OPEN Dalston

OPEN Dalston appeals to the Secretary of State

2009-11-24T16:08:00.033Z

OPEN Dalston has written to the Secretary of State appealing against a huge cut in family homes and an £11million cut in a developers contribution to affordable housing planned for Dalston. Hackney Council agreed to the cuts when it granted planning permission for developer, Hammerson's, Bishops Place scheme on 4.11.09. The government has the power to call in and overule the decision.

Hammerson's £400million Bishops Place scheme in Shoreditch will have four towers of up to 52 storeys, 88,000 square metres of offices, a hotel and 240 flats

The application is presently being considered by the Greater London Authority (GLA), which also has power to overule the decision. But Hackney reported that the GLA had already approved the £11million cut in affordable housing which was linked, Hackney said, to Hammerson's agreement to pay the GLA £3.1million towards the London Mayor's Crossrail scheme.

The design of Hammerson's scheme by Foster and Partners has been condemned as "fundamentally flawed" by the government's design advisers, CABE, but its objections were not seen by Hackney's Planning Committee.

Desperate for cash Hackney Council owns most of the development site and stands to make tens of £millions under an option agreement to sell the site to Hammerson with the benefit of planning permission.The scheme first attracted controversy when Hackney recommended that its Planning Committee grant Hammerson permission to completely demolish The Light.

Artist Lucinda Rogers

The Light, an historic building at 233 Shoreditch High Street, which stands as a landmark on the border between the City and Shoreditch. Hackney have now approved the demolition of the rear part of the building.

In the face of community opposition the Committee deferred its decision on 24.7.08. Hackney then had to include The Light in the Shoreditch Conservation Area when the Secretary of State and English Heritage intervened at OPEN Shoreditch's request. Normally they would not intervene unless it appeared that a local authority's decision was being influenced by a conflict of interest.

Photograph by Mike Wells
The Slab above Transport for London's new station at Dalston Junction . The Slab has already had over £40million of public subsidy, and tower blocks of up to 20-storeys are to be built to pay for it - but there was no affordable housing planned at all.

Hammerson's original planning application for Bishops Place included 100 family size flats and it also offered to make a contribution of £14million to "off-site" affordable housing which the Council said it would spend on The Slab development in Dalston.
Hammerson amended its scheme which came back before Hackney's Planning Committee on 4.11.09. Hackney and the GLA usually look for up to 40% family homes on major schemes like this. But now Hammerson proposed to reduce the number of family homes from 100 to 33 (14%). Hammerson said there just wasn't enough open amenity space available to suit families. but Hammerson's planning application failed to include extensive neighbouring land which it owns, although its presentation to the Planning Committee showed that land also as developed . English Heritage objected to the Bishops Place scheme, criticising its "overbearing presence" and its "harmful impact on surrounding conservation areas and listed buildings". CABE said the scale of some buildings were "manifestly unsuited to their context"

And, although in August 2006 Hammerson had written to Hackney suggesting that 112 affordable flats (30%) on the site would be possible, it now proposed just 50, with only 11 for social rent. And it also dropped its contribution to "off site" affordable housing from £14million down to £3million because of market conditions. Hackney agreed to these cuts when granting planning permission on 4.11.09. However the Secretary of State has recently ruled, in a seperate case, that temporary economic difficulties do not justify abandoning affordable housing policies on major schemes.

Hackney's grant of planning permission was supported by the City which has several joint venture agreements with Hammerson for office developments in Shoreditch

OPEN Shoreditch has complained to the Standards Board, which regulates local authorities' conduct, that Hackney had a prejudicial conflict of interest when it rushed the poorly designed scheme through. Hackney's report to its Planning Committee members highlighted that it owned the development site and that it had an option agreement to sell the site to Hammerson. But committee members were not also advised that the £millions the Council would get from the sale if granting permission was not a planning consideration and that they should not allow it to influence their decision.

In 2007 Hackney earmarked the proceeds of sale from the development site to meet the costs of the new Town Hall annex which is now under construction. Soon people will be able to go these new offices to pay their Council tax. Meanwhile there are some 12,000 homeless and overcrowded applicants on the Council's housing waiting list and Hackney has described the shortage of family homes as "most acute".

Authorities abandon affordable housing policies.

2009-11-07T16:17:00.025Z

On 4th November Hackney Council agreed to give up an £11million payment intended for affordable housing in Dalston, when it granted planning permission for Hammerson's 52-storey Bishops Place tower block development in Shoreditch.

The Bishops Place tombstone development designed by Foster and Partners. The City of London Corporation, which has several joint venture agreements with Hammerson on sites in Shoreditch, welcomed the scheme

In the face of community opposition Hackney had deferred the planning application in July 2008 and asked Hammerson to spare The Light at 233 Shoreditch High Street which was to be demolished. At that time Hammerson said there was room for only 50 affordable flats in its £400 million, 1.5 million sq ft., scheme. It offered to contribute £14 million to "off-site" affordable housing. The contribution was intended for TfL's Dalston Junction development, which has already received massive public subsidy, but where there is presently no affordable housing planned at all.

The Slab, a £40million concrete raft over the railway cutting, intended to provide a bus station and private flats in 8 blocks of up to 20 storeys at Dalston Junction.

Hackney's, and the Mayor of London's, policy is that in larger schemes developers should seek to provide 50% affordable housing of which 70% should be for social rental and 30% for shared-ownership. Hammerson's mixed-use scheme includes 290 flats and serviced hotel apartments but there are to be only 11 flats (4%) for social rental.

The Worship of Mammon, 1909 by Evelyn de Morgan, updated 2009 by dunkdigital.com

Hackney accepted that the international property developer, Hammerson, had been hit by the credit feeze , which meant that it could now only afford a £3million, and not a £14million, contribution to off-site affordable housing. But Hackney also extended the time to start the development to 5 years when it hopes that market conditions will have improved.
The Bishops Place scheme, which still involves partial demolition of The Light, has been condemned by the Government's advisory commission, CABE, which objected to the "fundamentally flawed" design and the "canyon effect" of the blocks. But the rushed consultation process meant that CABE's objections were not made available for Planning Committee members to read.
English Heritage advised that the "overbearing" development would have "a harmful impact on surrounding conservation areas and listed buildings". But English Heritage's letter was not on the planning file either.
The Council did not even consult it's own Design Review Panel which has objected strongly to the previous designs.

