Boris is coming! Quick!! Demolish Old Dalston

OPEN has learned from demolition contractors on site that four old houses at 2- 8 Ashwin Street must be pulled down and levelled by 5th June because Boris is coming.

2 Ashwin Street - the ninth "opportunity site" to burn down in Dalston in recent years. A squatter threw himself from an upper floor, during the fire on 31.7.08, with tragic consequences.

Hackney has owned the terrace of charming old houses since the 1980s. But it has never maintained or repaired them. It says that their condition has now become so dangerous they must be demolished immediately. There is no time to even consult the public or get planning permission to demolish them.

So the timing of the demolitions, by 5th June, is apparently nothing to do with the Council's "Dalston Connected" street party on Sunday 6th June to take place in Ashwin Street. This PR event is to celebrate the Dalston Junction overground station re-opening and Dalston's new £40million Olympic bus stop. Boris is to be the guest of honour.

2-8 Ashwin Street front walls were shored up after the fire, to stablise them, over 12 months ago. But the rear walls got no such protection.

In the Council's various public consultations since 2005 onwards our community has expressed a clear preference for re-use of the historic Ashwin Street old houses. Re-use is sustainable and would preserve the human scale and character of Dalston.

OPEN, Arcola Theatre and other community groups sent a deputation to Hackney's Mayor, Jules Pipe, on 26th October 2009. His Cabinet agreed "to defer demolition subject to further survey and discussion with interested parties, to determine the feasibility of retention". But there's been no such discussion and Hackney has refused to supply the survey report.

But at the same Cabinet meeting, OPEN has discovered, the Cabinet also agreed "that the Council lets the contract for the demolition to Clifford Devlin for the sum of £170K".

And over the same period the Council has also been buying up other sites in Ashwin Street, one at over market value, for redevelopment "as a natural progession of the Dalston Square development to the south" .

Looking north at 2-8 Ashwin Street and Barratt's Dalston Square towerblocks under construction

OPEN solicitors have written to the Council demanding to know why the buildings suddenly have to be demolished by 5th June and why no planning application is first to be made and the public consulted.

We are grateful for the research assistance of Loving Dalston, the independent Hackney news site.

A satirical image

This satirical image showing Lord Low and Lord Coe, with Phase 1 of Dalston's tower blocks under construction in the background, has been circulating in the public domain in Hackney for quite some time now.

(Click on image to enlarge)

In view of the emerging scandal of Dalston's £40million Olympic bus stop OPEN would like to take this opportunity to correct some of the glaring inaccuracies this image contains.

Just for starters. Lord Low of Dalston's job is NOT to represent Dalston - he is a cross bench "people's peer" who sits in the House of Lords for the greater good.

And secondly, for the record, Lord Coe DID come first (two Olympic Gold Medals in fact when he was just humble Seb Coe).

If you wish to point out any other inaccuracies please add them as Comments below. It's (still) free. Ed

Lord Low condemns the authorities' gross extravagance

Readers of this blog will recall last week that OPEN revealed the scandal of Dalston's £40million bus stop. The scandal hit the front page and this week The 'Agony's editorial, entitled "A slab in the face" (!!), reports that there is "understandable outrage from many Dalston residents".

That sense of outrage is palpable. It hangs like a black cloud over Dalston, along with the smoke of nine development sites that have burnt down in Dalston recently. But the outrage isn't because we wanted to see more buses terminating at TfL's Transport Interchange. OPEN had objected to the whole scheme from the beginning. And in 2006 we told the authorities that building The Slab was "not a prudent use of financial and natural resources" and that, if they went ahead, it would be "The most expensive bus stand in history".

In February 2007 OPEN's Patron, Lord Low of Dalston, alluded to the pending scandal when making his maiden speech in the House of Lords.

