Bookshop forced out by rent rise
The Turl Street bookshop which is being forced out by rent hikes
A bookshop on Turl Street is being forced to close following rent hikes by leaseholders Lincoln College. The Janus Society, which is currently holding a closingdown sale, is the latest occupant of a site which has housed bookshops since the end of the 19th century. It specialises in academic books and describes itself as the purveyor of “books to whet and satisfy the mind”.
However, a rent increase of 30 per cent by Lincoln means the owner can no longer afford to continue using the historic site. When The Janus Society closes in March the premises are expected to be converted for the first time into a stationary shop. Shop owner, Jason Leech, an ex-Wadham student, cites the increased rent as just one of a series of factors determining the shop closure. “People are buying fewer and fewer books.
At the same time colleges are squeezing their tenants for money,” he said. Leech also suggested that other competing Turl Street bookshops, such as Oxfam, have contributed to the problems by selling books at a cheaper price. However the shop manager of Oxfam, Jan Tansley, told The Oxford Student that the shop sells primarily non-academic, second-hand books at as close to their real value as possible, rather than the academic works stocked by The Janus Society.
The Oxfam shop, which is also leased by Lincoln, is yet to undergo any problems with increasing rent rates. However this could well change at Christmas, when the eighteen month lease will come under review. Tansley told The Oxford Student, “Oxfam have had no real problems with Lincoln as landlords”, but she also drew attention to the fact that Oxfam’s wish to use the Turl Street site as a music shop had been denied by the college. The college declined to comment.
Lincoln’s rent increases come just months after The Oxford Student reported that independent shops across Oxford were under threat as colleges increased rents at a rate far higher than that of inflation. Laurie Leigh Antiques, which had occupied the same shop on the High Street for 30 years, was forced out last term after Queen’s introduced a 40% rent rise, leaving its 73-year-old owner entirely unable to afford the new rates.
Last year Oxford was named as one of a group of urban areas in danger of becoming a clone town, with the city centre being overtaken by chain stores that risk destroying the unique character of the town. According to a recent survey by the National Economics Foundation only 28.9% of shops in Oxford’s town centre, defined as Cornmarket and Queen Street, are owned locally.
23rd Feb 2006