Hackney Council owns most of the Bishops Place site and will make £millions, under an option deal with the developer Hammerson, now the scheme has been granted planning permission. But the sale proceeds wont be spent on affordable housing or other community benefits in either Shoreditch or Dalston because they are earmarked to pay for Hackney's new annex to its Town Hall which, its Mayor hopes, will give Hackney citizens "a sense of civic pride".
The Bishops Place scheme will now be reviewed by the Mayor of London's office. Hammerson has promised Mayor Boris £3.1 million to help pay for Crossrail and Hackney report that his office has already approved the affordable housing arrangements.

Ridley Road market plans - make your views known

2009-10-13T09:40:00.007+01:00

The Council is consulting the public on how to spend over £1million on improving Ridley Road Market. Three options have been offered - the third option being the one developed in consultation with the Ridley Road traders themselves. You can see the plans here and you have until 16th October to make your views known via email to streetscene@hackney.gov.uk

This latest round of consultation is part of a lengthy process which began with the Council obtaining a consultants' report back in 2007. Their recommendations covered most of the issues which are now part of the Council's consultation.

The consultants noted that traders are charged £430,000 a year for waste management but found "the worst market environment we have ever experienced in over 30 years".

The consultants' recommendations included a profit-led approach to market management so that the Council could obtain income by increasing the charges trader's pay for licensing, storage, electricity and parking. Ridley Market is presently the "Home of the Bargain" and, for many, a vital source of affordable goods and fresh produce. Increased charges to traders would inevitably lead to higher prices for customers. The consultants also suggested cashing in on Council assets, particularly the market storage land in Birkbeck Road, by identifying "potential disposal opportunities... of land for residential development".

Ridley Road's market traders are at the hub of Dalston's retail diversity, and its vitality, so why have they had so much grief? One of the first of the consultants' recommendations to be implemented was a crack down on traders by a restructured Council enforcement team. Since 2007 OPEN has reported on the prosecutions of traders (which were later declared by government to be"not in the public interest") rumours of a Council agenda to redevelop some of the market's land (strongly denied by Hackney's Mayor Pipe), electricity supplies to traders stalls cut off since May 2007, the sudden closure of the traders' market store and traders' appeals against revocation of their licences.

Larry Julian, Chair of the RRMTA, talks about the improvement plans

The Ridley Road Market Traders Association (RRMTA) has been consulted and it supports many of the Council's improvement proposals - refurbished lighting and electricity supplies, road and pavement upgrades, better publicity and gateway signage, improved waste collection and recycling and equal size but larger stalls. The RRMTA particularly favours improving the St Marks (east) end of Ridley Road market, part of which is on private land, and encouraging people to shop along its entire length.

But the Options the Council present make no express mention of refurbishing the market's store that was closed last year (although some work is going on there presently), or the storage yard for traders barrows, which are both in Birkbeck Road. When you look at the Council's proposals you'll see it is pushing to do away with barrows in favour of uniform stall types - flat pack stalls to be set up and dismantled daily (by someone) and stored (somewhere) off site - to "improve the look of the market". Nothing to do then with the consultant's recommendation that doing away with the barrows would "leave a considerable piece of land available along Birkbeck Road. LBH may wish to give consideration to alternative use of this area of land possibly for Residential Development"

Ridley Road Market - the home of the bargain
Neneh Cherry and Andi Oliver buy some bunches of callaloo. It's the home of the bargain - but how do we keep it that way?

Tory conference learns about Spirit and "Tesco-fication".

2009-10-12T09:55:00.015+01:00

In this video clip Graeme Archer tells the Tory Conference about how local people, and particularly Spirit, were powerless to prevent Hackney Council auctioning off local businesses to off-shore companies in 2002. The auctions were not just of properties in Broadway Market but a Georgian terrace of thriving businesses in Dalston Lane too - and just look what has become of them. Despite Council policies, and crocodile tears, the Dalston shopkeepers were deprived of the opportunity to buy their shops when the terrace was put in the auction as one lot and many have since been evicted. Then there were arson attacks and four houses were burnt out. The Council have since, at public expense, demolished three of the houses. Following recent public consulation the Council's planning brief for the terrace is awaited.

Graeme Archer also raises the issue of the "Tesco-fication" of our high streets - the loss of retail diversity, independent small businesses and local character. Local communities are resisting this all over the country. Tesco have an outstanding planning application for the major redevelopment of its Morning Lane site which includes two thirteen-storey residential tower blocks on top of a new store. The development will dominate St John at Hackney churchyard gardens and Hackney's earliest monument - the 13th century Grade 1 listed St Augustine's Tower.You can see and comment on the application on Hackney Council's Planning Department web site here.

Image gimped by sdit.org.uk

"....Where possible, a supermarket operator underwrites the whole development, erecting towers on site, so that Hackney becomes a suburb of Tesco, with streets, permanently under cosmetic revision, replaced by 24-hour aisles. Light and weather you can control. Behaviour is monitored by a discreet surveillance technology..."
Iain Sinclair, London Review of Books, June 2009

The first train to Dalston Junction in 25 years

2009-10-08T14:09:00.004+01:00

Watch BBC film here of the first train to arrive at Dalston Junction since it closed in 1984. The line will start taking passengers next June.

Even what they have will be taken away

2009-10-04T17:19:00.026+01:00

Lowell 'Spirit' Grant has lost his claim against Hackney Council for compensation following the sale of his home and business at auction to an off-shore company.

"He was plainly proud of the business which he had built up since 1993. It is sad that this was taken from him " said the Judge "It is unfortunate that these offshore companies are purchasing properties and are able to avoid the same fees and taxes which others would have to pay".

Spirit had wanted to buy his property and met the Council's property agents, Nelson Bakewell, prior to the auction. Although he had handed over his cheque for £10,000 deposit, and signed a document, the property was later sold at auction for £15,000 less than Spirit had agreed to pay. The cheque was later posted back to him without explanation.

The Council's agent agreed it was possible that Spirit may have signed something at the pre-auction meeting but the Judge found that, whatever it was, it was not proved to be a sale contract. The property agents later returned the file to the Council but despite investigations by the Council's Internal Audit, and a Scrutiny Committee Inquiry, the document has never been produced .

The Council's agent said that Spirit must have known of the auction of the property well in advance because he had been there to measure it up. Why the auction catalogue described Spirit's residential flat above the shop as 'storage' remains a mystery.

The Council's agents gave evidence at the trial, which the Judge accepted, that they went ahead and auctioned the property because Spirit had told them that his cheque would not be honoured. A member of Spirit's family said on oath that they had agreed to make an immediate transfer of funds.

