A judicial review claim has been filed at the High Court to overturn the City of London Corporation’s decision on the tenancies of three north London cafes.
They have been run since 2018 by Kentish Town couple Patrick Matthews and Emma Fernandez under their Hoxton Beach brand.
But their tenancies at Highgate Wood Cafe, Queen’s Park cafe, and the Parliament Hill Lido were terminated last December following a remarketing process which affected five cafes across the open spaces.
The authority’s decision to hand four cafes, including the Lido, Queen’s Park, Golders Hill Park, and Parliament Hill Fields to Aussie-inspired chain Daisy Green sparked a 25,000-strong petition backed by local MP Tulip Siddiq and actors Benedict Cumberbatch and James McAvoy.
The Parliament Hill Fields Cafe, which was run for 45 years by the D’Auria family, has been handed to Daisy Green.
But the legal claim brought by Hoxton Beach now asks CoL to reverse the decision over its cafes, alleging the entire process was unfair.
During last summer’s retendering CoL invited applications from other cafe operators and Hoxton Beach applied to continue running theirs.
But in January the brand was given four weeks notice to vacate its cafes.
The operator of Golders Hill Park Cafe was deemed unsuitable to run his own longstanding business but was handed the tenancy of Highgate Wood Pavilion.
Hoxton Beach claim CoL did not fulfil their legal duty of candour – and say issues subsequently raised by the authority weren’t disclosed at the time so they had no chance to address them.
In the row that followed the award of the cafes to Daisy Green an open letter penned by the Heath boss Alderman Gregory Jones criticised Hoxton Beach’s crowdfunded legal action.
He wrote that Daisy Green were “successfully selected on the strength of their overall proposal”.
He added that the new leases would secure investment in the café buildings, a commitment to community use and affordability, and fair pay for staff, saying the marketing of the cafes was a lawful and open process.
“Every pound diverted into legal disputes is a pound that cannot be spent on picking litter, clearing paths, pruning trees, maintaining facilities and conserving nature.”
Hoxton Beach has formally requested details of how the cafe leases decision was made.
Ms Fernandez said: “We believe that the City of London has acted unlawfully and are grateful to our community for their incredible support – as always, we remain open to engage with the City of London for negotiations should they wish to reach out.”
Leigh Day partner Ricardo Gama, who represents Hoxton Beach, added: “Our clients have successfully operated these three cafes for a number of years now, and during this time have built a strong reputation and gained considerable popularity. But despite their clear success, they now face losing the leases.
“They argue that the process undertaken by the City of London Corporation has not been a fair one.
“They believe that the Corporation is acting not like a public authority with specific statutory duties, but instead like a commercial landowner, and not a very rational one at that.
“In filing this judicial review claim, Mr Matthews and Ms Fernandez hope that the decision to end their tenancies will be reconsidered.”
The City of London Corporation has been approached for comment.
