(posted 8028 days ago)Kennington: the service no go area?
The NTL matter (see my post re. broadband) plus recent & previous events has led me to wonder - is it just me, or has anyone else found that Kennington seems to be a "no go" area for many businesses? Even though they claim to serve this area?
The worst of it is, they raise false hopes unnecessarily. Businesses pay distributors to stuff Kennington mailboxes with leaflets, then when I ring up or email, they say they don't do Kennington/SE11. So why do they waste their money and our time inflicting those leaflets on us? Is it due to their distributors willy nilly just getting rid of leaflets in the nearest available streets, on the basis they'll get paid irrespective of whether the recipients fall within the payer's catchment area (and if so, do the businesses paying them know this is happening)? It can't be the businesses doing this deliberately, unless they actively want to go out of business by unnecessarily enriching leafletters and annoying potential customers.
It's not just NTL. I've (just on Friday) had this experience with Basilico (meant to be really good organic pizza according to a lucky friend of mine in Kensington who often gets them delivered), and previously Room Service (delivery from good restaurants) and others whose names I can't recall off the top of my head. When I asked Basilico why they leafletted me, they said it was a mistake... one leaflet by mistake may be an accident, but several? I wonder if they all use the same distribution firm?
Or is the SE11 postcode jinxed? Often businesses simply operate by postcode regardless of distance. They don't say they will service customers within (say) a 3-mile radius; that would be too sensible and furthermore, if they did, some of them (eg the ones based in Lavender Hill, the main culprits I've found) might have to muddy their tyres (ooh shudder) and venture into darkest declasse SE11. Lest you think me paranoid, some years when I was trying to find a cleaner, I interviewed one sent by a firm who (they volunteered to me) clean for Andrew Lloyd-Webber, don't you know. I suspected she wasn't going to be the hardest working of cleaners and asked the firm to send me another, whereupon they went very sniffy and said they weren't going to make another person go to a, and I quote, "slightly slimy area". I was too flabbergasted to respond otherwise I'd have pointed out that the then Home Secretary lived next door and a couple of peers in the same street, if that sort of thing was a precondition to having a cleaner deign to drop by and half-heartedly brandish a duster over a desk for a couple of seconds before making a cup of tea last the rest of the day (while listening to highly sophisticated Lloyd-Webber tunes, no doubt). And I'm afraid I can't recall the name of the cleaning firm to warn you off them...
Well if you've read this far, thanks for listening to my rant. But I really don't get it. Why does this keep happening? If you have had the same experiences, do let me know and at least I'll have the reassurance that I'm not alone in my frustration! I've lived in Kennington for years and I love it here, but even though it's so close to Central London it often seems nigh on impossible to get any really good products or services here. I hope things will change if property price rises in this area are any indication, but with the leafletting debacles continuing, it doesn't seem to bode well for us... I think there's a lot of money waiting to be made by businesses canny enough to realise there are tons of people in Kennington desperate for decent services, and willing and able to provide it - it just won't be made by any of this shower...