A Gordon Ramsay company has secured a High Court order to remove squatters who have occupied the TV chef’s £13million London pub.
A group of anarchists locked themselves inside the Grade II-listed York & Albany hotel and gastropub situated just outside Regent’s Park last week.
They set up a now closed ‘autonomous cafe’ inside the building, called Camden Art Cafe, pledging to serve free food to the local community.
The pub and boutique hotel was run by Ramsay – but the chef was reportedly in the midst of renegotiating the lease and launched legal proceedings against the group.
Lawyers for Gordon Ramsay Holdings International Limited (GRHI) told a judge it had an ‘immediate right to possession’ of the pub and asked for an order to retake the property amid a ‘risk of public disturbance’.
Judge Simon Brown granted the order at a short hearing in London.
The invaders told reporters yesterday how they had recruited their own lawyers ‘to defend their rights’ for the High Court hearing on Thursday, but none of the group attended and they were not represented by a lawyer.
Mr Foot said that GRHI ‘remains the leaseholder of the property, notwithstanding that it has ceased trading at the premises’.
He continued: ‘The claimant says it has immediate right to possession. It says that the persons unknown who have entered the land have done so without its consent and… it is therefore requesting an order for possession.
‘Had the claimant not brought and served proceedings then a so called community cafe which was operated would have continued to operate..
Mr Foot said that this ‘poses a risk of public disturbance’, adding that the cafe had now ‘ceased’ but ‘some squatters remain at the property’.
‘In these circumstances the claimant is entitled to an order for possession,’ the barrister said.
Mr Ramsay previously called the police but was unable to have the squatters removed, it is understood.
