Don't miss out on Dalston Eastern Curve Garden's pumpkin path this week

With pumpkin carving this weekend at Dalston's Eastern Curve Garden, don't miss out on following the Pumpkin Path all next week from 6pm until 9pm (weather permitting). It's magic with all the lanterns lit up and on display

Deadline looms for the fate of Colvestone Primary School

Last August we reported that Hackney had put the Colvestone Primary School site on the market through its property agents Strettons. The deadline for bids is noon on the 17th October. 

This short film is about our Dalston community's bid. It is likely to be competing with commercial offers.You can learn more about the bid on the colvestone.org website here

The Dalston Community's bid was encouraged by our Mayor's announcement "we’re committed to keeping the communities.. informed and involved, starting by encouraging organisations to put forward proposals for Colvestone Primary School”. Hackney also added a cautionary note "Interested organisations will need to ensure any proposals are sustainable and financially viable." 

Here's a short film about the Bakelite Museum which is part of the community's bid. Did you know plastic was invented in Hackney? Love it or hate it we've got to learn how to live with it, and fast. Bakelite Museum's exhibitions will help us with that.

Our community's bid is for a collaborative, intergenerational creative hub open to all Hackney residents. A destination offering facilities for everybody: theatre, puppetry and performing arts, music and crafts studios, museums, exhibition and social spaces, creative businesses, a cafe and gardens. It all sounds too good to be true. But is it financially viable and sustainable? We've done the sums and we think it is! Let's hope Hackney agrees.

You can sign up as a supporter here.

The Colvestone.org website is here

Planning Inspector rejects slums of the future on Ridley Road

A planning inspector has refused to allow slums of the future to be built in Ridley Road market. The seven cramped sub-standard studio flats would have been on the 2nd floor of the Shopping Village which is owned by the off-shore developer Guy Ziser's company Larochette Real Estate Inc and registered in the secretive British Virgin Islands tax haven. 

The Shopping Village has been contested space ever since Larochette bought it, tried to evict the ground floor traders and applied to convert it into offices and luxury flats. The community applied successfully to have it declared an Asset of Community Value. Larochette then agreed to refurbish the building instead. The artists on the upper floors were evicted in 2022 to enable the refurbishment to take place. Mr Ziser applied to convert the empty artists spaces into residential studio flats, claiming he only needed prior approval from Council planners. Hackney refused the application, saying full planning permission was needed. The Planning Inspector, on appeal, disagreed with Hackney but he also refused the application for prior approval so Mr Ziser lost the appeal. 

There are limited grounds for refusing a "prior approval" application. Our objections were that the studio flats did not meet the requirements for good design - they would suffer from excessive noise, inadequate ventilation and they would not provide healthy homes enabling a sense of well-being. 

Each studio flat would have only one window facing due south, in full sun, and directly overlooking the street market. That window is the only natural ventilation. The market starts setting up at 6am and trades all day and noise continues with HGV water bowsers using pressure hoses cleaning up the street after 7pm. The Market Bar next door has a licence until 3am, a noisy outdoor area and often with long queues waiting on the street to get in. 

Larochette argued that the street noise would not disturb the residents because the windows would have secondary glazing. But the Inspector agreed with our comments and concluded "Comments raised on the proposal query how ventilation will be provided for the proposed single aspect flats. If residents were to open their windows to provide ventilation, this would significantly reduce the effectiveness of the proposed secondary glazing, with subsequent harm to the living conditions of residents due to noise both from the bar as well as from the adjacent market. Given the lack of alternative methods of ventilation, it is reasonable that residents of the proposal could expect to open their windows to access fresh air...I conclude that the impacts of noise from commercial premises would lead to significant harm to the living conditions of future resident....The proposal would not comply with the Framework which seeks to avoid noise giving rise to significant adverse impacts on quality of life and achieve a high standard of amenity for users of development."

Hackney argued that approval should be refused because the area suffers from extreme parking pressure and the new residents cars would compound the problem. The Inspector agreed with that too, concluding that allowing the studio flats would cause "unacceptable transport impacts" and that the site had excellent access to services and facilities by sustainable means of transport.