Following a three year battle, and despite all the rent being up to date, Spirit was evicted last year for failing to pay the off-shore landlord's legal costs awarded in its possession proceedings at a time when Spirit had no legal representation. The Court of Appeal found that in the case of business tenants the Court did not have the same power, which it has for purely residential occupiers, to allow them time to pay.

Should we beware the east wind?

2009-10-04T15:52:00.007+01:00

Extensive radioactive contamination has been found on the 2012 Olympic site. OPEN has made an appeal for funds to meet the cost of commissioning an independent nuclear scientist to report on the working methods and risks arising from the excavation works on the site at Stratford. .

If you can assist with funding the independent scientist's report please contact openuk@gmail.net

Bad news for Dalston. Worse news for Barratt.

2009-09-17T16:02:00.064+01:00

Bad News: The Dalston Square"regeneration project" has beaten other shortlisted projects to win the first ever, but already notorious, Ceausescu Golden Spoon Award. You can see more here

TfL's artist impression of the Dalston Square development - with further enhancements by a Dalston artist. Click on the image to enlarge it. The scheme is a public/private development by Hackney Council (which itself described the development as "austere"), the Greater London Authority and their private sector "partner" Barratt. It has involved demolition of historic buildings, environmental blight and massive public subsidy.

The Dalston Square development was always a strong favorite to bottom out the Ceausescu Award criteria for oppressive scale, bulldozed planning and architectural hype but it only just managed to see off fierce competition from the Peninsula Square development in Greenwich, the Aldgate Union Tower in Tower Hamlets and Newham’s Queen's Market development. Queens Market scooped the silver spoon award and the wooden spoon went to Waltham Forest Council’s Arcade site scheme. Unfortunately the handful of politicians and public officials responsible for the Dalston Square project were not present at the ceremony to receive the award or the further public appreciation for their efforts which they so richly deserve.

Worse news: for debt-laden Barratt, the national volume house builder, which is contracted to build the 20-storey towers of the Dalston Square development. Bank of America-Merrill Lynch has said that Barratt was "behind the curve" and now, say analysts at Investec, it could be described financially as "irreparably damaged".

The £40million concrete building slab spanning the soon to be reopened Dalston Junction overground station. The claims that Barratt are to build green and eco towers on The Slab has a hollow ring when the financial and carbon cost of The Slab are considered.

Investec's unfortunate comment comes on the eve of Barratt's anticipated £500million cash call for deperately needed investment and just when it is due to start building more tower blocks on The Slab, the second half of the Dalston Square scheme, this October. Barratt's difficulties could explain the mystery regarding its section 106 contributions which is said to put at risk Hackney Council's new library planned for the Dalston Square scheme

'The worship of Mammon' by Evelyn de Morgan 1909, updated by dunkdigital.com 2009

Barratt, like other housebuilders, has been hit very hard by the continuing credit freeze despite the assistance from government bail-outs and an enticing marketing campaign locally. It has sought to maintain cash flow by a "buy to let" campaign marketing Dalston Square in Singapore which has, reportedly, seen 23 of the flats "snapped up". Barratt, with other national housebuilders, is also reported to have been seeking to maintain house prices by "drip feeding" its new properties into the market.

PS Is that a rumour of a takeover we can hear snapping at Barratt's heels?

The curtains up on Arcola Theatre's plans

2009-08-02T15:36:00.030+01:00

This week Arcola Theatre is presenting its proposals to the public for developing a site in Ashwin Street, Dalston, as its future home. The vision includes "an expanded Arcola Theatre venue including an enlarged main house to draw exceptional national and international productions. Around this core will sit the Arcola Energy sustainable technology incubator, enterprise and skills studios and ethical café/bar/restaurant facilities."

The Theatre has outgrown its current premises in Arcola Street, Dalston.

Whilst plans for what the new Arcola will contain are well developed, the precise site and architectural scheme are far from decided. Thus the launch of the proposals is accompanied by a public exhibition of 18 very different architectural possibilities which Arcola hope will further ongoing discussions about the future of Dalston Junction. More details about the Future Arcola consultation exhibiton can be seen here. You can visit the exhibition between 10.30am - 5.30pm every day until Friday 7th August at Studio 5 in Arcola Street Dalston. Let them know you are coming by telephoning 0207 503 1646.

Part of the Future Arcola Theatre exhibition.

OPEN members will recall how in 2005 Arcola's Executive Director and energy scientist Dr Ben Todd and Executive Producer and writer Leyal Nazli worked and campaigned with OPEN to try and save the old Dalston Theatre and locally listed Georgian houses for re-use. Arcola Theatre's founder and Artistic Director, Mehmet Ergen, wrote an impassioned letter to Hackney's Planning Comittee members urging them to consider multiple uses for the site, including a new and much needed expanded venue for Arcola Theatre.

The original plans for the new 1898 entrance to the Dalston Theatre of Varities, built forward from the original 1886 Dalston circus entrance, at 12 Dalston Lane.

Sadly Hackney demolished the buildings and that site is now part of Barrat's 'Dalston Square' tower-block scheme at Dalston Junction.

Nevertheless Arcola Theatre's ambition and determination has continued and many of its visions are already being realised - not least progress towards becoming the first carbon neutral theatre in the UK. These pictures illustrate some of its diverse activities.

Training in theatre technology takes place for young people at Arcola theatre.

Arcola Youth Theatre gives training and performance opportunities for the next generation of actors.

One of Arcola Theatre's many performances in their bar.

Arcola Theatre has gone international - here is its theatre in Istanbul.

Don't miss the exhibition Future Arcola. It's a chance to see and comment on what the future could hold for Arcola Theatre and for a key site at Ashwin Street, Dalston. The development could anchor the emerging creative hub there and greatly enhance the public space.

Ashwin Street, Dalston with the Reeves Printhouse at the northern end - already a hub for small creative businesses.

Dalston's Four Aces Club revisited

2009-07-16T01:10:00.012+01:00

You can read a nostalgic reminder of what made Dalston's Four Aces Club so legendary here . If you don't know the local history then watch out for the next showing of OPEN campaigner Winstan Whittar's brilliant film "Legacy in the dust" which was premiered at a packed meeting in Cafe Oto, Dalston recently
Hackney's very own Count Shelley and the former club at 12 Dalston Lane

If you are new in Dalston and wondering why the Four Aces Club was demolished then read "The story that was never told" which explains it and why, instead, we're getting this -

Take it! Take another little pizza. My art.

2009-07-15T08:00:00.047+01:00

Dalston's derelict 'eastern curve' railway site has been reclaimed as public space under cover of the Barbican Gallery's 'Radical Nature' art exhibition.

