Hackney agrees to tower block on Kingsland High Street

Hackney's Planning Committee has, on Council officers' advice, consented to Rothas Ltd's 15-storey steel and glass tower development next to the Dalston Kingsland station at 51-57 Kingsland High Street. The public petition objecting to the scheme had 293 signatures and there were 82 written objections sent directly to the Council.

 

The 4 storey-plus frontage block and 15-storey tower, on the Peacocks site next to Dalston Kingsland station, was reduced from a 19 storey tower during the recent public consultation.

The development will have 98 privately owned flats, of which only 15 will be for "affordable sale". The developer claimed that its exclusive development "contributes to and enables a balanced and mixed community in the area".  However, in reply to Committee member's questions, the Council's officers advised that the development had "not been designed" to have any flats for affordable rent and that there could only be 15 "affordable sale" flats in the scheme because it would not otherwise be financially viable for the developer. (  The developer is predicted to make £8-£10million profit from the scheme. Hackney's target is 50% affordable flats of which 70% should be for rent. Ed.)

One Committee member expressed concern about more "unaffordable affordable flats" following advice that to purchase one of the "affordable" flats would require a household income of £45K for a one-bed, £55K-£59K for a two-bed and £71K for a three-bed flat. ( More than half of Hackney residents have a household income of less than £30K. Ed.) 

Islington Council described the designs as "inelegant". The development was last reviewed by the Council's independent Design Review Panel in February 2013 which commented that "overall the tower is not of sufficient design quality to form such a prominent landmark in this busy area of Hackney". The Committee declined to refer it back to the Panel and were advised that the reason the frontage block ( 4 storeys plus parapet plus roof terrace) is designed to overbear the High Street, and dominate its historic neighbours, is because the "design is modern". (Local planning policy provides that new developments must respect the scale and historic character of the High Street and adjacent conservation areas which are predominantly 3-4 storeys. Ed.).

Would Hackney's Mayor Jules Pipe feel he'd been stiched up and silenced if he was refused the right to speak at a public meeting

The application has attracted controversy. The previous 18-storey application would have compromised development of the station and was thrown out unanimously by the Committee. The Chair of the Committee had subsequently agreed, following Croydon's example, to have a pre-application "extraordinary" meeting for the developer to present its new scheme to the Committee, at which the public were not allowed to speak. (Croydon was flattened in the 1960s and is about to be flattened again 'regenerated' with a £1bn shopping scheme. Ed.)


Rothas's previous application, for a 6-18 storey scheme, was unanimously rejected by Hackney following OPEN's public campaign.

TfL has finally started discussion about a £1.2m upgrade to Dalston Kingsland station but commented that the £100K contribution offered by the developer is insufficient in comparison to the direct benefit which it would receive from the station upgrade.

The developer's agent informed the Committee that it should allow this scheme because it didn't appeal against the refusal of the previous scheme, which had 6 storeys fronting the High Street "to which it was entitled". The Planning Committee, whose Chair has recently expressed concerns about the cost and risks to the Council if developers appeal against refusal of planning permission, duly granted its consent to the development.

OPEN thanks all members of the Dalston community who wrote such thoughtful and well argued  petition comments and letters to the Council objecting to this development. The Council's consent decision will now be reviewed by the GLA.

Dalston Terrace demolitions - was there a cover up?

A recent independent structural engineer's report, by Alan Baxter Associates LLP, which assessed the conservation potential of Dalston Terrace's sixteen Georgian houses, has only now been revealed. It makes grim reading. But the good news is that the report found that there is some potential for restoring some of the houses - provided Hackney doesn't implement the present designs of its "conservation led" scheme, which would probably require their complete demolition.

                                                          The Story of Dalston Terrace 1807 -2014 (Video)

Some of the houses can still be saved and, whilst conserving their structures, flats can also be developed at the back. But it is the Council's current plan, to rip out the ground floor walls to create 'open plan' shops, which makes demolition inevitable. It is unnecessary. Shopkeepers have been trading in Dalston Terrace, without 'open plan', for more than 100 years.

We urge everybody to object to the planned demolitions. You can click here to view the planning documents on Hackney's web site, under application reference 2014/0323, and make your views known here to the Council here.