Colin Low, CBE, is Lord Low of Dalston, Vice-President of the Royal National Institute for the Blind and President of the European Blind Union. He lives in Dalston

But the authorities pursued their reckless Slab scheme and Lord Low went into further detail in a later speech in the Lords which you can read here.
Lord Low has written to the local paper's Editor this week to explain OPEN's position further regarding The Slab. This is what he wrote:

Colin Low, Lord Low of Dalston, CBE

The Editor

Hackney Gazette 15th May, 2010

Dear Sir

With reference to the lead story in your issue of 6 May and last week’s editorial, you highlight the fact that the use by just one bus route of Dalston's new £40million Transport Interchange is a great disappointment to the residents of Dalston and an appalling waste of public money. But this rather misses the point. Having more buses using this so-called transport interchange (which by the way links only with the Overground and not the tube), breaking their journeys there and putting passengers to unnecessary inconvenience and possibly expense, is not what Dalston wants. OPEN, of which I am Patron, has never advocated or wished for this as you suggest. Indeed we vigorously opposed the whole development from the outset. Having more buses now use the interchange in the manner you suggest would only make it worse.

TfL originally claimed that the "Transport Interchange" was essential for its bus operations and that there was "no alternative location" except to build it on a £40million concrete slab over the new Dalston Junction station. To fund this,they said, "high revenue generating forms of development" were essential. That is why Barratt will be building 9 further tower blocks of up to 20 storeys, all for sale but with no affordable housing, crammed onto the slab. Despite Hackney itself acknowledging that the designs were "austere" and below its own design standards, it granted TfL planning permission.

TfL told OPEN at the time that its scheme would not affect the use of the neighbouring Hackney site. This was untrue. We later learned that, because of the outstanding £18million deficit for funding the slab, TfL also required Hackney to demolish Dalston's historic buildings and dispose of the land as a development site to Barratt. Hackney succumbed to this pressure and agreed a deal which was so unfavourable to its taxpayers that it had to get government approval to dispose of its public land at undervalue. All Hackney got in return was a peppercorn rent and four floors to fit out as a library which they were obliged to rent from Barratt.

Had the authorities been willing to seriously consider the more modest alternative scheme promoted by Dalston's Bootstraps Company and OPEN, we could now be seeing a scheme with 100 % affordable housing, independent shops and new businesses in affordable commercial units, community facilities and Dalston's historic buildings preserved and converted. And Hackney could have retained much of its land value.

The government also contributed £10million to help fund the slab. It said the "Transport Interchange" was essential for the 2012 Olympics. But none of the buses or trains using the "Interchange" go there. Perhaps TfL may yet use the slab for hopper buses to take people from the station to the Olympic site. But this was never presented as a justification for the slab at the time and £40million will seem a grossly extravagant subsidy for a 6 week event, especially to the people of Dalston.

Yours faithfully

Colin Low

(Lord Low of Dalston)

The scandal of Dalston's £40million Olympic bus stop

Whilst politicians have recently been scrambling to take credit for the reopening of the East London overground railway to Dalston Junction they have, unsuprisingly, been silent about the scandal of Dalston Square’s £40million bus stop.

Dalston's £40million Slab over the new station which has been built for a planned bus/rail Transport Interchange.There are 9 more tower blocks to be built on the site to sell and pay for The Slab.

Despite the public outcry, Dalston’s heritage buildings have been demolished, and its environment is now to be blighted by nine further blocks of flats of up to 20-storeys, all for sale (with no affordable housing) to pay for The Slab .

The Slab is a £40million concrete raft over the railway cutting which, we were told, was essential to create a bus/rail Transport Interchange to support the 2012 Olympic bid. And regenerate Dalston.

The new barbarism - the authorities vision for Dalston's future "regeneration"

But now we have learned, from TfLs replies to Lord Low of Dalston and OPENs Freedom of Information Act requests, that only one bus will use The Slab - the 488 , the route of which is to be extended from Clapton to Dalston. There are no plans for London Buses to use the Slab for other bus routes terminating in Dalston and as for through route buses, they say, diverting them to use The Slab would just delay passengers. (Shouldn't they have thought of that before? Ed.)

So there we have it - the destruction of old Dalston’s Town Centre was to finance a £40million Olympic Transport Interchange for use by just one bus that doesn’t even go to the Olympic site (and neither does the train).


With schemes of such monumental environmental and financial extravagance, and pointlessness, no wonder our government is bankrupt and the electorate disenchanted. But how could the public have been so mislead? In a culture of official deception just remember that old adage “Don’t believe anything in politics until it's been officially denied”.


