PLEASE HELP SAVE THE HARRISON

PUB, HOTEL & GRASSROOTS LIVE MUSIC VENUE

KINGS CROSS, LONDON

For the past 18 years The Harrison has served the finest food, the tastiest drinks and hosted some of the most amazing intimate Folk and Roots concerts in London.

in March The Harrison received a court arbitration judgement ordering us to pay our landlord, the FULL RENT FOR THE ENTIRE COVID PERIOD! This includes all the time we were closed under Lockdown.

It is a total of £99,000!

Obviously, this is a devastating and incomprehensible judgement, which bankrupts the business and as a Sole Trader, bankrupts me personally.

It deprives The Harrison staff of their livelihoods. We are a close-knit family, many having been with the business for well over a decade.

The Kings Cross community will loose a much loved, award winning pub and the grassroots music scene will lose yet another important and beloved venue.

On examination of the arbitration judgement, it is littered with errors, ignored evidence and unsubstantiated conclusions.

It is so far off the mark, it raises big questions over the competence and/or independence of the arbitrator.

To save The Harrison and everything we have built over the past 18 years, I need to appeal the judgement.

This is going to cost at least £20k – £30k in legal fees.

Due to a huge amount of hard work from the staff, we survived the Pandemic and are now trading well, but we are still paying off sizeable debts.

I am sorry to ask, but to fund the appeal, right this miscarriage of justice and Save The Harrison, we need the help of our customers and friends, old and new.

Please help SAVE THE HARRISON

Please donate to this Collection Pot

Lets hope we can keep The Harrison going, for everyone to enjoy.

Many thanks, Paul

Learn more with this documentary – https://vimeo.com/862696205

Folk & Honey.

For those of you that use the UK's largest Folk Music Gig Listing Website, www.FolkandHoney.co.uk.

The website was set up by myself and friends. It is maintained with profits from The Harrison. The closure of The Harrison will probably mean the end of Folk & Honey as well.

UPDATE – 2/10/23

Devastating news….

I am sorry to announce that The Harrison has lost its legal appeal against paying the full rent for the whole Covid period.

The High Court judge in his ruling, just repeated the inaccuracies and misinterpretations made by the Arbitrator and dismissed the case.

This is the end of the legal process and means I now personally owe the landlord £99k, payable by Sept 2024.

Since the pub makes a profit of around a third of that a year, we are unable to meet this demand.

This is obviously a big blow.

Our only hope now, to avoid bankruptcy, is that the Landlord will giving us more time to clear the debt and we can somehow, with your help, trade our way out of this.

Fingers crossed.

Thanks Paul

Massive thanks to all our staff, who have stuck together through this and a huge thank you to everyone who has donated money or a concert to our legal fund.

Any donations made to this pot now will go to clearing the debt and keeping The Harrison open.

Thank you.