Help the fighting fund by donation to OPEN Dalston, Barclays 20-46-57 Account 33274659

The independent Alan Baxter report, which shows that conservation is possible, was commissioned by Hackney and prepared in September 2013. Hackney did not reveal its existence in December 2013, when it met members of OPEN Dalston,  nor when members of the Hackney Society met Hackney in February to emphasise the need for such a report. The report has only now been published, not by Hackney but by the developer, Murphy, which has included it as part of its new planning application for total demolition.

Why Hackney has not previously published the Alan Baxter report requires explanation. The Council's failure to publish an earlier structural report by Peter Dann was said, by Councillor Nicholson, to be due to an "administrative error". Hackney had relied on that report to authorise total demolition of the houses and, without knowledge of  it, the public would not have been alerted to Hackney's intentions until too late. Fortunately it was discovered and, when challenged, Hackney conceded that demolition without planning permission would have been unlawful.

Hackney's failure to reveal the more recent Alan Baxter's report may have some connection with its uncompromising conclusions. "Buildings constructed of these materials have stood the test of time and, provided they are well maintained and carefully considered in any redevelopment proposals, or proposals to alter them, they can be expected to last indefinitely. At Dalston Lane the problem with the facades is not to do with the strength of the brickwork, they are due mainly to a failure to maintain the buildings adequately, linked to some flaws in the original construction"

English Heritage reported that the 200 year old Dalston Terrace houses were "remarkable survivors of Georgian architecture". Sadly, since the Council acquired them in 1984, their chances of survival diminished year on year. Hackney did nothing to preserve them despite its vacuous platitudes about "championing the historic environment" and wanting a "conservation-led scheme".

The Vandals: an eastern Germanic tribe which earned notoriety by sacking Rome in the 5th century, but which was later defeated by the Goths.
Vandalism: the gratuitous anti-social destruction of the environment and artistic creations.
Municipal vandalism: the destruction of our cultural heritage by corporate ignorance, deliberate neglect, greed and vanity, all in the name of regeneration and progress.

The story of Dalston Terrace - crime and tragedy in one

This is the story of how a row of 16 Georgian houses and its shopkeepers in Dalston Terrace, Hackney, have been neglected and abused by its owners to the point of destruction. It is crime and tragedy in one.

 The Story of Dalston Terrace 1807 -2014 (Video)

The story was told to a packed house at the Rio cinema on Saturday. The audience also watched Emma-Louise Willams' poetic film Under the Cranes and heard discussion, between the poet and broadcaster Michael Rosen and OPEN's founder Bill Parry-Davies, as they tried to understand the language of regeneration - words like "genuine" conservation-led development and unaffordable "affordable" housing.

(c) Mooneyphoto

We urge everybody to object to the planned demolitions. You can click here to view the planning documents on Hackney's web site, under application reference 2014/0323, and make your views known here to the Council here.

Help the fighting fund by donation to OPEN Dalston, Barclay 20-46-57 Account 33274659

We are now working to obtain a specialist conservation engineer's report to asses how much of the Dalston Terrace can be saved. We will report back with the findings, on this blog and elsewhere.

You can get involved, and be kept informed, if you sign up to receive information by email and you can follow the latest on Twitter @SaveDalstonLane and @opendalston.

Hackney Council recommend "Teardrop Tower" to get planning permission

A proposed 15-storey tower, on Peacocks site next to Dalston Kingsland Station, is to be recommended by Hackney for approval by it's Planning Committee next Wednesday 5th February at 6:30pm. It's a public meeting and you are entitled to be there.

YOU CAN STILL HAVE A SAY. SEE BELOW. 

The proposed 15-storey tower, next to Dalston Kingsland station, which the Planning Committee will consider

Despite the proposed tower being reduced from 19 to 15 storeys it has still been condemned by Islington Council which states that the "location is highly inappropriate for a tall building" and that the design is "inelegant". (Islington recently won a celebrated Court victory by defeating a developer's inappropriate tower. Ed)

The scheme was last considered by Hackney's Design Review Panel in February 2013 which stated "Overall the tower is not of sufficient design quality to form such a prominent landmark in this busy area of Hackney". OPEN has asked the Council to postpone the decision to enable the Design Review Panel to consider the recent design changes.

