Madison Avenue is one side of advertising history then Charlotte Street is the other. Pre-Covid that’s been slipping away with companies moving because the rents here are high. But I’m willing to pay that premium and we’re here to stay. I worry about the young people who are the creative soul of Soho.

“People know they could earn a lot more working at Goldman Sachs but advertising has some of the fun and glamour and proximity of the world of arts and film and that lived all quite well in Soho even when it was full of brothels and strip clubs.”

Hornby, who employs 1500 staff, said a tapering of the furlough scheme could help restaurants to maintain the area’s vibrancy.

Actor Stephen Fry and musician Tim Arnold together launched the Save Soho campaign in 2014 to protect performing arts venues in and around the area from redevelopment.

Philip Bourchier O'Ferrall, chief executive of media firm The Outernet, said: “Soho’s greatest export is perhaps its creativity. Now more than ever people need an exceptional reason to venture out; better defined, that reason also happens to be Soho’s most enduring sentiment; being a place to see and do things that have never been experienced before."

The Outernet is a property developer and advertising company revamping musical instrument mecca Denmark Street and its surrounds. Bourchier O'Ferrall said his 1000 employees and contractors were working in bubbles, and staff had begun returning to its Soho Square office a month ago.