But when you think about it, any such dispensation would leave a loophole for the unscrupulous. What about an old building, say, that has to be demolished anyway to make way for a new airport (yuck – OK, hospital then)? Is it not A Good Thing that the materials should be re-used to give a fresh lease of life to other old buildings – just like organ transplants? A tricky one, that. At the legal end, a builder or property developer can remove and sell antique bricks or roof tiles for a pound apiece, and replace them with modern factory-made ones costing 25 pence; if the building is unlisted, it’s perfectly legal.So the SPAB’s view is that if the trade in second-hand building materials were outlawed, these items would cease to have a monetary value and would have more chance of staying in their original homes You may find this view simplistic. And when free trade detects a demand, there will always be a supply – legal or otherwise. It believes that using materials salvaged from one old house to restore another actually encourages demolition and, more depressingly, theft.
There is no doubt that there is a thriving trade in reclaimed materials and fixtures – from fireplaces and floorboards to bricks, chimney pots and even complete staircases. “The UK is the battleground between the two.”Ms Svenson says the battle is about choice – and that means US-style variety and standards.. IF YOU’RE doing up an old house, you’ll want to use second-hand materials to match the period feel of the original, right?

Well, wrong, actually, according to the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings.

The SPAB is very keen for period features to be retained and restored – but preferably in the properties in which they were originally used. Apax Partners, the venture capitalists, backed cafe chain Aroma in May 1990 with an investment of pounds 2.5m and could seek a return on that capital. “It’s no secret that a venture capitalist will seek an exit,” said Aroma’s company chairman Finlay Scott.Success will be as much about winning the hearts of trend-setters as the minds of investors. “There’s a feeling that there’s a surge toward American culture and away from Europe,” said Mr Salvoni.

In September, Arion Properties paid pounds 3m for Coffee Republic and sold it on to investors through an AIM listing. Whitbread, Britain’s third- biggest pub and restaurant company, snapped up Costa Coffee, an Italian- style chain, for an undisclosed sum in September 1995. It’ll be a full float; we’ve shortlisted a couple of advisers,” Ms Svenson said.Business is waking up to smell the coffee. “But within 24 hours of opening we knew the concept was working.” Seattle Coffee is now the biggest operation of its kind outside the US, with 52 shops and 50 more planned by the end of the year “We’re looking at it aggressively right now. Then she landed a job as receptionist at Seattle Coffee Company’s UK headquarters, and now she says she’s “addicted” to her employer’s gourmet brews She’s not alone. Exasperated, they opened their own cafe in 1995.”We had to outbid 38 people for our first site in Covent Garden,” said Ms Svenson.

Seattle Coffee, the market leader, plans to sell stock to the public later this year.”People here are becoming educated to better coffee,” said Louie Salvoni, vice-president of Cafe Society, which represents coffee consumers and producers.Seattle Coffee sold pounds 6m worth of coffee and snacks last year, up from pounds 300,000 three years ago, in a business started because Ally and Scott Svenson couldn’t get their beloved native Seattle brew in London. Now tea consumption is forecast to fall a further 1.6 per cent in the next five years, while coffee is set to gain 2.6 per cent.
Entrepreneurs are cashing in on the lifestyle shift from boring old tea to hip, cosmopolitan coffee by opening shops on the high street, in fashion stores and in bookshops. Overall, tea consumption has dropped 3.4 per cent in the last five years, while coffee drinking has gone up 1.6 per cent, according to Euromonitor. Government figures show that when we go out we drink 36 per cent more coffee than tea. Sure, there have been some mega- deals, the pounds 860m IPC buy-out one of the most recent. (Don’t mention that the underwriters have had trouble selling down some of the debt.)Margins are tighter, big pay-backs are more elusive.