The Inspectors finding that Larochette only required prior approval from the planners, and not full planning permission, has wider implications. In its Dalston Plan Hackney has declared all the buildings on the north side of Ridley Road as development opportunities. Hackney planners will have limited grounds to refuse prior approval applications for their conversion into flats and this could compromise development standards. 

Hackney's Local Plan 2033 shows all the buildings along the north side of Ridley Road as development opportunity sites 

Note: The reason the Planning Inspector found that only prior approval would be required for residential conversion is that Hackney's 2021 Article 4  map failed to include the north side of Ridley Road as part of Dalston Town Centre where full planning permission would still be required.  Other later maps outline the Town Centre and do include the north side of Ridley Road. Hackney will have to make a new Article 4 direction with a new map to correct the error.

This is Hackney's map attached to the Article 4 order. Unfortunately it failed to outline the Dalston Town Centre area in red to include the north side of Ridley Road

Hackney has put its former Colvestone Primary School on the open market

Last January a community bid was made to Hackney, on behalf of a number of charitable and creative enterprises,  to re-open the former Colvestone Primary School for public benefit - the aim is to continue the educational, cultural and social heritage which the school buildings embody. Hackney neither accepted nor rejected, or even discussed, that proposal but has now instructed estate agents Strettons to invite bids for the school site on the open market 

Hackney has released a press statement in which the Mayor of Hackney said “We cannot let these buildings sit empty or simply offload them to the highest bidder, but have a duty to ensure they remain important public assets that benefit our communities." At the same time Strettons launched its marketing campaign describing the site as having a number of possible commercial uses including for private education.

Hackney's press release also states "organisations will need to ensure any proposals are sustainable and financially viable". However it seems unlikely that a community enterprise seeking to maximise public benefit will be financially viable if it is also expected to pay Hackney the full market rent for the site which would offered by competing commercial bidders.

If you want to show your support for the community's proposal to reopen the school for public benefit you can sign up on the supporters page linked to here and here 

Massive tower block development planned for Kingsland Shopping Centre

After years of discussion with planners an application to demolish and re-develop the Matalan store and car park, at the rear of Kingsland Shopping Centre, has finally been made on behalf of the owners, Criterion. The plan is for three blocks of up to 14 storeys, and one up to 12 storeys, comprising 254 flats and a mix of commercial uses and workshops on the ground and first floors. All will be crammed onto the site which is just over 9,000 square metres. Development of the remaining front part of the Kingsland Shopping Centre is presently inhibited by Crossrail2 land safeguarding and Sainsbury's long lease. It is a 'car free' development but with some vehicle spaces reserved for disabled residents and commercial uses.

You can view the application and make comments here or alternatively email planning@hackney.gov.uk putting in the subject line Ref: 2025/0167 Matalan Plc, Dalston Cross Shopping Centre E8 2LX

The planned Matalan development showing three towers set back and spread across the site's northern boundary with gaps between them. The fourth tower is opposite Springfield House on the Eastern Curve in the foreground.

Of the 254 flats, 173 will be for sale at market prices and the remainder will be "affordable" of which 36 will be "intermediate" (for shared ownership) and 45 for "low cost rent" (London affordable rent). The affordable ones amount to 35% of all habitable rooms but do not meet the official planning policy target of 50% affordable homes.  84% of the flats would be 1-bed and 2-beds and, although the planning policy target for three beds or more is 33%, only 16% would be family size flats. 

Matalan development looking south from the St Marks Rise/Ridley Road junction  

Although affordable and family size homes are the greatest local needs, the owner claims in its Financially Viable Appraisal that it cannot afford to meet those targets after taking into account its right to a financial incentive as landowner for "bringing forward the development" (£2.2million) plus 20% developers profit  (£25.1million) on the scheme which has a finished development value of about £155million. 

