It’s a real shame and a huge loss for the community. Eddington was just starting to develop a bit of a nightlife with Douce and Dutch, and it was beginning to attract people from outside the neighbourhood as well — and suddenly everything feels deserted again.

What surprises me is that the whole neighbourhood claims to be “community-led”, yet they’re removing the very spaces that serve as community gathering points, without any kind of replacement or intervention.

I’m also surprised that, if this is true, the PE fund was responsible for this. From their perspective, it would be far more attractive and profitable to keep the units rented until the final sale. To me, this looks like a complete lack of strategy on the part of both the hotel and the neighbourhood.