By Brooke Davies

Copyright metro

Businesses have had their doors locked by landlords Get Living

Restaurant owner Faye Gomes was close to collapsing when she found out had been locked out of the business she had ran for more than 20 years.

The 65-year-old is owner of Kaietuer Kitchen, a Guyanese restaurant which she has run successfully in Elephant and Castle, south London, most of her adult life.

But this last month she has suffered non-stop health issues due to financial stress. High blood pressure, headaches and stomach issues have plagued her.

Why? Landlords Get Living, which runs the development Castle Square, ordered Faye to pay a mysterious £21,000 electric bill up front, she said.

Faye was unable to come up with all of the money. Four weeks later, managers came to her venue in the middle of the night and locked the doors.

She says there has been little to no contact from the landlords or Savills, which manages the development, apart from a notice left on the front door with a number to call.

Diana Sachs, 60, owner of Como Y Beba, a Colombian cafe, told Metro she was asked to pay £26,000 up front

Faye Gomes has been locked out of her restaurant Kaietuer Kitchen (Picture: Provided by Latin Elephant and vendors)

But the number is one digit short – and no one can get through.

Faye told Metro: ‘I had to stop myself from collapsing when I saw my business was locked. Nobody is answering my calls.

‘We just don’t know what to do.’

‘We don’t even know who the electric providers are’

Faye is not the only one. Diana Sachs, 60, owner of Como Y Beba, a Colombian cafe, told Metro she was asked to pay £26,000 up front.

Last month, she arrived to her cafe to find she had been locked out of it.

‘This was my dream,’ she told Metro. ‘My place is successful and has lots of customers.’

Two nights ago, Laroma Watson, 67, founder of Original Caribbean Spice and Olajide Agbede, owner of Daddy O Suya, were locked out after both being given an £11,000 bill each.

Notices left on businesses doors

Olajide Agbede, owner of Daddy O Suya (Picture: Provided by Latin Elephant and vendors)

Olajide has since been locked out of his business

All have owned and ran their businesses for more than 20 years, but after being relocated to Castle Square unit five years ago from Elephant and Castle Shopping Centre, all the vendors were only given their first electric bill by Get Living a year ago, who pay it directly for them.

Latin Elephant, a community group started as vendors were moved out of the shopping centre five years ago, held a protest at Castle Square as Metro visited yesterday.

Signs reading, ‘we see what you’re doing’ were left across the floor as traders and regular customers mingled near their locked doors.

Olajide told Metro: ‘I was shocked when I saw my door was locked – I don’t know what to do about my two members of staff who have families to feed. My rent was up-to-date, I was paying towards electricity costs.

‘To be honest, when I saw my door was locked I assumed they had got it wrong.’

Laroma Watson, 67, founder of Original Caribbean Spice was told she had to pay a £11,000 to be able to access her restaurant again

Diana said: ‘We had been chasing up for years but they never really engaged. Then we got our first one a year ago and I started paying it in increments.’

But Get Living appears to have had a change of heart, telling vendors they must pay the rest in full.

But after calling her own electrician to read her meter, Diana was told she was being charged 46% more than the electric company was charging Get Living.

Get Living losing £153 million

Get Living’s demand for huge payments comes as it reported a £153.2 million loss in the latest financial year.

Its revenue decreased by nearly a third due to spending £411.1 million for fire safety fixtures at East Village, which is the former London 2012 athletes’ village.

A spokesperson for The Elephant from Get Living told Metro: ‘From the outset, our strong preference has been to resolve outstanding payments through open and constructive dialogue with market traders.

‘We deeply regret that, despite eighteen months of intensive engagement, the traders concerned have not been able to clear their arrears or agree to reasonable payment plans.

‘We recognise the sensitivities of this situation and enforcement action is never our desired course of action – this has only been pursued as a last resort after all reasonable alternatives were exhausted.’

They added they regularly advised tenants to set aside money for electricity bills as there were problems with metering issues – something which the traders disagree with.