It sounds like a storyline lifted from Albert Square.
Yet only yards from the EastEnders set, a row over scaffolding on a Hertfordshire high street has become a very real ordeal for residents and traders, who claim they are being left at the mercy of a billionaire property firm.
The structure in Borehamwood has already been in place for a year, and permission for it to remain has recently been extended. Its owner has been given three years simply to start the work the scaffolding is meant to facilitate, even as locals report injuries and shopkeepers say passing trade has been hit.
Put up by Leathbond, a property company with net assets of more than £1billion, the 130m stretch of scaffolding now dominates a high street once visited by film stars Ariana Grande and Jonathan Bailey, who stopped at the Golden Plaice fish and chip shop while filming the Wicked movies.
The scaffolding was erected to allow work on loose cladding, but residents and business owners in so-called “British Hollywood” say they received no advance warning before it went up, blocking windows and obscuring shopfronts.
And the company has told those living and working in the building that it will not begin work until they cough up extra service charges, which have been hiked more than fourfold for some.
Komar Tourachi, 36, runs the Nza Food Store and took over the premises in June last year, a month before the scaffolding was put up.
He told the Mail he had not even been able to change the sign above his shop, which is blocked by the metal bars, and cannot extend his £15,000 canopy to protect his fruit and vegetables on display outside.
Scaffolding, put up to deal with falling cladding, has blighted Borehamwood high street for more than a year
Wicked co-stars Jonathan Bailey and Ariana Grande were regulars on the street while filming the musical adaptation at the nearby Sky Studios
The scaffolding-clad building is just a stone’s throw from the BBC’s EastEnders set (pictured) and residents can see the top of Albert Square’s houses from their windows
All the while he has continued to cough up £19,500 in rent each quarter on top of £2,900 in business rates.
And since he took over the shop, Leathbond has hiked his service charge from £1,500 per quarter to £6,177 in what the business owner called an ‘unfair fight’.
Meanwhile Mr Tourachi said he was losing between £2,000 and £3,000 each week in food that rotted in the sun.
‘I really don’t know what to do,’ he said.
‘If I don’t display anything outside then the shop would close because I cannot bring the customers in.’
‘I cannot make a proper display to welcome the customer inside. Anything I display outside, if it’s not sold the same day, the next day I have to sell it for even less than the cost price.
‘When I display it outside, all the products get destroyed by the sun.’
Komar Tourachi, who runs the Nza Food Store, said he lost thousands in rotted stock each week because the scaffolding blocked his £15,000 canopy from extending
Mr Tourachi has not even been able to change the shop’s sign from the previous business after the scaffolding went up a month after he moved in
He said fruit and vegetables from his pavement display rotted away quickly in the sun and rain, with his requests for waterproofing denied
He said he was ‘so worried’ about continuing to rent the shop and said if the scaffolding remained up for another year, ‘most of the businesses [in the street] will be closed’.
Though he asked for the area above his shop to be waterproofed while his canopy was rendered useless, he said the request was denied.
And he said it was rare to see anyone working on the scaffolding.
‘There’s no one doing work on it. There’s no one on the scaffolding. You never see it.’
Down the road at Crystal Salt Cave – which provides respiratory and relaxation therapy – co-owner Ildiko Szocs-Dee said her service charges had risen from £600 to £2,400 in one swoop this year.
That was in addition to her £3,800 rent for the quarter and £900 in business rates.
The entrepreneur took over the business from its Irish founder two years ago, having worked as a manager since it was founded in 2020.
READ MORE: Dylan Alcott’s Uncle Accused of Secretly Filming Woman in Privacy Breach Case
Ildiko Szocs-Dee, co-owner of Crystal Salt Caves, told the Mail her service charges had risen fourfold this year and her protests against the scaffolding had been ignored
She said her shop had seen traffic fall ‘drastically’ since the scaffolding was put up and covered her sign
Larger companies including Specsavers invested in banners to let customers know their shop remained open
But she said customer traffic had ‘drastically dropped’ since the scaffolding went up and covered her shop sign.
She said older customers had the impression there would be construction noise inside the shop, a major problem for a business based on relaxation.
‘I love what I’m doing, I love helping people, I really love this job,’ she said but Leathbond ‘ignored everything’ when she tried to protest.
Residents in the flats above told the same story of inflated service charges and blocked views.
Mark Edwards, a leaseholder, said it had become impossible to sell his two-bedroom flat since the service charge rose to around £6,000 a year, up from just £500 a few years ago.
He said the extra charges had ‘drained my savings’ and owners had ‘lost a lot of trust’ with the company.
Leaseholder Mark Edwards said the extra service charges imposed by Leathbond had impacted his savings
Residents in the building have had bars in front of their windows for more than a year
And those on the second floor had already been subject to extra charges after their rear outside staircase collapsed three years ago
Residents on the second floor had already been hit with extra charges when their external stairs collapsed three years ago – they are still forced to make do with a temporary installation and cough up extra fees each month.
Borehamwood residents, some of whom were on mobility scooters and wheelchairs when the Mail visited the high street, have complained of accidents and difficulty navigating the scaffolding.
Dotted with uneven wooden blocks under the metal rods, the scaffolding has caused some to trip and fall.
Sarah Keys, whose nine-year-old son Riley has cerebral palsy, said he had ‘tripped over the scaffolding so many times even though he’s tried to navigate around it’.
‘It is so upsetting for him. He gets embarrassed as it is always in front of people, especially by the bus stop.’
‘It is just ridiculous now,’ she said.
The high street’s bus shelter was almost totally obscured by the metal rods littering the pavement, with many of the foam protectors to help stop painful bumps ripped or fallen off
Residents said they had suffered trips and falls as a result of the scaffolding’s wooden bases, which were uneven and rotting in places
Residents in mobility scooters tried to navigate the scaffolding behemoth when the Mail visited Borehamwood
Dan Ozarow, a member of the town’s council, said the Labour-Liberal Democrat administration in the borough had ‘rewarded this billion-pound company with three years to start the work’.
‘I don’t think anyone was arguing that they shouldn’t have put it up in the first place just for safety. Everyone recognizes that. But what everyone is so upset about is why has it been up for a year and they still haven’t started work yet? They’re not going to start the work until they’ve got all the money.’
But his campaign to have the scaffolding removed was branded ‘fake’ by Paul Richards, a Liberal Democrat member of Hertsmere Council’s ruling coalition.
The council has been hit by a number of embarrassing revelations in recent months, including WhatsApp messages among Labour members which called for developments to be approved ‘where we can’t win seats’.
And last year the council’s Labour leader Jeremy Newmark branded St George’s flag campaigners ‘nonces’ and ‘criminals’.
Hertfordshire County Council, which extended the scaffolding licence, said it did so because work had not yet been completed and there was a risk of falling cladding.
Leathbond and Hertsmere Council, which has planning responsibility, were contacted for comment.