The site is now open for business with a series of afternoon and evening events until 2nd August including performances produced by Dalston's Arcola Theatre, Gahu Dramatic Arts, pedal powered music, the emergency urban psychoanalysis commando unit and other delights. Follow the links here for the programme.

The site's headline artwork takes the form of a windpowered pizza oven

Thanks to Joseph ODriscoll for this image
and part of the site has been planted with wheat uprooted from Lancashire and driven all the way to Dalston for replanting.

The wheat is to echo the iconic image of the wheatfield sown by Agnes Denes in 1982 to contrast with the towers of Manhattan.

Meanwhile we're waiting to see if Barratt can afford to start the next phase of 10 - 20 storey towerblocks on The Slab in Dalston this October.

The art installation is rumored to cost over £30,000 for the three week event and has received gushing press reviews - "artists are putting their shoulder to the wheel, trying to prompt the revolution in values and attitudes required to deal with environmental crisis". It will certainly provoke debate about radical and sustainable urban ecology.

On this subject there are plenty of radical ideas about and some, like the new King Henry's walk community organic garden, are already happening. Dalston is really buzzing!

The site is owned by the public authorities and over recent decades has frequently been fly-tipped, squatted and stripped bare by human carrion of anything which could be sold. Backing onto the site is the Ashwin Street terrace of historic houses, left vacant and increasingly ruinous, and which includes the most recent old Dalston house to have been burned down in nine recent fires.
The entrance to the site is through a gate at the rear of Dalston's Peace Mural . Lets hope the access and public use of the site will remain once the wheat is harvested and the windmill dismantled.

PS: You will see a lot of new graffiti art is appearing around the site.

PSst: Don't tell the Council - you know what enthusiasts their "clean up team" are.

Don't look up! More towers planned for London Fields

2009-06-30T21:53:00.023+01:00

Last Thursday Southern Housing Group (SHG), a charity, gave a public presentation to the local community of its scheme for a second towerblock at London Fields, eastside. SHG said it had considered feedback from meetings with Hackney Council and Boris's GLA planners when designing the "slender" 19 storey tower development of 78 very high density flats, houses and commercial units.

It was claimed that, compared with the existing site at 22-24 London Lane, the design and scale of the development would "enhance" the surrounding low rise buildings of the Mare Street Conservation Area. Admittedly it is not in a designated Tall Building Opportunity Area - but the professional view was that at street level people apparently don't notice towers (Don't look up!).

SHG said it wants "a scheme everyone is happy with" but members of the public voiced passionate objections to the development for a whole range of reasons. Perhaps people fear yet another charitable developer is seeking to exploit the London Fields location to the comunities disadvantage. Will SHG redesign its scheme to meet local objections or just plough on regardless?

If you can offer support or skills to help the the local community in London fields then you can find "No Hackney High-Rise" contact details here.

PS The meeting was held in Free Form Arts' Hothouse, an award winning development on London Fields east. Superbly designed and finished. A low-rise building delivering community benefits.

High Court upholds Ridley Road Market trader's appeal.

2009-06-19T22:39:00.039+01:00

A Ridley Road Market trader has had his appeal to the High Court upheld. We have previously told how Leslie 'Bonner' Ware had won his appeal to the Magistrates Court after the Council tried to revoke his market trading licence. But the Council refused to pay his legal costs. "It was taking liberties, so I appealed again" said Bonner "We went to trial in the High Court in The Strand. And we won again. Now its going to cost the Council double. It's all public money and an absolute disgrace"

OPEN has reported before about how Hackney Council's bean-counters were going bananas in Ridley Road Market. They had been revoking traders licences, cutting off the electric to their stalls, closing down the market store and prosecuting traders for selling by the bowl or the bunch. It was all getting rather personal. And then the Council's prosecutions policy went pear shaped when the government finally stepped in - it said that the prosecutions were "not in the public interest".

It emerged that Hackney Council planned to redevelop Ridley Road market. And that would be much easier if the traders only had "temporary" licences with no rights of appeal to the Courts. It has revoked numerous markets traders' licences. But most Ridely Road traders are not prepared to be bullied or bribed by bureaucrats. One such is Leslie "Bonner" Ware, a third generation Ridley Road market trader. We told his story here. "It is lucky that I could afford to take the risk of appealing" said Bonner " Many new young traders feel too intimidated." And so Bonner appealed to the Magistrates Court, and won. Then he appealed again to the High Court , for his legal costs to be paid, and won again. Hackney now have to pay the costs of both appeals.

In addition to the £thousands the Council has lost pursuing its policies it has also allocated some £300,000 in fees for consultants to come up with a redevelopment plan for the market. During OPEN's recent public consultation on the Council's "Dalston Area Action Plan - Masterplan" most people said that they don't want the market to be "redeveloped" or "regenerated".

Ridley Road market is at the heart of Dalston life. Most local people want to see its character, as a traditional outdoor street market selling affordable goods and fresh produce, preserved and to see decent conditions for traders and shoppers. Yes - there is plenty of room for improvements. A good start would be to restore lighting to the market stalls and repair the market store. It is now over a year since the Council cut off the electric.

Watch the video
Neneh Cherry and Andi Oliver buy some bunches of callaloo from Janet Devers in Ridley Road. They think Ridley is "The Home of the Bargain!" Long may it continue.

Dalston! Paint it black

2009-06-04T23:18:00.106+01:00

It was a shock to see how some of Dalston Lane's derelict houses had been clothed in black last week. A funereal dressing of paint over the graffiti on the Georgian brickwork and renders. A reminder of the charred finishes of the nine buildings burnt in Dalston over recent years and all on "development opportunity" sites.

Rumours are rife about who was responsible for these daubings. Lorries were parked up last week on the pavement, with a cherry picker and drums of black paint. A tabla rasa has been created for new tags. And a nightmare for conservationists to restore the original fair face brickwork.

In 2004 a government planning inspector had refused to let the landlord demolish the buildings. He declared the terraces, as did English Heritage, to be a "remarkable survivor of Georgian architecture". But not before two in the terrace of houses had been burnt down (Jon's Scooters at 62 & 64 - since demolished). In January 2005 the Council then designated the Dalston Lane (West) Conservation Area. This gave some protection to the houses. But then two more houses were gutted by fire. Planning permission would normally be required for their demolition in a conservationarea. Three were then demolished without any application . In many conservation areas even external painting requires prior planning permission. No applications were made for Dalson Lane.

