Pop Up Margate closes following notice to quit from landlord

Pop Up Margate has closed Photo John Horton

Pop Up Margate in the High Street has closed.

Margate Town Team opened the venture in 2012 under the name ‘Poportunity’ as part of the Mary Portas Pilot Funding Programme.

The aim was to give start up ventures a place to test the market and grow at a reduced rent.

But the town team has now been given notice to quit by landlord Panter (VAT) Properties Ltd and another tenant is said to be lined up to take the property on.

Photo John Horton

It means there is now no base for the small businesses that operated there – including the café, craft, clothes and jewellery stalls and a nail bar.

Dawn’s Brow and Beauty Bar has moved to a new site in Northdown Road.

A Town Team spokesman said efforts are now underway to find a new premises.

Photo John Horton

They said: “Unfortunately the landlords gave us notice to quit as they have another tenant for the premises. We are looking for suitable alternative venues and hope to re-launch at some point in the future.

Photo John Horton

“However the property situation in Margate around the High Street is quite difficult at the moment and we have not yet been able to secure an alternative venue.

“Whilst we are disappointed that we have had to move out, we must be grateful for the extended use the landlords gave us of that building for many years. It has been a happy and beneficial association for both parties and all of the Pop Up tenants who have been part of that Pop Up experience.

Photo John Horton

“We are hoping that the experience we have had managing he shop over the years will allow us to launch a bigger and better version in the future, where we can nurture fledgling businesses.”

The Pop Up was one of the ventures by a newly created town team following the award of £100,000  to Margate as one of 12 town centres across the country selected to be the first Portas Pilot projects in 2012.

The national Portas Project was later declared a failure.

11 Comments

  1. it was doomed to fail
    with MTCT with one of the people on board had fingers in pies and has made so many disasters
    so let me get this straight the property was only rented
    what happend to the £!00k I would like to see accounts for this I will find them because you know this is awful to the small businesses
    sleuth that I am it needs exposing

  2. It was very good of the landlord to rent the shop out to start-ups, I’m sure it has helped many of them as well as the landlord instead of the empty shop going to ruin it has been used and looked after. However I would much prefer to see Stay-ups than pop-ups. A lot of help could be given to help individuals start their own business and in time employ others. It’s hard enough for multi national chains to keep their heads above water let-alone start-ups. The Council and government want the taxes soon enough but they are not so keen to help in the beginning with lower rents and business rates.

  3. Dear reader. I am not sure about the use of pop up shops. I have the perfect solution yet again to be totally ignored by Tdc. Take the upper section of Margate and turn the shops into small cottages with fenced front gardens. Small business’s who want to be in on the scheme be given the opportunity to recommence in the lower section or the old town, with much lower council rates in order to promote all and sundry (existing businesses to be included). Can you imagine the high street having a completely different outlook. ???? Another brilliant scheme to be ignored alongside my suggestion for uprating Thanet’s parking 01843865174.

  4. Surely the empty Store 21 could be put to use or the old Woolworths shop, it would open up that end of the high street again.

  5. Tdc should spend more money on upgrading the high street and the sea front shops. Improve the whole appearance and the cottage idea sounds great. Tdc get enough money from residents through rents, council tax and landlords having to pay £500 per property for a none benefiting purpose other than the council getting money for nothing.

  6. There are already ambitious plans for both the ground floor and upper two floors of the old Woolworths store. The idea of replacing ships with ‘small cottages with fenced front gardens is bizarre to say the least. Would you really want to live there? They would be totally out of scale with the surrounding buildings that would remain including the bulk of the Mill Lane Car Park!

  7. I too think that the cottages-with-gardens proposal is…well, very out-of-keeping with a high street, no matter how badly the latter is doing at present. I don’t know if the local council owns the buildings to which Roy Lucas refers. But even if they did, and decided to use them partly to house local residents, surely flats above shops would be the appropriate plan for such a position.

  8. From what I’ve heard the people who ran the Pop-up shop and organised the traders in there didn’t pay the landlord any money. The landlord gave the property free to them. Someone should look for the £100,000, it was given to Margate but i haven’t seen any sign of it.

    • Margate Town Team any response to this closure please and any response to what you have spent the £100k on please. So it is okay to take tax payers money and say they have invested it sounds dodgy to me but one person was on the team had fingers in Ramsgate town team. So where has the money gone?

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