Who owns Soho's soul?

Ask a stranger on the streets of Soho who really controls the area, and you’ll get one of several answers. The bumbling tourist blindly palming £50s into the gloved hands of a pedicab driver may tell you it’s the government — no? You might reasonably assume it’s Westminster council, and fair enough, in a sense you would be right. 

For years, the answer may well have been the James family, inheritors to Soho Estates, the sprawling property empire of porn baron Paul Raymond. After the mustachioed model John James married Paul’s daughter, Debbie, at the height of Soho’s sordid glory in the late eighties, he grew their property holdings to encompass 60 of the area’s 87 acres. Now in his 70s, signature ‘stache etched into snow-white stubble, John handed over the keys to the kingdom to his step-daughter, Fawn, last year. 

But over the past few years, the Jameses’ grip on the area has been challenged. The family have taken to complaining of a more powerful force, one that has supposedly shackled Westminster council and silenced these formerly raucous streets: the Soho Society. And they’re not alone in their belief. “They have got too much power,” says one local bar owner, who doesn’t want to be named out of fear for repercussions. “I don’t want to poke the bear.”

A local charity formed in 1972, the Soho Society earned its stripes by campaigning to prevent the government from building a motorway through central London. They were instrumental in establishing the Soho conservation area, as well as the Soho Social Housing Association.

But in recent years, their efforts to defend the area have drawn an increasing amount of anger, not least because the council is required to consult the society on planning and licensing issues in the capital’s premiere party district. “They are so incredibly NIMBY it beggars belief,” said one person on Reddit recently, in a thread of hundreds of people railing against the decline of Soho’s nightlife. 

With around 2,600 people living in Soho and the West End acting as a swing ward for the borough, another charge is that this small, organised band of residents has the run of Westminster council. So who are the Soho Society? And do they really run the show around here?

Let’s go al fresco

It all started with al fresco. It was July 2020, lockdown was easing, and London’s hospitality businesses were in a bad way. As a reprieve, Westminster council allowed businesses across Soho to deck tables and chairs along iconic roads like Greek Street and Old Compton Street. Cars were banned; people flocked from all around. 

The good times ran seven days a week throughout the summers of 2020 and 2021. It seemed to herald a new, continental era for central London — a resurgence of vitality for an area which was gradually stultifying, as identikit bars catering to no-one in particular took the place of grimy but beloved boltholes like Madame Jojo’s. 

Except, some who live in Soho happened to hate al fresco. 

“I would describe it as putting on a huge open air festival with no security, no police and no loos,” says Lucy, the current chair of the Soho Society, who moved to Soho in the late 90s. In her 50s with pale blonde hair, she tells me over the phone how residents were overrun by people drinking in the streets. 

For Brian Clivaz, who runs the Greek Street-based L’Escargot, London’s oldest French restaurant, it accelerated a shift in the kind of clientele drawn to Soho. “People were coming from Essex and Kent in busloads,” he says scornfully, when we speak over the phone. “Is that really our vision for London?”