Matalan development looking west from Dalston Lane's railway bridge 

Due to the curtain of existing tall buildings extending across the southern boundary of the Matalan site, and the planned development's own density, 24% of the new flats will fail to meet the British Research Establishment's ( BRE) Sunlight Exposure standard. The development will also cause some 200 "major", and numerous lesser, sunlight losses/transgressions affecting residents flats in the existing surrounding buildings. The owner argues it can't be blamed for the number of flats which will be deficient in natural light saying its site has already been blighted by the existing tall buildings which have taken an "unfair share" of the sunlight previously available. ( You can read about how that happened here. Ed)

Matalan development looking north from the Eastern Curve

The owner argues that these sunlight deficits are acceptable for a dense inner city site like Dalston and claims that the gloomy flats overlooking the enclosed north facing 'square' at Dalston Works, Martel Place, where sunlight rarely touches the ground, provide "an understanding of the local character of an area" and a "useful proxy for acceptable daylight standards in a given location".  

Matalan development looking east from the Colvestone Crescent/Ridley Road junction

The towers will loom over Ridley Road street market but the owner says of the market shoppers "Their susceptibility is judged to be Low. Their sensitivity is therefore Low." (ie They wont really notice or care. Ed.) The owner has also undertaken a number of tests of the potential overshadowing of the Ridley Road street market and concluded that it will receive 240 minutes of sunlight across "much of its area" and that it will "comfortably meet the BRE Guidelines". Whilst this sounds reassuring, the BRE Guidelines set a very low minimum requirement for open spaces, namely an annual average of only 2 hours direct sunlight daily over 50% of their area. The developer provides no detail of the sunlight which will be lost to the street market or of the areas where it will be retained.  

The developer's illustration of the equinox sunpath, which represents the average level of annual sunlight obstruction, concludes that "although there will inevitably be some overshadowing of the market...a significant amount of direct sunlight will continue to reach the market space around the equinox and summer solstice". 

As for landscaping on the Matalan site, the owner has adopted Hackney's request for greater "east/west pedestrian permeability", but unfortunately there will be no direct route out west to get to Kingsland Station when the shopping mall closes from10pm < 8am (from 5pm < 11am on Sundays) -so residents will have to walk a long way around to get there. Designs also adopt a "streets and yards" approach and it is claimed that the open spaces will have "verdant" gardens and "nature trails". However about 75% of all of the "green" spaces and children's playgrounds will be on a residents-only 2nd floor raised concrete podium and others on 7th to 12th storey rooftops.

This artist's impression of a sunlit verdant ground floor Martel Yard - the Plaza which is described as a "flexible open space" and "focal point" with a "pocket play garden" but only 12% of the area will have 2 hours direct sunlight daily on average over the year.   

The developer acknowledges that, at ground level, the public spaces as a whole fail to meet even the BRE minimum guideline for sunlight on open spaces - ie less than half the area will receive 2 hours direct sunlight daily on average annually. These levels of sunlight are wholly inadequate for the planned green spaces, meeting places and children's playgrounds which are essential to a large residential development expected to have some 450 residents and 100 children.

The planned ground level Ramsgate Street children's "nature playground" will not meet minimal sunlight standards 

Eastern Curve Garden is to the south west and won't be overshadowed but the 14 storey towers will be visible and dwarf the Garden's activities. The owner argues that the Garden's character is already one of enclosure by buildings and that "the high quality of the [new] architecture and variation between blocks will positively impact the experience" of Garden visitors  

Criterion critcises Hackney Council for its year on year failures to meet its official annual targets for new homes - between 2019 and 2023 it says Hackney should have built 5,320 homes but only built 3,519. It points out that its proposed development of 254 new flats would contribute significantly to meeting the current shortage of homes. Hackney's recently approved the  Dalston Supplementary Planning Document which recognises Matalan as a development opportunity site for taller buildings - in fact the final version was drafted by Hackney planners in the context of their design discussions with Matalan's owner. Criterion's scheme is likely to be recommended for approval subject to any further improvements which can be negotiated.

You can view the application and make comments here or alternatively email planning@hackney.gov.uk and put in the subject line Ref: 2025/0167 Matalan Plc, Dalston Cross Shopping Centre

PS If there are any sustainable energy, whole life-cycle carbon, circular economy or fire/flood risk experts out there, please have a look at the owner's consultant's reports. We will publish here all informative and helpful comments made. 

