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.

On the twelfth day of Christmas my true love gave to me..........

Twelve legends dining
This image shows some of the stars who were associated with the now demolished 1886 Dalston Theatre buildings. They include Sir Robert Fossett (circus owner), Marie Lloyd (international music hall star), Stevie Wonder, Desmond Decker, Bob Marley, the Sex Pistols and The Prodigy. You can read the story that was never told here. Hackney Council demolished the historic buildings in 2007 to make way for New Dalston's tower blocks, brand name shops and a £40 million bus station on The Slab, which are now under construction.

Eleven pipers piping Having agreed to the GLAs demands that it help finance The Slab, and with road closures and 20 more of Dalston's buildings demolished to renew the train tunnel leading to Highbury, this year Members of Mayor Pipe's Cabinet approved the purchase of two development sites on the north side of Dalston Lane, in Ashwin street, as a "natural progession of the Dalston Square development". Following lobbying by OPEN Dalston and others, the Mayor's Cabinet has agreed to a survey of the Ashwin Street houses to see if, despite decades of neglect, they are fit for refurbishment. Perhaps Ashwin Street will become part of Dalston's cultural hub.

Ten floors and risingThe Worship of Mammon 1909 by Evelyn de Morgan, updated 2009 by dunkdigital.com
There were worries that Barratt's development of 10 to 20 storey residential towers on Hackney Council's Dalston Square site, where Dalston's historic buildings once stood, would be left as concrete stumps. Like all developers it had been hit hard by the credit freeze. With increased government subsidy, buy-to-let sales abroad and drip feeding the market, debt laden Barratt clung on and survived the year despite all the bad news. But there's no sign yet of a start on Phase 2 - further 10-20 storey towers on The Slab above TfL's Dalston Junction station - which was supposed to start last October.

Nine members voting 70 family homes and an £11million contribution towards affordable housing, intended for Dalston, are what desperate for cash Hackney Council gave up in its rush to grant planning permission for a 52-storey development in Shoreditch. Mega-developer Hammerson had agreed to buy Hackney's Shoreditch site for millions if it could build Foster designed tombstone scheme on it. Boris' GLA and New Labour's Secretary of State all agreed to ditch their affordable and family homes policies when approving Hackney's decision. Ads have since appeared for empty homes up north to help Hackney's 20,000 overcrowded and homeless off the Council's waiting list and on their way.

Eight years of fightingSpirit's eight year fight for justice had a further set back when a county court judge dismissed his claim for compensation against Hackney after it had sold his shop at auction in 2001 to an absentee landlord for less than Spirit had offered to pay."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". Last November we saw Court Bailiffs abandon plans to take possession of Spirit's home and shop after a rally of local people gathered on Broadway Market to show their support for one of the street's best loved characters. Shortly afterwards, to avoid confrontation, Spirit gave up his keys to his landlord. Spirit has lodged an appeal against the Court's judgment.

Seven blackened buildingsIn previous years they would burn down old buildings on Dalston's development sites, but this year they painted them black. A somber reminder of charred remains.... or a dark vision of more funeral pyres to come? Banksey's street art in Hackney shared a similar fate. The authorities developed the redaction technique further to deal with public interest in MPs expense sheets.

Six heart breakers

Five gold rings


In October OPEN learned of the extensive radioactive contamination uncovered across the London Olympic 2012 site during 2.5 million cu. metres of earthmoving and landscaping works. The regulatory authorities - the Environment Agency and local Council's - have left it to the Olympic Delivery Authority to manage the risks by means of planning permission conditions But extensive stockpiling and burials of radioactive materials have been carried out without any planning permission at all. OPEN called for an independent report - and the expert's conclusions now received are shocking. We hope that all will be revealed this forthcoming year.


Four Aces Club Winstan's Whitter's documentary "Legacy in the dust" tells the story of Dalston's legendary reggae club, its relationship with the Council and the police, how it went on to become the Labyrinth and the eventual demolition of its home in Dalston's historic buildings. You can hear Winstan talk about the history on Hackney Podcast. The film was most recently shown as part of the events at the Dalston Mill. Newton Dunbar's Four Aces Club was revisited in a recent press review.

Three charges dropped
Hackney Council announced, following government intervention, that it was dropping the outstanding prosecutions of Ridley Market stallholder Janet Devers for selling in pounds and ounces and by the bowl. Janet, with other metric martyrs, is now petitioning for a pardon following convictions for earlier offenses. Ridley Road traders are still fighting for survival in the depths of recession. But Hackney have now restored lighting to the stalls and approved the traders proposals for market refurbishment which they hope will start before next spring. Watch the video - Neneh Cherry and Andi Oliver buy some bunches of callaloo from Janet in Ridley Road Market, the home of the bargain (and lets keep it that way)!



Two writers speak



“On Dalston Lane time itself seems to lie around in broken fragments....” was the title of an OPEN event in March when, despite being banned from speaking on Council premises, Iain Sinclair joined cultural historian and writer Patrick Wright to speak to a packed house at Cafe Oto. We were also honoured to have Lord Low of Dalston, Chairman of the RNIB and OPEN's patron, address us. The evening included 1969 Hackney film footage from Iain's archives and you can see his latest Guardian film here which describes Dalston and Hackney as its was and how it has become. The intrepid journalists of Hackney Citizen and Games Moniter meanwhile uncovered evidence of political censorship with Orwellian implications. The quirky Dalston Lane terrace, which Patrick Wright wrote of in his republished novel, now lies in ruins.


And a retail opportunity Image gimped by sdit.org.uk
OPEN Dalston consulted the local community about Hackney's proposals for a massive residential/retail led 8-storey redevelopment of Dalston Cross shopping centre. But although the credit freeze poured cold water on Hackney's aspirations, Tesco progressed its plans for twin 12-storey residential towers on top of a new redeveloped Tesco superstore in Morning Lane which will overshadow St John in Hackney churchyard gardens and Hackney's oldest monument, St Augustine's tower.

"....The latest blocks, blindly monolithic, devour pavements and abolish bus stops. They aspire to an occult geometry of capital: Queensbridge Quarter, Dalston Square. Everything is contained, separate, protected from flow and drift. No junk mail, please. No doorstep hawkers. No doorsteps. The big idea is to build in-station car parks, to control ‘pedestrian permeability’, so that clients of the transport system exit directly into a shopping mall. 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

An artists impression of Phase 2 of TfLs Dalston Square development - flats for sale, brand name shops and no affordable housing planned. And all to pay for somewhere Tfl can turn its buses around - on The Slab .

OPEN Dalston appeals to the Secretary of State

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.

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.