PS TfL have also said that having the Transport Interchange means bus drivers won’t have to go all the way back to the garage to get a cup of tea. So there’s a comfort.

Barratt to complete Dalston Square

Barratt are reported to be about to start the second half (the west side) of the Dalston Square development this month. Ken Livingstone's London Development Agency obtained permission for the scheme in March 2006 despite community objections and a Hackney report to it's Planning Committee describing the design as "harsh" and "austere". The development - a row of 9 private residential blocks and shops, of up to 20 storeys, with no affordable housing - will be built on The Slab, a massive concrete raft over TfL's Dalston Junction railway cutting.

The Slab, costing over £40 million, has been completed. The development includes Transport for London's "transport interchange" which will serve the reinstated East London Line station and the new bus turnaround behind it. The design of the station's entrance is not to everyone's taste .

In the depths of the credit freeze there were doubts whether Barratt could proceed. It has sustained eyewatering losses approaching £800 million over 2 years. Like all volume house builders it has been pleading with bankers to relax mortgage restrictions which have been affecting new-build sales and freezing out first time buyers who can't raise the 20% deposits bankers are demanding.

With assistance from government bail out schemes, like HomeBuy Direct which helped first time buyers bridge the funding gap, 'Too Big to Fail' Barratt were able to advertise "half-price" deals on some of the Dalston Square flats.

Debt-laden Barratt's financial problems have been relieved by favourable conditions for absentee landlords. Recent reports have described how two-thirds of the 5,500 new houses and flats sold in London during the first three quarters of 2009 were purchased as buy-to-let properties. Reports last summer described 'buy to let' marketing of Dalston Square in the far east and the announcements of Phase 1 'selling extremely well' have been talked up by 'massive interest from Far Eastern buyers'. OPEN's concern is the creation of a transient population on shorthold tenancies, which does not create sustainable balanced communities with a commitment to the area.

Nearing completion - the east side of Barratt's Dalston Square - a development of 230 flats, shop units and a 3-floor shell for a new public library - is on the Hackney Council demolition site of the former 1886 Dalston Theatre, Georgian listed houses, and what was the oldest circus entrance in the country. The historic buildings were demolished in 2007, despite vigorous community opposition, to create a valuable development site which Hackney Council traded to subsisdise The Slab.

A birds eye view of the authorities' 2006 vision for Dalston. In the foreground are the 9 blocks, which are now to be built above the railway cutting, and the ramp for the 80 buses per hour planned to emerge into the traffic of Kingsland Road and head north.

More tall storeys. This is the computer graphic used to promote Dalston Square - which some have predicted will be a sunless windswept canyon due to its north/south orientation and the accelerated windspeeds and micro-climates which the tall buildings are predicted to generate.

This is the authorities' image of Dalston Square, west side, which is about to be started (with graphic additions by an unknown local artist). But will Dalston Square attract the brand name shops which, the authorities said, the scheme's viability and Dalston's 'regeneration' depended upon? Not, it would seem, while the nation's ghost town high streets are being replicated in Dalston.

Dalston Square's completion will be proceeding amidst fears of a 'double dip' recession. Government money for more bail outs is drying up. Even with housebuilders restricting supply to maintain house prices Barratt's own predictions are of a seven year road to a recovery in its fortunes. There will clearly be pressure to downgrade the quality of what is to be built, as some local residents have seen elsewhere.



Nearly four years ago OPEN published "Save our past. Save our future". We predicted Dalston Square could become a buy-to-let opportunity for absentee landlords and become the slums of the future. Elsewhere similar schemes have been rejected. Perhaps these battles are what have prompted Barratt's opposition to popular localism policies. But Dalston Square's cheerleader, Hackney's Mayor Pipe, called the critics the "Keep Hackney Crap Brigade". Although Barratt is one of the 'preferred delivery partners' of the Homes and Communities Agency (which finances social housing) a review by the government's design quango CABE had found much of the publicly funded schemes built were unfit for purpose. But which major housebuilders were churning out rabbit hutches during the boom years is a state secret! Now we are bust can we expect the standards of new-build like Dalston Square to be any better?