(Errrr....I fear the Matalan development is probably already a done deal. Ed.) 

It's back! E8 Arts and Crafts trail : Saturday and Sunday 7th & 8th June

  

Next weekend, Saturday 7th and Sunday 8th June from 11am until 5pm, Dalston (and Hackney) artists and makers are throwing open their homes and studio doors to the public. You can see who's exhibiting, and find an interactive map to guide you on your cultural safari, on the trail's website here

The work exhibited for sale includes fine art, illustration, ceramics, jewellery, fabrics, clothing, accessories and more. 

The trail invites you to spend happy hours browsing art and craft in this Hackney neighbourhood, meeting the artists who live and work here and snapping up bargains direct from the makers!

Rio Cinema to screen "Save our Heritage" and "Hands off" on Saturday 24th May as part of Hackney History Festival

As part of the Hackney Society's  "Hackney History Festival", which includes walks talks visits and events, the Rio Cinema will be screening two of film director Winstan Whitter's documentaries and hosting a Q&A with Winstan and his collaborator on the films, local solicitor activist Bill Parry-Davies. The Rio Cinema filmshow begins a 1.30pm on Saturday 24th May.

 "Save our Heritage" tells the story of our community's battle to try and save Dalston's architectural and cultural legacy from demolition and re-development as an enclave of private high-rise flats.

At risk were locally listed Georgian houses, the oldest surviving Circus entrance in the UK and the "greatest cinema in the British Empire". These heritage buildings had become home to the legendary "Four Aces" reggae club and the "Labrynth" rave venue.The redevelopment scheme was to be subsidised by public funds paid for by Hackney borough residents, the Greater London Authority and central government.

"Hands Off" tells the story of the Shoreditch community's battle to keep its striptease bars when Hackney's Licensing Committee decided to adopt a "NIL" policy to ban their existence. "Browns" and the "White Horse" were both owned and managed by women, fully complied with the terms of their Council licences, provided a safe working environment for their dancers, received no complaints from police and employed numerous local residents. 

Local club owners, dancers, politicians, trade union representatives and the vicar of Shoreditch Church are all interviewed in the film discussing issues of feminism, morality, personal safety, freedom of choice and liberty.

On Sunday 25 May at 1.30pm the Rio will also be screening a third Hackney documentary by Winstan Whitter - "How to get on with everybody", an intimate portrait of the unique life of Herchel Gluck, a Rabbi from the Haredi Jewish community in Hackney's Stamford Hill followed by a Q&A with Winstan, Elin Moe and the star of the film Herchel Gluck.

Friends of Ashwin Street move to secure community benefit on sale of public cultural asset

On Monday 24th March Hackney's Cabinet, as reported here, delegated full authority to its officers to sell a key site in Dalston's 'Cultural Quarter': the land and buildings at 10-16 Ashwin St.  Our architectural and cultural legacy was to be sold for "best consideration", with "no restrictions" on their future uses and with no scrutiny of the final deal by our elected representatives to ensure that the public's interest had been properly secured. (It looked like Dalston's "Cultural Quarter" was being thrown to the wolves! Ed).

10-16 Ashwin St frontages - originally built as three houses in 1870 to designs of noted architect Edwin Horne

The following day, on Tuesday 25th March, a new association called the Friends of Ashwin Street, served an application on the Council nominating 10-16 Ashwin St as an Asset of Community Value (ACV). The stated objective was to ensure that "future uses of the asset shall continue to serve the social interest and well being of the local community as it has done on the past and in particular by the promotion of the creative arts". Signatories of the ACV nomination include current and previous Dalston Ward Councillors, office holders of several Hackney amenity societies as well as a broad section of our local community.  

