The arches we walked on the Beer Mile share one thing — the breweries are all tenants. And in 2019, the owner of those arches changed all at once.
A sale of 5,200
The arches belonged to Network Rail, the state railway infrastructure company. In 2019, a commercial portfolio of about 5,200 properties, mostly arches, was sold to a Telereal Trillium and Blackstone Property Partners consortium for £1.46 billion Fact. The stated purpose was funding railway upgrades, but concerns that market rent rises were pressing tenants were raised publicly around the sale Fact, and the National Audit Office reviewed the process in a published report Fact.
The tenants organise
The small businesses renting the arches — breweries, repair shops, bakeries — formed Guardians of the Arches to speak collectively Fact, and the new owners adopted a tenants’ charter promising engagement and support for long-tenured small tenants Fact. How fully those promises are kept varies arch by arch Unconfirmed.
The fourth city
Euljiro’s redevelopment, the green bans of The Rocks, Shoreditch’s Truman Brewery, and now Bermondsey’s arches — each time this series changes city, the same question returns in a new shape: who keeps the space of the people who make things? Part of the answer is already in the price of the pint Estimate.