The 19-storey tower in this photomontage has since been reduced to 15 storeys, but the podium facing Boleyn Road has been increased from 4 to 5-storeys. The amended image is not available to us for display  

 

The scheme will provide no flats for social rent and only 15 are for "affordable sale" (15% of the total). ONE Housing Association have advised Hackney that household income of £45K would be required to purchase a 1-bed flat, £55-£59K for a 2-bed and £71K for a three bed flat. (Note 54% of Hackney households have a total income of below £30,000. Ed.)

The development of 98 flats are predominantly 1 and 2-beds, with only 23 x 3-bed family flats of which only 3 are for "affordable sale". Families are the most in housing need in Hackney.

On the roofs there will be a 220sqm private roof gardens for the private owners, but only 115sqm childrens' play area - which is below the policy requirement.

Reports demonstrate that the tower will reduce the natural light to some neighbouring buildings to below British standards as well as cause accelerated wind speeds locally.


OPEN has repeated the objections to the application which it made last October (see Pages on the sidebar) and has also asked for a proper assessment of the towers' impact on neighbouring heritage assets, including the Jewish Burial Ground within Islington ( Kingsbury Conservation Area)

The scheme attracted controversy when the original designs were rejected unanimously by the Planning Committee and more recently when the developer was invited to an exclusive meeting with the Planning Committee when the public were not allowed to speak.

YOU CAN STILL HAVE A SAY

SEE THE COUNCIL PLANNER'S RECOMENDATIONS BY CLICKING HERE

MAKE YOUR VIEWS KNOWN TO THE COUNCIL BY CLICKING HERE

SIGN THE OBJECTORS PETITION BY CLICKING HERE

Council suspends plans to demolish Dalston's Georgian houses

Following complaints from OPEN's solicitor and others, Hackney Council has suspended its plans to totally demolish its' sixteen Georgian houses in Dalston Lane without first obtaining full plannning permission. You can hear about this, and other developments, at the Saving Dalston Lane event at The Rio cinema on Saturday lunchtime.

The 1807 Dalston Terrace, in 1904, looking west to Dalston Junction (c) sludgegulper

In June 2013 Hackney obtained an updated structural report recommending total demolition and it decided that this discharged the planning conditions. Councillor Nicholson, Hackney's Cabinet Member for Regeneration, has now written to OPEN's Bill Parry-Davies to concede that the decision could not overide the Plannning Committee's original permission, which was to retain the front facades of the houses and demolish only the rear to build 44 flats.

The report, which the Council relied upon, was not published when the demolition decision was made, due to an "administrative error" Cllr. Nicholson said. (Ahem... meaning "genuine incompetence" rather than concealment. Ed.). Without publication of the report the public could not have been alerted to the fact that Hackney had approved total demolition of the houses. 

This artists impression shows the latest plan for redevelopment of the terrace by Murphy which will sell all the new flats privately and lease the ground floor shops back to Hackney.

Also, in June 2013, Hackney entered a development agreement to sell a 125 year lease of the site to Muphy for £2.38million. It is not yet known whether the agreement permitted Murphy to demolish everything, although demolition of rear extensions has already occured this year.

Hackney's 'development parnter', Murphy, has now made an application to Hackney for planning permission to "demolish and rebuild" the houses. The proposal will now involve full public consultation. We will publish details, and how you can comment, on this blog in due course.

The planning permission allows the backs and interiors of the existing terraced houses to be demolished and redeveloped as 44 flats. None will be "affordable" 

The Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings has written to Hackney offering specialist advice and, commenting on the demolition and rebuild scheme, stated "Any sense of patina or age will be eradicated and a great deal of the sprit of the place will be lost for ever"

 

Postcard of Dalston Terrace in 1940 (C) sludgegulper

 

"Saving Dalston Lane" - film and discussion at The Rio, Saturday 8th February at 1:30pm

The appearance of bulldozers behind the Georgian terrace at 48-76 Dalston Lane prompts questions about the wisdom and legality of the Council's intention to demolish these significant buildings and provokes last ditch endeavours to save them.

This event will unravel a sad tale of the neglect and abuse of our local businesses and heritage assets, question the long-term wisdom of the obliteration of old Hackney and discuss our community's response in the context of a borough caught up in an tsunami of "regeneration".