The former 1862 railway engineering works of Tyer & Co extending behind 10-16 Ashwin St 

V22 London Limited (V22) has been managing the buildings as affordable artists studios for the last 20 years. But its lease had expired and the condition of the buildings, for which Hackney retained responsibility to repair, was precarious, dangerous even. V22 has always enjoyed collaborative relationships with other local cultural enterprises, particularly Cafe Oto and the Eastern Curve Garden. V22 proposed  expansion of those businesses and developing an Ashwin Arts Centre on site and it enlisted their support for V22's offer to purchase the buildings privately from the Council. V22's founding director had also teamed up with Hackney's prominent property whizz Edward Benyon. Their vision looked ambitious, but achievable.

The community's Eastern Curve Garden uses part of 10-16 Ashwin St's land behind the buildings

Hackney's sale of the site seemed inevitable. They buildings "required comprehensive repair, refurbishment and modernisation, at a very substantial cost" which our cash strapped Council could not afford. The Cabinet report noted that the Council was able to sell the buildings to a private buyer and that a discount of up to £2million off their full market value could be offered if the transaction was likely to contribute to economic, social or environmental public benefit eg "In this case ensuring investment in the asset which will benefit the local community." But how could that local community benefit be ensured when Hackney had resolved that it would impose no restrictions on future uses? (V22 told me they had invited Hackney to consider such restrictions, but it had declined. Ed). Was it all to rely only on verbal promises and personal "trust"? What if V22s Directors, or its shareholdings, changed? What if commercial pressures forced a change in V22's priorities or even a sale of the buildings? 

Colourful brick banding, decorative stonework & barley twist columns have been defaced by a layer of shabby white paint

The day following the Friends of Ashwin Street nominating the buildings as an Asset of Community Value, Hackney did a U-Turn. V22 informed the Friends that Hackney was now requiring restrictions by conditions of sale to the following effect:

10-16 Ashwin Street must be used solely and exclusively for the benefit of the local community, and in particular, as workspace and event space for artists, creatives, entrepreneurs, and community-focused organisations and initiatives. This restriction shall remain binding on V22 and any subsequent owner for a period of 15 years from the date of purchase and

If V22 sells all or any part of the property, it must repay to Hackney the net profit earned on the sale calculated in the first 5 years from purchase at 75% and then tapering down by 7.5% each year to 0% in year 15

V22 has also agreed with Friends that it will extend the restriction on the uses proposed from 15 to 25 years and, in view of the Friends concern about the need to conserve the architectural as well as the cultural heritage of the site, V22's founder has sent this letter of reassurance to the Friends:

The alternative, to V22 buying the site with these safeguards in place, is uncertainty. If the Friends nomination as an ACV succeeded and it wanted  to ensure permanent community benefit eg by forming a Community Land Trust (CLT) to buy it, there would inevitable be further delay (of up to 6 months), the buildings would be "mothballed", remain uninhabitable, deteriorate and probably be put on the open market. The Friends/CLT bid would then compete with developers who might offer more - as the Council report noted, some developers"might be able to take a longer term view" about ultimately achieving a more profitable redevelopment ie luxury flats rather than an arts hub.  We've seen before what happens when there's a fire sale of the family silver to the private sector when Hackney was broke.

Hackney's Dalston Lane Georgian terrace, auctioned as one lot to an off-shore company over the heads of the shopkeepers. Fires,  evictions & demolitions  followed. Finally Hackney bought them back, for double the auction sale price, and they were re-built in "heritage likeness".  With no affordable housing at all because, apparently, phoney replicas are so expensive.

The unanimous view expressed by the Friends of Ashwin Street was that, with the sale restrictions and profit repayment being put in place to protect the community's interest , and the local community's (including the Friends) support for V22's Ashwin Arts Centre vision, the ACV application no longer need be pursued. Hackney had suspended purchase negotiations with V22 whilst it was considering the Friend's ACV application. The ACV application has now been withdrawn so that those negotiations with V22 can continue.  

 

Hackney's Cabinet authorises Council officers to complete a private sector carve up of Dalston's "Cultural Quarter"

Tonight, Hackney Council's Mayor and Cabinet delegated their responsibility to Council officers to make all the decisions on selling Hackney's three sites in Dalston's "Cultural Quarter" to  private buyers. 

This means that the elected Mayor and Councillors do not want and will have no further say on any of the private deals concluded and whether the public's interest has been properly protected.

