We have an approximate valuation of the pub of between £3.6-4.2m.
This is a valuable site but with some obvious restrictions in terms of what you can do with it and it will require someone with imagination as well as funds to make something of it.
We have had a few enquiries from interested parties and have been talking to experts in the pub operating world. ‘The Swiss’, after nearly 200 years of success, was clearly run down as a business and there are many reasons for this. Huge numbers of pubs are closing as societal habits change, though at the same time some pubs are thriving under enthusiastic and creative management.
In some places communities have bought their ailing pub and made it a thriving community hub, for instance in Langton Herring in Dorset. This involved a particularly creative campaign to raise funds but there was also a cohesive community which valued its pub. Conditions in Swiss Cottage are different, not least the difference in purchase costs and it will require something rather special to achieve success.
If we look at the wider health of the Swiss Cottage area we can imagine a better environment, with the removal of the traffic blight – redesigning the gyratory to bring some peace and make pedestrian access to the ‘island’ easy and safe – and saving and enhancing the Eton Avenue ‘Piazza’ by creating the delivery route to 100 Avenue Rd. from the main frontage employing a delivery lane rather than across the piazza.
Later next year Camden intends to formulate a ‘Swiss Cottage Vision’ and if the pub has not been sold, maybe this will be a chance for it to take on a new life at the heart of our community again?