Last week the Council launched its public consultation regarding the future of our Dalston Lane Georgian terraces. You can learn more about it and comment here. You can also contribute your views during OPEN's own forthcoming consultation - so watch this space.

The Council recently demolished three of the Georgian houses following fires and vandalism.

What value would be placed upon Dalston's character and identity if the houses were now to be restored? One suggestion is to rebuild the burned and demolished Georgian houses as replicas and refurbish the remainder. Another is that additional floors and/or mansard roofs could be added to some buildings to make them "financially viable" to "regenerate". Is "financial viability" related to what the off-shore owner paid for them in the first place? In this case it purchased 16 of the houses for £1.8million at the 2002 Council auction.The Council gave the traders in occupation no opportunity themselves to buy the houses and, at the auction, the terraces were offered only as one lot. And how will the businesses of the surviving traders, who lost out before, be protected now that their leases have expired?

The Star Bakery was one of the businesses evicted after the auctions. Court orders were granted on the landlord's evidence that it intended to do works requiring vacant possession. Bakers have been in Dalston Lane since at least the turn of the century. Now they've gone but the building has been left on death row ever since.

The Dalston Lane terraces have a troubled history. Many of Dalston's historic buildings have been neglected and demolished despite local people making their opposition to this well known. The surviving fragments of our local economy and architectural legacy in Dalston Lane deserve a better fate.

The Dalston Mill

2009-05-15T14:37:00.022+01:00

A planning application has been submitted to erect a temporary metallic structure at 13 Dalston Lane to the rear of the Peace Mural square, for use over the summer as a community art centre, garden, workshops and a pizza oven (yummy!). You can view the application and images (reference 2009/0965) here. The sponsorship is from the Barbican Art Gallery as part of the Radical Nature festival.

The publicity states "EXYZT have been working closely with various local communities to turn a disused site in Dalston into a vibrant rural retreat for the people of the area and beyond. Literally occupying an abandoned garden, the project offers an exciting programme of events, screening and summer feasts."

Actually the site is literally an abandoned railway line (the Dalston Junction Eastern Curve) recently filled in with hardcore and gravel for car parking use.

Not all of EXYZT previous 'community art installations' have met with universal approval - as you will see from some of the comments here.

What's Best for Dalston? the exhibition continues...

2009-05-01T15:24:00.010+01:00

Bootstraps, The Printhouse,
18 Ashwin St, E8 3DL

Saturday 2 May: Consultation Day, Bootstraps

Exhibition continues:

Bank Holiday Weekend:
Saturday 2 - Monday 4 May: 10am - 4pm

Tuesday 5 - Wednesday 6 May: 9am - 8pm

If you missed out on participating in our recent consultation on Hackney Council's Masterplan for Dalston, you've still got time to get involved. We have another special consultation day, this time in Bootstraps, at The Printhouse, on Saturday 2 May 10am - 4pm.

Once again there will be volunteers from OPEN Dalston to answer questions about the proposals contained in the Masterplan. You can view maps, see what other people think about Dalston and explore issues like the scale and height of buildings, what people want from public space and how can 1,700 new houses be fitted into Dalston in the next few years?

Material gathered during our last consultation day on the Masterplan has already been added.

‘What’s Best for Dalston?’ has been produced by OPEN Dalston with the help of people who live, work and spend time here who all want to celebrate and safeguard the energy, diversity and history of this vibrant neighbourhood.

At the same time, the exhibition gives you the opportunity to get to grips with the key issues contained in the Masterplan, which Hackney Council are consulting on until 15 May 2009. This planning document will have a major impact on life in Dalston, as it will influence building development in the area from now on.

The Masterplan identifies 21 buildings, streets and areas as ‘opportunity sites’. This means many existing buildings have been earmarked for demolition, in many cases to be replaced by bigger, higher developments. Ridley Road Market, Dalston Lane, Kingsland High Street and Ashwin Street have all been identified for major redevelopment.

Several ‘opportunity sites’ are currently home to successful family shops that have been here for many years. Others contain hundreds of thriving small businesses and community organisations. Our exhibition celebrates their stories and highlights the key Council proposals for each of the opportunity sites.

‘What's Best for Dalston?’ is growing and changing, as people add their own stories, photographs, interviews, comments and ideas, so please come along and join in.

Dalston Square flats: Get one half price!

2009-04-30T22:32:00.026+01:00

Last year we reported how Barratt, which is developing Dalston Square in a private/public partnership with the authorities, had been credit crunched and was tettering on the brink of insolvency. Its share price had crashed by 90% and its £1.5 billion debt was in the news. Former blue-chip builders like Barratt became relegated to the middle tier as funds flooded out of the sector. But it managed to renegotiate its bank covenants and could "limp along"

Although things picked up slightly in the first quarter of this year, and Barratt's shares rallied, those green shoots have been caught out in the recurrent economic frosts of the credit freeze. Mortgage offers are around only 40% of the boomtime peak and are now falling again. Finance experts are reportedly advising investors to sell this risky housebuilder's shares. These are desperate times with market analyists reporting property prices have not yet reached the bottom. Barratt are now slashing sale prices like there could be no tomorrow.

Can Barratt afford to start building the towerblocks on The Slab, on TfL's railway site next door, which should be ready for development in October?

Will some of the funds allocated in Alistair Darling's budget, to bail out stalled housebuilding schemes, be used to save TfL's Olympic towerblocks which are all intended for private sale?

Hackney Council invested in the £19million shortfall on the loss making Dalston Square scheme. The deal was it would start to recoup when sales went over a certain figure. Will it ever get our money back?

Hackney Council's Masterplan for Dalston

2009-04-06T18:44:00.019+01:00

OPEN Dalston, working with local businesses and community organisations, is organising a series of events in April to highlight Hackney Council’s Masterplan for Dalston.

The Council have started a public consultation on their draft proposals for the area. This document will influence the building development that will take place in Dalston in the coming years. Ridley Road Market, the Georgian terraces on Dalston Lane, Kingsland High Street and Ashwin Street are just some of the areas identified for redevelopment. Tall buildings, affordable housing, open spaces and the use of heritage buildings are among the issues covered.

OPEN Dalston’s events will give you the opportunity to ask questions, explore issues and discuss concerns about all aspects of the plans। Information gathered during these events will be included in OPEN’s response to Hackney Council on the Masterplan consultation and the events are also designed to assist people who want to make their own responses.

What’s best for Dalston?

Friday 24 April – Wednesday 6 May
Bootstraps, The Printhouse, Ashwin Street, E8
Exhibition
Highlighting the buildings and streets of Dalston and the experiences of the people who live and work here, this exhibition will grow and evolve over two weeks, as people join in and add their own stories, photographs, comments and suggestions.

