A broken high street and its billionaire owners

破败的商业街及其亿万富翁业主

Today in Focus

2026-02-09

24 分钟
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The whole town centre of Newton Aycliffe in County Durham is owned by billionaire brothers – so why is it so run down? Josh Halliday reports. Help support our independent journalism at theguardian.com/infocus
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  • This is The Guardian.

  • Today,

  • the billionaire Londoners who bought an entire town centre in the north of England and left it to rot.

  • Oh, it's a horrible day.

  • What are we doing here, Josh?

  • Where are we?

  • We are, in the heart of London's bustling West End, I suppose you might say.

  • We are on Chasbury Avenue, which is theatre district, theatre land.

  • There's families going about, touristy families with Union Jack umbrellas and rain pond shows.

  • It's a pretty miserable day.

  • I've arranged to meet Josh Halliday, the Guardian's North of England editor,

  • outside an anonymous office block near the theatre that's showing Harry Potter and the cursed child.

  • I was imagining something a little bit grander than this.

  • Yeah, so was I.

  • I was slightly underwhelmed.

  • I mean, it's a kind of really tired 60s frontage.

  • It looks really nondescript, and maybe that's the idea.

  • You wouldn't think this is one of the wealthiest property firms in the UK.

  • No chance.

  • For months,