Walpole cafe and PMGT
Further to PMGT’s response to Ealing today’s article on my cafe. I would like to respond:-I would like to correct a few inaccuracies in PMGT’s statement to you.Firstly, neither PMGT or the council kept me informed that the operation of my cafe was going out to tender imminently. In fact, I received a telephone call from Chris Bunting from Ealing Council telling me the cafe was going out to tender and I would hear from PMGT in the next few days via email. Accordingly the tender request came through a couple of days after this call on 3rd October. I immediately contacted Vivienne Cane- Honeysett one of the trustees who frequents the cafe, expressing my distress and shoddy treatment , as I had been running the cafe for nine years. I heard nothing back from either Vivienne or PMGT Trustees. You will appreciate from this, my invitation to tender was certainly not warm as PMGT state and no consideration was afforded me as a loyal proprietor that has supported both the council and PMGT through their extensive building programme. Can I make it clear I have been providing a good and constant service since I opened in 2009 in the old wooden cafe before it was demolished. PMGT state that we closed during this time, on the contrary we remained open throughout until the Rickyard cafe was built.We operated from a portacabin for nearly two years due to building works overrunning at the Rickyard centre. We never complained and worked with the council to facilitate our move to the Rickyard building. I have chosen to place this in the public domain, because of how PMGT have handled this matter and also because I have been so encouraged by the local community and our supportive and fantastic customers.PMGT claim this is in the best interests of the wider Ealing community, but the community have not been consulted and there has been no transparency or involvement from any of the local community groups. This is why in less than 24 hours nearly 2,000 local people have signed our online petition in protest at PMGT’s proposed actions and treatment of a loyal small family run business.I am expected to walk away from a business that I have nurtured for nine years at great investment in both time and money and hand my business to a new operator. I would suspect it will be a large chain that will also take on the new garden restaurant at the front of the Manor House. I am not sure that PMGT understands what is actually in the best interests of the wider community, If they did they would consult and involve the community as a whole and ascertain exactly what the community want for their cafe. They have failed to do this. Alan Dillon
Alan Dillon ● 3205d36 Comments ● 2871d