The site of the infamous Hatton Garden raid is set to be turned into a robbery-themed bar – in plans branded ‘ghoulish’ by jewellers.
In 2015, a gang of six elderly burglars called the ‘Diamond Wheezers’ stole £14million worth of gems, cash and valuables in a safe deposit heist in Hatton Garden, London’s principal diamond and jewellery quarter.
A planning application was submitted to Camden Council in July by landlord Pearl & Coutts, who want to create a glamorous underground bar themed around the robbery.
The plans would also involve the closure of a jewellery shop, E Katz & Co, above the site, which would be replaced with a stairwell and lift access to the basement where the vault is.
The shop was founded by Holocaust survivor Emil Katz in 1946, seven years after he fled Nazi-occupied Czechoslovakia with a few diamonds sewn into his clothing.
Today, the business is run by Emil’s son George, 86, who began running the firm nearly 70 years ago with his widowed mother, Edith.
George has branded the plans for a robbery-themed bar ‘ghoulish and completely inappropriate’, highlighting that many people’s lives were ruined by the heist.
Pictured: The safe deposit box within the vault room after it was raided in the 2015 Hatton Garden heist
A concrete hole drilled by the burglars during the raid is still there now
Planning documents show different bars created by Inception Group, which focuses on venues with strong themes, to give a general idea of what the bar might look like
Hatton Garden is in central London, within the Holborn area on the border of the London Borough of Camden and the City of London
‘A lot of people lost their livelihoods in the 2015 robbery. Most people didn’t have insurance as safe deposits are supposed to be rock solid, they are nearly impossible to get into,’ he told the Islington Tribune.
‘People had such a setback. I believe one person actually took their own life because his whole business was ruined.’
Henig Diamonds, based in Hatton Garden, said approval of the plans ‘could encourage further similar changes of use and gradually reduce the concentration of jewellery businesses in Hatton Garden’.
Simon Loubskey added: ‘E Katz are a significant part of the Hatton Garden’s history and heritage and a hugely respected business. To replace this shop – and an equally established workshop in the basement – with a distasteful bar celebrating an awful robbery, would be a travesty for the Hatton Garden.’
The planning application states that the site is a ‘largely vacant space and storage space including an existing vault’, featuring a small jewellery workshop space.
Original features from the heist, such as a broken door gate, a drilled hole in the wall and safety deposit boxes, would remain and become part of the robbery-themed bar.
The planning proposal added that ‘whilst the retail unit’s use will be removed, the interior and exterior will retain its appearance as a retail unit, ensuring it continues to contribute to the character of the area and function as a shopfront of merit’.
A spokesperson for Camden council said: ‘The council will always seek to protect Camden’s existing businesses. Hatton Garden has been an established centre for the jewellery industry since the nineteenth century, and we will seek to secure new premises suitable for jewellery workshops and related uses and protect them through planning obligations.
The plans would involve the closure of a jewellery shop, E Katz & Co, which sits above the site
Hatton Garden heist gang: John Collins (top left), Daniel Jones (top centre), Terry Perkins (top right). Bottom row, left to right: Carl Wood, William Lincoln, and Hugh Doyle
Much of the features which show how the robbery happened would be kept if the plans were approved
‘The consultation for the application closed on the 30 August 2026. Our officers will assess this against the policies of our development plan, while also taking into account public feedback and comments.’
The missing £10million of loot stolen during the heist was deemed unlikely to ever be found after Brian ‘The Guvnor’ Reader – the mastermind behind the robbery – died in 2023.
Police have only recovered £4,467,566.74, meaning there is over £9.5million worth of stolen items still to be found.
Reader died in September 2023 after a fight with colon and prostate cancer. The robber was forced to pay back just 6 percent of his multi-million pound cut despite a confiscation order, leaving the whereabouts of the remaining loot a mystery.
The burglars worked through the four-day weekend of the Easter and Passover Bank Holiday, when many of the nearby businesses were closed.
It was reported that the thieves had entered the premises through a lift shaft, then drilled through the 50cm thick vault walls with a Hilti power drill.
Reader made more than £200million from an earlier string of hits, including the 1983 Brink’s-Mat robbery where armed robbers stole £26million in gold bullion from a warehouse near London’s Heathrow Airport.
He also stood trial along with Kenneth Noye for the murder of undercover police officer Detective Constable John Fordham in 1985. Both Reader and Noye were acquitted.