Walking tours
The first of a series of walking tours around the ‘masterplan area’ took place on Sunday and focussed on key buildings and sites that the Masterplan for Dalston has earmarked for development. If you are interested in future walks please email info@opendalston.net or call 07531 467276 and we will keep you informed of additional dates and times. So if you are not sure what ‘The Eastern Curve’ is or how proposals will affect the look of Dalston Lane, these walks will help make it clear. Photographs and observations gathered on the walks will be added to the exhibition.

The demolished shops on Kingsland High Street, part of the "Western Curve".

If you would like to volunteer to help with the programme of events, please email info@opendalston.net - research, photography and filming are particularly needed to make it all happen.

The consultation documents for the draft Masterplan are available on the Council's website at: www.hackney.gov.uk/planning-consultation.htm Printed documents are available for reference at all of Hackney's libraries and at the Planning Reception at 263 Mare Street, E8 3HT. You can also email strategic.delivery@hackney.gov.uk or call 0208 356 7740 for more details.

You can make your own comments on the Masterplan proposals until Friday 15 May.

Part of the Eastern Curve.

OPEN event - Tuesday 24 March

2009-03-18T17:41:00.028Z

Don't miss Iain Sinclair and Patrick Wright who will be speaking at this event at Cafe Oto on Tuesday 24 March. You'll find all the details here.

A limited first edition of Winstan Whitter's film "Save Our Heritage" will be available in DVD format.

Entry is free. But bring some cash because The Broadway Bookshop will also be selling copies of "Hackney, That Rose-Red Empire: A Confidential Report" and "A Journey Through Ruins: The Last Days of London".
You can watch a trailer of the film here:

Watch Michael Rosen talk about the film here:

“On Dalston Lane time itself seems to lie around in broken fragments....”

2009-03-11T18:34:00.013Z

Don't miss this OPEN event on Tuesday 24th March when Iain Sinclair and Patrick Wright will read from, and talk about, their work. A film from Iain Sinclair's archive, called “Diary Film: Hackney 1969”, will also be screened.

The event begins at 7.30pm at the Cafe Oto, Ashwin Street, Dalston. E8.More details here.

Cafe Oto has limited capacity, the last event was packed, so come early to avoid disappointment.

Admission is free but the event is an OPEN fundraiser (see below) so please give generously.

“On Dalston Lane time itself seems to lie around in broken fragments....”
From A Journey Through Ruins (1991) by Patrick Wright

The quirky and thriving terrace, which Patrick Wright described in 1991, is now in ruins. In April 2002 16 Georgian houses in Dalston Lane were auctioned off by Hackney Council, over the heads of its tenants, to an off-shore slum landlord. Four were later burnt out. A fifth was damaged beyond repair...

A Journey Through Ruins (1991) has now been republished with a new introduction by Patrick Wright entitled Going Back to Dalston (2008).

"...the afterburn of that intrepid cultural historian Patrick Wright eddies around the chaotic bus stop: a spectre from St Phillip's Road still very much active, years after the host body has left town". Iain Sinclair 2009
The Star Bakery was evicted after the auctions, on the grounds of redevelopment, but has since been left on death row. The Council recently demolished three of the Georgian houses as part of its "conservation led regeneration project".

Former Dalston resident, Patrick Wright<, is a writer and broadcaster with a particular interest in the cultural and political dimensions of contemporary history. He is a Fellow of the London Consortium and the author of many books including On Living in an Old Country, Tank, The Village that Died for England, Iron Curtain and A Journey Through Ruins.

Mike Wells' photo of The Slab being constructed above Dalston Junction's railway cutting to provide an Olympic bus-turnaround. There will be towers of flats for private sale, of up to 20 storeys, intended to pay the £40million for The Slab. Now there's talk of a government bailout. But the blocks were never designed for affordable family housing.

“We’re on the edge. It’s like the Berlin Wall and the legacy is uniformity, dullness, storage boxes, a kind of globalisation... a future where the virtual collides with the actual...”
Iain Sinclair on the Olympic developments

Local resident Iain Sinclair is a poet, film maker, psychogeographer and chronicler of documentary fiction. His latest work "Hackney. That rose-red empire" has been greeted with popular and critical acclaim (but to Hackney Council's chagrin)

"Sinclair carried out the poetic realignment of London that would eventually earn him notoriety as the occultist surveyor who had recharted the city..." Patrick Wright in 1991.

In this latest film Iain Sinclair describes Dalston and Hackney as it was and as it has become.

The evening will include a screening of Iain Sinclair’s “Diary Film: Hackney 1969”

Funds raised at this event will contribute to OPEN's community consultation programme - a series of events responding to the newly published Council Masterplan for Dalston.

A streetcar named Lost Opportunity

2009-03-04T14:47:00.003Z

We reproduce here an article written by Michael Rosen outlining an alternative transport option for linking Dalston and Hackney with the rest of London. This article does not necessarily reflect OPEN's views.

"As we ponder the state-subsidized vandalism and hijacking of publicly owned space that is Dalston, we might just take time out to think of what might have happened if the core question at the heart of this whole fiasco had been looked at it in an open and rational way.

Remember, the rationale behind the building of buy-to-rent tower-blocks in the heart of Dalston, is that they were needed to help pay for the whole scheme. But what is the idea behind all this? That Hackney would have a new bus/rail “Transport Interchange” and a Tube line too. Well, it now turns out that what we’re getting isn’t the Tube but an Overground service. And we’ve got Overground services in Hackney anyway.

Broad Street station built in 1865

I’ll try and lay aside the history of how Dalston's rail link to the City, the Broad Street line connection, got closed. People will remember that we were told at the time that this was because the line wasn’t sufficiently used. So in contradiction of every report coming out of every city in the world, Hackney and British Rail allowed a rapid transit rail system to close.

Broad Street station undergoing demolition in 1986 to make way for the Broadgate development.

It was in fact everything to do with the demands of what OPEN is calling ‘Mammon’. They wanted the Broadgate Centre and if cheap, reliable, clean public transport had to be destroyed to enable it to happen, then so be it. Vandals. OK. I couldn’t leave it to one side. It still hurts.
The last train to Dalston left Broad Street station in 1986

Low cost solution:

But, as we know, the bed for the railway was left in place. Now, at this point, you might have thought that Hackney and anyone else concerned would have looked at what other cities all over the world are doing. In such confined spaces, and over similarly limited distances, cities are rediscovering the tram.

