Bissell Ink, New Ash Green, please help us start again

My partner owns and runs the local tattoo shop Bissellink in New Ash Green of which he @Inkbybissell and another artist that he trained up @Natmeg work, in our once lovely village of New Ash Green, he has been the only tattoo parlour in the area for well over 2 years now and has built up an extraordinary reputation amongst the local residents and we also have many clients that travel hours for our business, so not only are we a staple part of the village, we also bring business into the area, clients that travel to us also make use of the other small businesses in the village whilst they visit us.

In the early hours of Tuesday 5th November, our alarm system notified us that there was someone trying to gain access into the shop, Charlie, still in his pyjamas ran down to the shop whilst I was at home on the phone with the police. As Charlie arrived at the shop, he was told the locks were changed and we couldn’t enter to collect any of our belongings.

As many of you well know, we did this shop up from an empty room, added so much to it to make it a workable environment that was both aesthetically pleasing but most of all a safe space to work as a tattoo studio. We have all the relevant licenses with the Sevenoaks district council environmental health agency, to obtain these we had to undergo an inspection which we passed. We have spent thousands on doing up this shop, spent hours upon hours doing it up. And to suddenly have it torn away in the worst way possible is absolutely devastating for a small business.

Only to find out on the 6th November, that in the small print of planning permission that the landlords have applied for for 4-7 the Row New Ash Green, is 1-2 The Link New Ash Green… this affects us Blinxx, Sylvera Dance School and The Clocktower Gym that is 4 local businesses that are suffering at the hands of the landlords wanting to turn these commercial units into residential flats.. which is absolutely disgusting, when the new landlords took over, we were all told to give them a chance and to trust them as they “wanted what’s best for the village” well I think it’s pretty safe to say now, that was in fact false information, what everyone feared has inevitably come true.

The immense loss that this brings upon my family is catastrophic. My partners entire livelihood has been ripped from him without any warning, we have a 10 week old baby to provide and care for, as many of the local clients know. And due to a complicated birth I am unable to work and I’m awaiting more procedures to improve my quality of life, so this makes Charlie the sole provider for our little family.

After much back and forth and 0 compassion from the management company we are being forced out of our home village, out of a shop we spent everything we had on creating, we spent over £15,000 doing up that room from an empty room to a warm, welcoming, safe and inviting environment for our village and clients to enjoy. We have been offered no help or alternatives by them, and have only been given a limited amount of time to collect our belongings. This shop is and was our entire livelihood and now there is a huge uncertainty on how we are going to financially survive as a family, let alone begin a business from scratch again.

Due to the condition the management company has left the other units in the area, and yet the massive price tag they have put on them despite the flooded interiors. We have no choice but to look else where to attempt to reopen our very much loved by all shop.

We hope that we can somewhat scrape together enough to begin again but we understand the difficulties in doing so, as we believed we had a long time in our shop so we put absolutely everything into it.

So now we call out for help, to anyone and everyone that can hear us in our time of need, and as embarrassing as we find it, we have been told by many to start a go fund me so we can open back up and continue to do what we love, see all of your lovely faces and most of all do some sick artwork!

Any donation helps us, even a share is incredibly helpful if you can’t donate.

Thank you for your time reading this very long post. And thank you to all of our clients and visitors for your support over the years (and hopefully many more to come) and all of your well wishes during this incredibly awful time.

We will not let rich bullies destroy the lives of us little people, we stand together and stick together and we will come off on top. We may not have our shop, but we have our integrity.

Lucy & Charlie

Bissell Ink