Emma-Louise Williams' film UNDER THE CRANES (2011) 56 Mins 12A will be screened. Mixing rarely seen archive footage with new cinematography, Under the Cranes offers a lyrical, painterly evocation of Hackney, over several hundred years. This is a film which poses questions about the nature of regeneration in Hackney in the recent period. It also explores the theme of migration, showing some of the struggles that people go through to secure a place for themselves, (fighting racists if necessary), but also how migration brings diversity and the seeds of renewal. Based on Michael Rosen’s poetic play for voices, Hackney Streets, the film moves across time and space as we hear from Shakespeare in Shoreditch, a Jamaican builder, a Turkish barber and the 43 Group taking on Oswald Mosley in Dalston. 

SPEAKERS will include  Bill Parry-Davies, the Hackney solicitor, musician and founder of OPEN Dalston, presenting his photographic record of the decline of the Dalston Lane houses. Bill explains the course of events that has culminated in the inevitable attempts by the owners to erase this historic terrace, and similar examples, for short term commercial gain in the name of necessity and progress.
Michael Rosen, the poet, performer, broadcaster and scriptwriter, discusses his experience of living in the shadow of the crumbling terrace, and its importance and value for Dalston and its community

 

“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.

The Worship of Mammon 1909 by Evelyn de Morgan  

The twelve days of Christmas

On the first day of Christmas my true love gave to me.........a retail opportunity

Plans were unveiled in 2013 for redevelopment of the Dalston Cross Shopping Centre and 2104 may see a formal planning application. It's to be a 'residential led' scheme - no significant increase in retail space but new blocks with 500 odd flats above the shops ( up to 14 storeys high) and with underground parking beneath them.

Artist impression of Dalston Cross redevelopment.  "...Towers for people who need gifts and coffee, Only available from brandname shops...." from "Regeneration Blues" by Michael Rosen

The route to the re-modelled Dalston Cross shopping centre from Dalston Square (and back) was to be a proposed linear Dalston Park, but late amendments to the Dalston Area Action Plan (after public consultation had closed) saw the Council's "vision" change . Now the route is not to be a park (where the award winning Eastern Curve Garden presently is) but a "shopping circuit"  - an overshadowed pedestrian/cyclists thoroughfare lined with shops and nine-storey blocks of flats.
Hackney hopes the scheme will stop "spend leakage" - meaning locals won't need to go shopping at Westfield, Stratford City or the Angel - because we'll have the same shops here as everywhere else. (Just like Heathrow? Sigh. Ed.). How paying money into the off-shore bank accounts of national brand stores, rather than local independent businesses, will make Dalston more properous has yet to be explained....as is how it fits in with Hackney Mayor's announcement that  "What we do not need is retail space and housing that, using the government's affordability criteria, is well out of the reach of most Hackney people "

Grey is the new green. Hackney's vision of the Eastern Curve Garden, transformed into a shopping circuit linking Dalston Square with Dalston Cross shopping centre.

On the second day of Christmas my true love gave to me........two Taylor Wimpeys

In 2013 Hackney's Planning Committee granted permission to the Transport for London/Taylor Wimpey partnership to build on two Kingsland High Street sites. The scheme fails to comply with the Dalston Area Action Plan (DAAP) criteria as to exemplar quality of design and height.

After withdrawing an earlier application, a "revised design" was proposed for the northern site which, it was claimed "reduces its mass at sensitive locations to create a more responsive and sculpted form."

TfL and Hackney ignored the local community's desire for some green public space on the sites by enclosing all available open space within the development. It is, in effect, a privatised enclosure of public land to create a gated community and will provide only 9, out of 106 flats, for affordable rent. The designs exceed the DAAP height guidelines and will dominate the High Street and its historic buildings. The overhadowing of a Grade II listed building, TfL's own consultants say, will be "Substantially Adverse" .

The southern site will obscure views, and sunlight, from Ashwin Street's Reeves and Sons building which houses social enterprises like Arcola Theatre, Cafe Oto and the Bootstrap Company.

On the third day of Christmas my true love gave to me......... three subsidies

With the continuing desperate shortage of homes, the London property market continues to provide high returns and a save haven for foreign investment.  Government loans to home buyers indirectly subsidises the major housebuilders - Barratt, Taylor Wimpey, Persimmon etc -  by keeping house prices and rents high, and guaranteeing returns for 'buy to let' landlords. Housebuilders snapped up cheap public development land with favourable public loans but continue to hoard their landbanks and drip-feed the market to ensure demand exceeds supply.  
Barratt built the Dalston Square towers,and the TfL site behind the blue hoardings on Kingsland High Street is to be developed by Taylor Wimpey.

