Squatters have taken over empty restaurants and offices in London, including a Gordon Ramsay restaurant and 20th Century Fox's former HQ
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- Squatters have taken over the former headquarters of 20th Century Fox in central London.
- It's the latest example of squatters occupying buildings in the city, including a Gordon Ramsay restaurant.
- The building was vacated in 2019 after Disney acquired the company.
The former London headquarters of 20th Century Fox has been taken over by squatters, The Evening Standard reported.
It's the third high-profile London address taken over by squatters in recent weeks.
Last week, London's Metropolitan Police was made aware of a group occupying the site of a Gordon Ramsay Restaurant, the York & Albany, in Camden.
Police also recently cleared 400 squatters out of Marco Pierre White's shuttered restaurant in Leicester Square, The Telegraph reported.
Built in 1937, Twentieth Century House was vacated in 2019 after Disney bought parent company 21st Century Fox. It avoided demolition in 2020 after an outcry from the British film and music community, according to The Guardian.
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The Evening Standard reported that in recent months builders were stripping out fixtures, but that squatters had now moved in.
The squatters have posted a legal notice on the imposing facade saying they can't be legally evicted without a court order, the outlet said.
There is growing anger around costs of living in major cities around the world, with many struggling to get by. While it is unclear the motive for this latest group, high-profile empty buildings are an obvious target for those angered at rising rents and real estate prices.
The high cost of rent was a focal point for the group that recently occupied the site of Gordon Ramsay's York & Albany restaurant in Camden — another borough with extremely high wealth inequality.
Part of that group, calling itself Camden Art Collective, briefly opened the premises to the public as a café, offering free food and art workshops in a gesture aimed at highlighting the area's massive wealth disparity.
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On Wednesday, the collective posted a statement saying that they had left the building after being served a legal notice, but that they "wish those left in the building the best of luck in their endeavors," suggesting that some squatters remained inside.
Representatives for Ramsay did not respond to a request for comment, but appear to have been quietly working to evict the squatters.
In the UK, that's no easy feat, as legal experts told BI.
While squatting in residential property was made a criminal offense in 2012, doing the same thing in a commercial building is a civil matter, and property owners need to enter into a convoluted and often costly court process to get them out.
Locals have mixed feelings about the squatters in Twentieth Century House, the Evening Standard reported.
One neighboring officer worker said their presence was "a headache, a real worry," and added that they've had problems with urination and drug taking outside the building.
But others expressed support for anyone taking over an empty building in a city as famously expensive as London.