Speech at the Launch of the Paddington Business Circle on the Paddington Regeneration Project - I 7th October 2001 Stephen Wegg-Prosser When people ask me about the firm of solicitors where I have worked for more than 30 years, I tell them that we are the biggest law firm in a small town called Paddington. People who know London well understand that this City of ours has grown from a series of interconnected villages - to take one example, in a direct line, there’s Marylebone, Paddington, Notting Hill, Shepherds Bush and Hammersmith - but many do not appreciate that some of us can grow up, live, raise a family, and work, all within one of these villages. Of course they grow in size and in population, which is why I think of Paddington as a small town, and not just a village. My father was for years an Alderman and a Parliamentary candidate of the old Borough of Paddington, and since I was six months old I have lived within one mile of where we are this evening. My two sons were born in St. Mary’s hospital, and the firm that my father started was originally based in Edgware Road, and, since 1963, has been at 133 Praed Street. I even went to Law School in the old College of Law in Lancaster Gate. And what has it been like to live and work in the same small town? Pretty good actually. I was able to get home to see the kids bathed, was able to pop into the office for 30 minutes on a Sunday to sort out Monday’s tasks, and to walk up the street and be greeted by my clients, as I passed their shops and hotels. It was, I admit, sometimes a problem when two clients wanted to sue one another, but even that we could usually sort out with a little arm twisting. What is fascinating is to try to work out what this small town will be like when the development is finished. Imagine another small town, Weston Super Mare or perhaps Durham, in which there appears into its heart, sky-scrapers for world class businesses, homes for thousands of newcomers, and a transport system like the Heathrow Express, from which each year millions of new arrivals will descend on its streets, buses and tubes. If you can imagine this, you can see that the Regeneration Project offers both a huge opportunity and a terrible threat. The area, and its main artery, Praed Street, can grow and prosper and improve, or could be choked and die, and with it, the businesses that have operated there - some, like ours, for decades, others, for just a few months. We’ve already seen the threats - the loss of Globe Stationers after 50 years, the closure of Cliffords the furniture shop, the disappearance of two ironmongers within 200 yards, and there are others we all can identify. Perhaps there is not much that can be done to preserve these specialised, family-owned shops in the new economy of multiples, and the web, and mail-order shopping. I realise that the clock cannot be turned back. But maybe we can and should do something to slow down the pace of change. We all know what effect an out-of-town superstore can have on a small town High Street. We must try to avoid that effect here. We should identify the issues and, where they are such, the problems of the area - the litter, residents dumping their rubbish in the street, the petty crime, for instance the telephone box cards, and of course the congestion. Sometimes I have to fight to get off the bus that I often catch from Westbourne Grove to Praed Street. I view with horror the daily struggle to get on to that bus in Praed Street by travellers, arriving at the station, trying to get to the West End, and regret the demise of the great British tradition of the queue.