In previous years foreign investors invested mainly in high value new build development, but now the trend has extended to all new build developments. Even local Hackney estate agents have a China desk. Fearing another house price bubble, the government recently switched subsidies from housebuilding to business loans  and is finally to impose capital gains tax on foreign investors.
The big housebuilders, like Barratt, have been pulling strings to support the "simplification" of planning rules - AKA the "presumption in favour of development". So it's Hello to the Big Business Society and Goodbye bio-diversity and local character and, if you can't pay the rent or the mortgage, then it's goodbye to you too.

An image promoting TfL/Taylor Wimpey's proposals for "greening" Dalston, which is limited to planting some street trees. In one of the most populous wards, in one of the most populous boroughs in London, Dalston has virtually no public green space at all.

On the fourth day of Christmas my true love gave to me.........Four Aces Club

No apologies for plugging OPEN Dalston member Winstan's Whitter's newly updated documentary film Legacy in the dust . It tells the story of Dalston's legendary reggae club, its relationship with the Council and the police and how it went on to become the rave venue Labyrinth.
In 2007 the authorities demolished the club's original home in the historic Dalston Theatre buildings at 14 Dalston Lane. They crushed it, ground it up and used it in the foundations for Barratt's New Dalston tower block development of 90% unaffordable flats.
Thus we lost our historic buildings in Dalston and the thirty year cultural legacy of our African-Carribean community. So now the authorities are calling the new tower blocks after the artists who performed in the club they demolished - Sledge Tower, Wonder House, Marley House etc. Patronising hypocrisy...or what? Did anyone ask Stevie Wonder if he wanted a Dalston tower block named after him?


This image, by OPEN's Brian Cumming, shows some of the stars of popular entertainment who were associated with the now demolished 1886 Dalston Circus and Theatre buildings

On the fifth day of Christmas my true love gave to me.........Five Gold Rings

In 2013 we had a post-mortem on the cost of the 2102 Olympics - many London businesses had suffered, costs soared above all expectations and Hackney became unaffordable for many. Nevertheless Hackney claims to have secured a future legacy of 4,500 "new" jobs, by the sale of the publically-funded £295million Olympic Media Centre, to iCity. 40% of the site is to be leased to iCity to create a massive data-store, an activity requiring exceptionally few employees. Where will the thousands of new jobs come from to replace the previous thousands employed in the Lea Valley before the Olympic Games?

Of equal importance will be the sale of development land for housing on the Olympic park which saw the excavation, stockpiling, and burial of 7,000 tonnes of radioactive waste on the site, without any prior regulatory inspection or planning permission at all. Curiously, the records of the extensive radioactive contamnination have become rather sparse - almost as if the radioactivity never existed - but consultants advised at the time that any new residents shouldn't eat anything grown in their gardens. What will the environmental legacy be for the future generations who will live on the 2012 site ?
 




Gold Dust by Mike Wells on Vimeo

On the sixth day of Christmas my true love gave to me.......Sixteen demolitions

In previous years they burned down old buildings on Dalston's development sites  or painted our surviving Georgian houses black - a somber reminder of the charred remains or a dark vision of more funeral pyres to come? In 2010, after four fires, three demolitions and OPEN Dalston's long campaign,  Hackney bought the Dalston Lane houses back from the off-shore slum landlord to whom it had sold them at auction. It paid £3.8million - double what it had sold them for in 2002.
Now, in the age of austerity when money is scarce, how would Hackney get its money back? The Council has agreed a 125 year lease to Murphy to convert the terrace into 42 flats and will take a lease-back of the ground floor shops.  It will not be the "conservation led" scheme originally promised because, they say, these fragile old houses  can not withstand such intense redevelopment. It is now proposed that all 16 Georgian houses should be demolished .

On the seventh day of Christmas my true love gave to me.....Seven members voting

The proposed 19-storey tower, with £1million penthouses, next to Dalston Kingsland station. Only 14 of  the 125 flats will be "affordable". The developer expects to make at least £10million from the scheme.