A tram running on green space in Germany
Rather than trying to use the technology of 1000 mile rail systems for twenty mile circuits, cities have discovered that for much lower cost of installation and running, along with a much more eco-friendly system, the modern tram offers a much better solution. What’s more our disused railway infrastructure offered what few cities can ever get – a designated trackway. The trams wouldn’t have to compete with the traffic, as you see in many other cities across the world.

What’s more, the intrusion of the Broadgate development could have been partially mitigated, by letting the trams come up on to the highway (where admittedly they would have competed with traffic) to reach Liverpool Street station and the tube network.

The new Hackney rail system will take us to Bishopsgate/Shoreditch (a sort of transport no-man’s land) and then veer eastwards to connect with the tube network at Whitechapel and then continue much further south to connect with the Jubilee.

It will also become apparent that the North London Overground line does not interconnect with this new line unless people want to get out at Dalston Kingsland, walk a few hundred metres (not great in winter) to connect with Dalston Junction. Perhaps a foot tunnel is being built. Perhaps not.

High Cost Solution

Instead we have the worst of all worlds. We have a high cost rail system that required massive capitalisation. In turn this turned Dalston into a ‘development opportunity’ which would have been laughable before the debt-fuelled boom and looks like proving to be just as laughable after it. We have housing that does not address Hackney’s needs of the moment and may well turn out to make it worse by sticking families in tower blocks.

The hotch-potch

So we’ll have a hotch-potch of transport:
- no interconnection between North London Overground and the line feeding Liverpool Street;
- two separate stations at Dalston each sending trains one mile down the line to Highbury and Islington;
- an almost mainline style system sending trains to Whitechapel and Lewisham;
- above ground, Transport for London is creating a traffic hellhole of the future by creating a right hand turn across the traffic flow of Kingsland Road by building a bus station on top of the new Dalston Junction station. Stratford’s bus station (often thought to be a model for modern bus stations and terminuses) is fed by a one-way traffic system. Others such as Finsbury Park, or Muswell Hill, work on an orbital system. Dalston will be the worst kind. "

Readers of this blog will recall that when Michael Rosen suggested reintroducing trams Hackney's Mayor Pipe responded by saying "Sadly for Mr Rosen and his fellow travellers it's going to take a lot more than a lick of paint and a few trolley buses to achieve economic transformation". Mayor Pipe then sought to smear Michael Rosen by accusing him of of wanting to "keep Hackney crap".

The GLA have just announced further investment in the East London line to create a London Orbital rail route.

You can see more about the city tram systems of the world here and here

OPEN wishes to acknowledge the use of railway photos from the wonderful site Subterranea Brittannica.

They'll be a library. In there.....Somewhere

2009-02-27T23:39:00.011Z

A scurrilous rumour has arrived that Hackney Council's Cabinet has mislaid £800K which Barratt was supposed to be spending on Dalston's Olympic Library. If anyone can find the web link to the Cabinet report (or the money) please put a comment below.

PS 10.3.09:The rumour is true. A report to Hackney's Cabinet states "It should be noted that £0.883m of this has not yet been paid to theCouncil and in view of the current economic climate must be considered at risk." - see para 25.10 here

"We may have to have new partners...."

2009-02-23T16:44:00.032Z

You can listen here to the February Hackney Podcast where Jeanette Arnold, London Assembly Labour Member representing North East London, is interviewed. She comments on the Dalston Square development. Referring to the developer Barratt's credit-crunch difficulties she states: "what we can't dismiss... is we may have to have new partners..." .

Jennette Arnold AM, Chair of the London Assembly is pictured with Denis Oswald, Chair of the IOC Coordination Commission (left) and Sebastien Coe, Chair of the London Organising Committee.

This week Barratt announced a loss of £590million. "(If you follow this link, change the Period analysis from 5 days to 5 years to see the full scary picture). "This remains an intensely difficult market with little forward visibility" said their Chief Executive Mark Clare. "A capital injection could have pulled Barratt back from the brink..We must now limp on.." said KBC Peel Hunt. A further report suggests imaginative costs cutting is being praticsed on Barratt sites.

At a recent meeting between OPEN and the authorities, organised by OPEN's Patron Lord Low, it was said simply that Barratt is contracted to deliver the development. There is no Plan B. There has already been massive public subsidy of this loss making scheme. The authorities denied receiving any indication from Barratt that further public subsidy is needed. But they added that, whilst so far 61 flats have already been purchased with public funds to provide "affordable homes" on the site, there is to be a further meeting between the Hackney Council and the government's Homes and Communities Agency (formerly the Housing Corporation). Its purpose is to discuss financing further purchases from Barratt. However this was not a development designed for social housing.

Meanwhile, with the clock ticking before its planning permission expires, OPEN understands that Barratt has yet to satisfy any of the planning conditions before it can start to build its towerblocks on The Slab in Dalston when it is handed over to them on 1st October.

This artist impression shows, on the left, Barratt's, 10-20 storey development on the Council's demolished Dalston Theatre site and, on the right, further blocks of up to 20 storeys to be built on The Slab over TfL's railway cutting.

In seeking to justify the £40 million expenditure on The Slab, to provide a bus-turnaround above the railway station, the authorities mentioned, at the meeting with OPEN, the benefit that "bus drivers won't have to drive all the way to Walthamstow to get a cup of tea". So there's a comfort.

Iain Sinclair on the Olympics

2009-02-16T14:31:00.011Z

If you missed the Channel4 news film last Sunday, featuring Iain Sinclair talking about the Olympics and Tessa Jowell about the importance of shopping...

Mammon. From superhero to sub-zero

2009-02-05T20:17:00.075Z

As the credit freeze tightens its icy grip on our shattered economy the worshippers of mammon shiver with disbelief. The mammonists said Hell would never freeze over. But now, in the economic winter, the glittering prizes they craved have slipped through their frozen fingers.

The Worship of Mammon 1909 by Evelyn de Morgan. Updated in 2009 by dunkdigital.com

Eighteen months ago, in June 2006, Hammerson unveiled its planned £700m Bishops Place scheme in Shoreditch. Its Chief Executive told analysts and shareholders of Hammerson's "unparalleled record of securing and delivering developments to make big profits for shareholders"

Foster and Partners vision for Hammerson's Bishops Place - a landmark tombstone development of 65,000sq m of private housing, offices, shops and a hotel.

Last July Hammerson sought planning permission to demolish The Light and build the 50 storey Bishops Place tower. But by then developers had started to feel the chill of the impending economic winter. Although the demolition would proceed immediately Hammerson could not confirm when construction would actually start. Facing overwhelming community opposition Hackney Council deferred the application. Hammerson's shareholders looked glum.

