How Romanian immigration changed this small London suburb beyond recognition

STEPPING off the train there's a cacophony of foreign voices, and most of the little restaurants crowded along the High Street have their signs and menus in Romanian.

But this isn't Bucharest: this is Burnt Oak, a suburb near Wembley in north-west London which has been dubbed "Little Romania" because of the huge Eastern European population there.

It emerged last week that Romanians are now the second largest community of foreigners in Britain, with over 413,000 living and working in the UK.

Ten years ago, Britain's Romanian population stood at 42,000 - meaning there has been a tenfold increase in just a decade.

Romanians have also represented the biggest group of new arrivals since 2016, but nowhere is that more apparent than in Burnt Oak - a suburb where Romanian is the second most commonly spoken language, and where 56 per cent of school-age children don't speak English as a first language.

As many as 35 per cent of immigrants living in Burnt Oak arrived from Romania, and the area is frequently pronounced "Bontoc", with its Romanian shops, restaurants and even a church which offers services in Romanian.

The high street, Burnt Oak Broadway, is a patchwork of tired-looking bookies and pawnbrokers, with pokey Romanian restaurants and cluttered supermarkets spilling out onto the pavement.

Bright, colourful awnings drape out to cover boxes of fresh fruit outside the many grocery shops, and there's excited foreign chatter among a group of men trickling into the bookies.

'I'm Romanian and I voted for Brexit.'

It's busy around lunchtime, with men sat outside at coffee shops and restaurants and women walking babies in their prams.

At Patisserie Romana, a bakery and cake shop, beautifully-iced cakes and sweet, braided loaves of traditional Romanian bread are flying off the shelves.

Ovidiu Sarpe, the owner of the patisserie, tells me he came over to London from Romania in 1973, as a political refugee.

This is a familiar story. Jewish Romanians first started settling in the UK after World War Two, fleeing Nazi persecution on the continent.

When Ovidiu came to the UK, he settled in Highbury first, before setting up a restaurant in Chancery Lane. He moved to Burnt Oak in 2007 to open his cake shop, where all his staff are Romanian.

"I came to Burnt Oak because I saw an opportunity for the Eastern European community here," he tells me.

It's certainly the case that the area's population has ballooned in recent years.

In 2001, just 15,000 residents called the suburb home, but by 2017, the population had increased by a third to 20,000 - with clusters of Romanian businesses springing up a stone's throw from each other.

"There are many Romanian shops, and lots of Romanian kids in the schools. It's a real community," he says.

"People come to the UK for economic reasons. Romanians want to be useful and they want to work.

"There's a real mix of cultures and races in Burnt Oak, and although it looks quite rough, there's no racism, tension or even crime."

"I voted for Brexit," Ovidiu adds, as he ushers me towards the counter, insisting I take some cake with me.

"That was because I want the government to be able to select who comes here. But I hope the government can see that Britain needs Romanians."

'Diversity has reduced the crime rate.'

But further down the High Street, things don't look so rosy.

You can't go five steps without tripping over a pawnbrokers, DIY shop, or convenience store, but the local Tesco has recently closed and the shutters are long bolted down on one in every few shops.

The rate of home ownership in the area is lower than the national average, although the ward is the most densely populated in the borough.

When I try to talk to staff at the Romanian supermarkets, many tell me that they don't speak English.

It's the same story with the beggar with a missing leg, who is sat on the pavement not far from a filthy phone booth rammed with bulging bags of rubbish.

Meanwhile, the latest available figures from 2013 show Burnt Oak's median household income stands at £25,800 - below the borough average of £33,701 - and the number of people claiming Jobseeker’s Allowance is higher than both the national and borough average.

And at GCSE level, pupils in Burnt Oak have been found to have the second lowest grade average out of the 21 wards in the borough, while Burnt Oak also has the lowest life expectancy in all of Barnet, at 79.2 years.

Joanne Karbritz, a charity worker, tells me that while she's had some trouble with people breaking in to her shop and stealing things, for the most part her experiences with then local Romanian population have been positive.

"Oh God - there are so many Romanians here," she says.

"I've lived in Edgware my entire life and I've seen it change so much. There's been a lot of Eastern European immigration in the past five years.

"Some people say they're stealing jobs, and we've had a bit of trouble with Romanians stealing things, but it's not like they're all thieves. Most are really nice.

"There's no real tension in Burnt Oak unless it's created on purpose. People mix and talk freely, and I love working here."

She adds that the area is so diverse simply because it's cheap - with average house prices hundreds of thousands of pounds lower than the homes in nearby Edgware.

"This used to be a dangerous area," Joanne says. "But as it's got more diverse the crime rate has gone down."

'There's been a massive invasion'

The population of Barnet as a whole is increasing at a rapid rate, with the borough already the biggest in London, population wise.

In the next 25 years, it is expected that Barnet's population will grow from 393,000 to 469,000 - an increase of 19 per cent.

But already, homelessness is rising in the area, and pressures on housing are increasing, according to the council.

The challenges of a growing (and changing) population are not lost on Pattian Yaman, a Turkish immigrant who came to Burnt Oak three years ago to set up the Hard Work Cafe.

"People will tell you that Burnt Oak has changed very fast," he said.

"Romanians started coming here around eight years ago but there's been a massive invasion in the past three years.

"Meanwhile, Irish pubs and cafes - very English businesses - are closing and the English and Irish are starting to leave.

"The Tesco closed because there was no business anymore. The problem for them was the local small businesses which are everywhere now, like the Romanian food stores."

Taceddin Ozcan is a musician, but he's working in Paeagon, a Turkish restaurant a few doors down from the cafe, until he makes it big.

He's also Turkish, and as we chat over a tea he enthusiastically shows me a music video with him belting out a ballad.

"I've been here in Burnt Oak for 11 years," he says.

"Since then, the Tesco has closed, the pubs have closed, and, after Christmas, most of the other small businesses down this road have started to struggle."

'People here are angry, but not about the Romanians'

If there are any tensions in Burnt Oak, they revolve around this Tesco.

After it closed, a community of Irish Travellers moved in to the car park, and locals talk about this as the biggest source of concern in the suburb.

"People here are very angry," Taceddin claims. "But not about the Romanians. They're nice and very hard working.

"There are lots of Bulgarians here as well, but the only problem with Burnt Oak is the travellers in the Tesco car park."

Rikesh Mehta, a Brit who owns the Burnt Oak Pharmacy, tells me that Burnt Oak has seen a population boom in the past few years.

He says: "Romanians are good for business. They spend a lot of money. At the same time they are very hard working.

"There are loads of Romanians here - half the customers can't speak English.

"Before you know it they've got their own cake shops and it spreads like wildfire. But for us as a business, it represents a lot of money."

Of course, most Romanians in the UK are keen to work, often taking jobs in the care industry or in construction - explaining the surplus of DIY shops in the area.

Many more Eastern European immigrants are employed in the Romanian restaurants or shops, where shelves are piled high with traditional cakes, breads and meats.

At the restaurants, the menus are in Romanian, and sarmale - cabbage rolls stuffed with meat - are the most popular meal.

"Our customers are 99.9 per cent Romanian," one chef tells me. "This is where the community meets.

"I'd rather be back in Romania but it is a nice community, and when everyone speaks your language I feel like I'm home.