Last year , after a campaign led by OPEN Dalston, the Council's Planning Committee unanimously rejected a proposal by Rothas Ltd. for an 18-storey "dressed in green" private towerblock on the Peacocks site next to Dalston Kingsland station. We also said goodbye to Councillor Alan Laing who, like Hackney's former Deputy Mayor (Karen Alcock, currently Hackney Cabinet member for Property and Housing) was employed by the developer's PR company Four Communications.

Would Hackney's Mayor Jules Pipe feel he had been stitched up and silenced at the Planning Committee meeting? 

In 2013 Rothas Ltd. re-applied for planning permission, this time for a 19-storey rotunda tower, and was invited to present its proposals at a 30 minute meeting with the Planning Committee at which the public were not allowed to ask questions, provide information or to speak at all.  The Committee is expected to make its decision in February 2104.  You can make your views known to the Council here and you can sign the objectors' petition here

On the eigth day of Christmas my true love gave to me........Eight days a week

OPEN Dalston member, Marie Murray, shows Camilla around the ever popular Eastern Curve Garden

Last year the Eastern Curve Garden, Dalston's only community managed public green space, had a visit from HRH Camilla, the Duchess of Cornwall, as part of her tour of Chelsea Flower Show fringe gardens.  On 2013 the events list at the Eastern Curve Garden were never ending and you could even  enjoy cakes and coffee in the new Pineapple House. But the Council says that Dalston's only public green space was always intended to be only for temporary use, until it is developed as a "shopping circuit" to support the future Dalston Cross shopping centre redevelopment. Public suppport for the Garden will be critical in 2014. Let's hope the Garden never ends!

The Eastern Curve Garden's greenhouse, decorated by users, is a popular new addition to the Garden

On the ninth day of Christmas my true love gave to me....nine sites for listing
 

In 2013 a leaked report revelaled that the "intrinsic character, local distinctiveness and unique identity of Dalston " is at risk. Dalston town centre is facing a tsunami of property development proposals. The report comments that Dalston's historic town centre environment has "wholly inadequate heritage protection at present " and recommends nine historic buildings should be listed and the creation of the Dalston Kingsland Conservation Area to protect the character of the area from excessive property development. Hackney will be considering the reports' recommendations in 2014 but in the meantime the Planning Committee has already approved schemes which damage the environment,  and there are more in the pipeline.

On the tenth day of Christmas my true love gave to me...........ten more storeys

In 2013 residents of Dalston Square campaigned successfully to oppose redevelopment of Dalston's Holy Trinity Primary school, which was to be funded by cramming another ten storey block of private flats into Dalston Square on the school site. Residents complained about poor design and the loss of sunlight and privacy. Hackney's Planning Committee agreed with them, and turned the scheme down.

The scheme, which would enable the school to double its intake, was suppported by the school and Hackney's Learning Trust. Boris' Greater London Authority decided to call in the application and overuled the local Planning Committee on the basis that the designs were adequate and extra school places were needed ( with a playgound on the second floor roof).  The London Mayor's overarching powers, as regional plannning authority, were last expanded during Labour Ken Livingstone's tenure.

On the eleventh day of Christmas my true love gave to me. ... Eleven pipers piping

Jules Pipe is the elected Mayor of Hackney, Chair of Hackney's 10 member Cabinet, and Leader of the local Labour Party. In 2013 the Cabinet decided to reduce transparency and accountability for its decisions by abolishing the all party Overview and Scrutiny Board and reducing full Council meetings from eight to five each year. Is there less need for scrutiny of decisions taken in the Mayor's name? Yes, if you read Hackney Today. No - if you read this or this or this  or this or this or this or this.
 
On the twelfth day of Christmas my true love gave to me.... Twelve o'clock closing

Hackney Council is treating Dalston as a Special Policy Area by restricting further growth of new licensed premises, and license extensions beyond midnight, except in exceptional circumstances. It is also working with the police to control anti-social behaviour. Dalston Councillor, Sophie Linden, who is now Hackney's Deputy Mayor, said "We want businesses to thrive and people to keep coming for a great night out but without spoiling residents' quality of life.”

Bar entrepreneurs and clubbers object that the bourgeois arrivistes are killing the fun although, in fact, many of the local residents complaining have been part of Dalston long before it became  the  new Shoreditch and gentrified. You can read the debate here and here.