Work stalls on Hornsey Town Hall square listed building
Haringey Council are yet to grant listed building permissions. Photo: Nigel Sutton - Credit: Nigel Sutton
The fate of a new restaurant is hanging in the balance after the new owners initially failed to get the correct permissions to remove its art deco features.
Middeys, a brasserie and lounge bar on the Broadway, was meant to open this Spring, but the venue is currently a building site.
There is no news about when development plans can press ahead.
Haringey Council is the freeholder of the building and Middeys are the new leaseholders.
It is understood Middeys’ owners started work on the building without applying for special planning permission for listed buildings.
They lodged the correct documents in February but all work has been paused while a decision is made by Haringey Council - and a date has not yet been set.
There is some controversy about whether Middey’s owners purposely removed the historic art deco letters spelling ‘telephone’ from the side of their building.
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The directors of ANA projects, current managers of the Hornsey Town Hall Arts Centre, salvaged the letters when they saw them being taken down by builders in January.
Executive director Nick Saich described how they saved the letters after the builders left them among the building debris, kept them in a box and returned them to Middeys.
He said: “We had a suspicion that they might be Art Deco, and in keeping with the Art Deco feel of the Town Hall square.”
“They’ve featured on opening credits for TV shows like Peep Show.”
“They were down on the sand,” he said. “We took them and put them in a safe place.”
Middey’s owners plan to change the interior and exterior of the building.
They wish to strip out the internal walls, ceilings or floor finishes, according to planning documents.
Community activist Sue Hessel said: “It’s appalling about Middeys - Haringey are their landlords - they should have been on their case from day one.”
The owners of Middeys, which also has a branch in Cockfosters, could not be reached for comment.