The Light as it could be - saved from redevelopment

A second coordinated community campaign forced Hackney Council, on the advice of English Heritage, to finally concede that The Light merits the protection of conservation area status. That decision followed threatening letters to Hackney from City lawyers and was greeted with dismay by Hammerson. Achieving planning permission underpins the value of development sites. Hammerson may yet renew its planning application to demolish and redevelop The Light as Bishops Place but a refusal now could drive an icicle through Hammerson's heart.

Now, in the depths of economic winter, property developers are stricken by the value of their sites being locked into the permafrost of the credit freeze. Hammerson is Britain's fourth biggest property company. Its debt rating has recently been downgraded from stable to negative by credit ratings agency Moodys. It share value has crashed by 60% from a high in April 2007 of £1747p to a fractured 397p today. J P Morgan stated that it was at risk of breaching its bond covenants. Hammerson is reported to have put its flagship Bishops Place (the controversial redevelopment of Spitalfields Market) up for sale - for £60 million less than it was valued in June 2008. Now it also needs to raise £600million by a deeply discounted rights issue to improve its balance sheet.

Private sector pre-credit crunch plans for redevelopment of the Bishopsgate Goodsyard

With the carnage in financial services, and tens of thousands more City jobs in peril, the developers' dreams of "regenerating" Shoreditch's Bishopsgate Goodsyard, with a wall of high-rise offices, now looks like a distant mirage. Even if the credit could be raised to build them, or for businesses to rent them, there will be no-one to work there.

Another major developer, Telford Homes, has also been caught out in the East London frosts. Last May Telford was granted planning permission for The Block, a 25 storey twin-towers development in Bethnal Green. OPEN protested that Tower Hamlets' supression of its own Design and Conservation Team's strong advice, to reject the scheme, was a breach of environmental justice. In responding to OPEN's High Court proceedings Telford revealed that, on this site alone, it was sustaining losses of £185,000 every month and that any delay imperiled negotiations with its bankers. Its QC said progress “...has all had to be put on hold pending these judicial review proceedings.”

The Block - Telford's 25storey Bethnal Green Road scheme which would dominate and blight the surrounding conservation areas

In fact, a week before the Court hearing, Telford's Chief Executive Andrew Wiseman had already announced that construction of The Block, together with other major schemes, would not be proceeding. "Delivery of these schemes" he said, "...will depend on the availability of finance for Telford and for our customers and our ability to secure future revenues." The schemes are on ice.

Since March 2008 Telfords' value has crashed by 90% to its January valuation of £10.8million. Its lender, AIB (Allied Irish Bank), has recently been bailed out at Irish taxpayers expense. What preference AIB might now give Telford over the financial needs of its Irish business customers remains to be seen.

The Judge eventually dismissed OPEN's legal challange. But now it may already be too late for Telford's plans to build The Block in Bethnal Green Road for the forseeable future.

Neither have our public authorities escaped the chill of the economic winter. Speculative investments of public money are leading to huge losses. Hackney Council, with the GLA's London Development Agency and Transport for London, have invested over £40 million in The Slab at Dalston Junction - a massive concrete raft spanning the new station cutting intended to provide a turnaround site for 12 buses. Of 550 flats being built to pay for the scheme only 50 are reported to have been sold to date. Public awareness and unease continues to grow that Dalston Square will be left with half-finished concrete stumps.

The Slab where Barratt's are to build residential towers of up to 20 storeys. The private/public partnership hoped to sell 500 private flats and attract brand retailers to pay for scheme. With credit and mortgage lending frozen the prospects are now looking increasingly bleak.

The scheme was conceived and implemented by a handful of public officials and politicians. OPEN protested at the time that it was an extravagent waste of financial and natural resources and would blight Dalston. We brought three judicial review actions to oppose it and fought to conserve at least something of Dalston's architecural and cultural history. But our pleas fell on deaf ears. The authorities ripped the heart out of Dalston two years ago. If true, as reported, that it is no longer 12 but only 7 bus stands that it now required on The Slab then the scheme's flawed logic, which underpinned the justification for the demolition of historic Dalston and its high-rise redevelopment, has started to fracture.
Then, last summer, there was panic. The authorities' chosen developer, Barratt's, share price had crashed 90% and it was having to renegotiate its bank covenants. Barratt had £1.5 billion of debt.

If the Bishops Place scheme had gained planning permission last February Hackney hoped to take Hammerson's £14million planning contribution for "off-site affordable housing" in Shoreditch and spend it on The Slab scheme in Dalston - robbing Peter to pay Paul. Now Hackney's Mayor Pipe hopes to persuade the government's Homes and Communities Agency (formerly the Housing Corporation) to buy out some of the 550 private flats. If a "buy to let" scheme funded with yet more public money finds favour we will see, as OPEN predicted, families on housing benefit with children living up to the 20th floor. The slums of the future.

But of all the public authorities it would be revelations concerning the City of London's investments which attract the greatest public dismay. Since adopting its Vanity 2000 policy, to contest Canary Wharf's challange to become the nation's home of financial and professional services, the City has invested eyewatering sums of public money assembling sites in Shoreditch for office development.

Many of these investments, funded from its secretive "City cash" account, are joint ventures with its private sector partner, Hammerson. In the current economic climate Hammerson must be grateful to have such a well heeled and sympathetic friend in the City to help bear some of its risks.

A recent setback for this public/private partnership has been the defeat, by an articulate and well organised community opposition, of its appeal to redevelop Norton Folgate .

In the depths of our economic winter the Freemen of the City of London must shiver to hear some financial commentators reporting a 40% drop in Central London commercial property values and that speculative development sites now have a negative value. The £millions of City Cash, invested in property and land deals, are presently locked deep within the permafrosts of Shoreditch. When Spring comes round we may find that much of the City's frozen funds have melted away to slush.

The Worship of Mammon 1909 by Evelyn de Morgan. Updated in 2009 by dunkdigital.com

“mammon”: (noun) possibly of Aramaic origin, meaning riches. First personified in English as the false god of wealth, avarice and injustice in the mediaeval poem Piers Plowman and later as the fallen angel, Lucifer, in Milton's Paradise Lost.

“mammonistic”: (adjective) consumed by the desire for wealth at the expense of beauty, creativity and the human soul.

"mammonists" : (secretive) the dark forces, including Philistines, pursuing material gain by the obliteration of heritage, identity, culture and sunlight in the name of regeneration, best value, necessity and progress.