GLA to withhold Bishops Place information

Last week OPEN was told that the Secretary of State's reasons for allowing the Bishops Place development were confidential and that the balance of the public interest favours non-disclosure".

Now, Boris's Greater London Authority tells us it is following that lead.

OPEN has been told by the GLA that information leading to it approving the Bishops Place scheme is "commercially confidential" and " may need to be withheld...".

The confidential information is, we believe, the 'financial viability assessment', which the developer Hammerson gave the GLA on condition it would never be publically revealed, and which sought to justify an £11 million deduction in its contribution to off-site affordable housing.

And, because it takes a long time time to remove all that information from the documents, "...it will be necessary to extend the time limit to respond" the GLA says.

Our request was sent on 22 December and the time limit for providing the information would normally be 11 January (20 days). But the GLA says the limited information which they will allow us to see may now not be provided before 1 March - just 4 days before the time limit expires to challange the GLA's decision to approve the Bishops Place scheme. How convenient. For the GLA. And for Hackney. And for the developer Hammerson.


What are the secrets of the Bishops Place planning decisions? There was certainly a lot of money involved - a £500 million private scheme, on a site mainly owned by Hackney Council, which was also the authority which granted planning permission, after the resignation of Hackney's former Head of Planning and after the developer had first vetted the Council report which went to the Planning Committee. Plus the promise of a £3.1 million payment for the GLA towards Crossrail into the bargain.

After a long battle against the local residential and business community, after an historic building was saved, after family homes and £11 million for affordable housing in Dalston had been lost, now darkness decends as the reasons for the authorities' approvals are removed from the public's view.

If Hammerson can raise the money to start building the 52-storey Bishops Place, before its planning permission lapses in 5 years, then Mammon will have secured its first major foothold in Shoreditch. It's attention will now move on to the other development sites locally which it, and the City Corporation, have spent years assembling.

Click on image to enlarge it

OPEN draws a blank

OPEN Dalston's appeal to the Secretary of State has been rejected for reasons which, we are told, "the balance of the public interest favours non-disclosure".

We had appealed to the Secretary of State against the approval of Hammerson's Bishops Place planning application where it appeared that the authorities had abandoned their affordable housing and other policies. Hackney had granted planning permission for this £500million, 51-storey, tombstone scheme in Shoreditch. And agreed to reduce the developers contribution towards 'off-site' affordable housing from £14million to £3million.

Hackney intended to take the 'off-site' money from Shoreditch and spend it in Dalston, thus robbing Peter to pay Paul. It would spend it on The Slab - the GLA's half of Dalston Square scheme - where, embarrassingly, there is so far to be no affordable housing at all.

Following OPEN's appeal a reply was received from the Government's Office for London stating that "the application does not raise issues of more than local importance" and that the Secretary of State, Rt Hon. John Denham MP, would not intervene.

But how could a scheme that appears to depart from national planning policies PPG 1, PPS3 & PPG 15 - regarding appropriate design, protection of the the historic environment, meeting housing need and transparency - be justified? " What are the reasons?" we asked. The government replied by forwarding us its appraisal of the scheme on which it commented thus:
"A small section of the case appraisal has been redacted (removed, concealed) The redactions are of the recommendations as to whether a case should be called in for public inquiry and the decision of the Secretary of State. We consider this advice and recommendations to be of a policy nature and subject to a qualified exemption..This is to allow free and frank thinking and consideration between officials and Ministers. Therefore, we consider that the balance of the public interest favours non-disclosure....Government Office aims to be as helpful as possible..."

OPEN Dalston had drawn a blank. The answers to OPEN's question, to be found in the government's appraisal, had been removed from public view. Apparently the officials' policy recommendations, and the Minister's reasons for his decision, are confidential internal communications. In the "public interest" they can be withheld from the public. So, no "free and frank thinking" will be permitted for the public then.

Fortunately the BBC picked up the story from OPEN's blogs. It scrutinised all the documentation available, canvassed the authorities opinions, and then published the story here.

The BBC, as well as OPEN, have asked for a review of the secrecy decision. We've been told it will be undertaken by a separate government department.