Agents throughout the West End have boarded up their offices to protect their properties from the May Day protestors.
In Hanover Square, home to three of the ‘big five’ agencies, Jones Lang LaSalle (JLL) and West End specialist Baker Lorenz were the first to take preventative measures.
JLL’s HQ (pictured) has been hidden behind chipboard all day, but a spokeswoman said that this was merely a precaution. She said: “We have boarded up but we haven’t closed, and we’re pretty much business as usual. Some people are going home early, but that’s their personal choice.”
However, nearby CB Hillier Parker’s (CBHP) office and Cluttons’ in Berkeley Square, who were named as targets on the activists’ website, www.maydaymonopoly.net, have maintained ‘business as usual’ stances and refused to put up boards.
Mark Creamer, managing director of CBHP, said that the firm would take a pragmatic approach to the protests, and would only send people home “if it was absolutely imperative”.
But Insignia Richard Ellis and its fellow residents at Berkeley Square House were less defiant, living life behind the barricades on both the front and side entrances to the building.
So far the protests in the capital have not degenerated into violence, unlike other May Day demonstrations in Australia, Zimbabwe and Germany.
But senior management at all West End offices are continuing to exercise caution. Protesters in their thousands are expected to congregate on Oxford Street at 4pm and industry sources say that many agents have been ordered to leave the area before then.
EGi will be running regular updates from the West End throughout the afternoon.
EGi News 01/05/01