Hackney recommends private sector carve up of Dalston's "Cultural Quarter"

Tonight Hackney's Mayor and Cabinet will consider a report recommending that all decisions regarding selling off three sites in Dalston's "Cultural Quarter" to the private sector, should be delegated entirely to Council officers.  If approved, it means that the elected  Mayor and Councillor's will have no further say on any of the private deals reached and whether the public's interest has been properly secured.

Part of the former Tyer & Co railway engineering works at the back of the 10-14 Ashwin Street houses

As previously explained here,  the sites for sale comprise the three houses and the rear railway engineering works at 10-14 Ashwin St. In addition there are two vacant plots for development to be sold seperately or along with 10-14 Ashwin Street  - one at 2-8 Ashwin Street which Hackney demolished in 2010 and the second at 3-7 Ashwin St which was destroyed by bombs in World War II. Will there be a Council officer/private sector carve up of these sites without any democratic scrutiny?

 

Middle section of the former Tyer & Co railway engineering works at the back of the three houses at 10-14 Ashwin Street                        

The whole site at 10-14 Ashwin Street was purchased, in Hackney's name in 1985, with government grants and private charitable donations raised by the community educational charity Pyramid Arts Development Company Limited. Pyramid's aims were to encourage the arts including drama, ballet, music, singing, literature, sculpture and painting. It had a stellar line-up of creative people involved but sadly in 1994 financial difficulties forced its closure. (I'm told Hackney refused Pyramid a licence for live perfomance and a bar, so it became financially unviable Ed.). Since 2005 the buildings have been managed as artists studios by V22

Rear section of the former Tyer & Co railway engineering works overlooking the Eastern Curve Garden 

The UKGov grant to help purchase 10-14 Ashwin Street was intended to promote the arts for public benefit, and particularly to benefit the Black Community, not Hackney Council. But the report says Hackney will use the sale proceeds, not to promote the arts for public benefit, but "to bolster the financial resources allocated to projects within the Council's capital programme." It's Equality Impact Assessment states "No negative impacts have been identified as a result of this proposal". ( Hmmmm...As Hackney's Dudley Dryden said to me, when Hackney abandoned agreed plans for a Windrush African-Carribean Centre, "Even what they have will be taken away". Ed.)

Hackney is reported to have spent around £800,000 on doing major structural works and health and safety repairs to the engineering works over the last two years. But, just when its up for sale, Council officers are saying it's now unsafe, everyone must get out, and they are recommending purchasing £63,000 protective scaffolding to catch bits falling off the building.  Did the £800,000 come from Hackney's capital programme which now needs "bolstering". (Is the building more dangerous now than before Hackney spent a fortune on it? Ed.)

Also on the 10-14 Ashwin Street land is the Eastern Curve Garden's only indoor space -  its Hothouse meeting place, its office and a WC. The Council report speculates that "subject to survey and further ongoing investigations, to consider carving out this section" from the land to be sold. How will elected members ensure that the Garden's needs are protected if the private sector deal is left entirely to Council officers? There will be no democratic scrutiny or oversight.

The facades of Edwin Horner's three houses at 10-14 Ashwin Street which have been managed for promoting the creative arts since 1985.

10-14 Ashwin Street are townscape buildings within the Conservation Area and are locally listed as of special importance. The frontage 1870 houses were designed by notable Victorian railway architect Edwin Horne and the 1862 rear railway engineering works was where Tyer & Co produced their patented railway signalling system which was adopted thoughout England and in France.

  

Removal of the shabby white paint will reveal details on the facades including coloured brickwork banding, decorative stonework and barely twist metal columns

These buildings have been independently assessed by expert consultants to have HIGH industrial and architectural heritage value. Planning policies are in place which seek to protect historic architecture and creative uses but, if the site is acquired by mammonists, we can expect endless battles ahead trying to save our local cultural heritage

Local solicitor and founder of OPEN Dalston, Bill Parry-Davies, has written to Hackney's Cabinet raising these points and asking that his letter be given appropriate consideration. If you too have concerns, you can write to the Mayor of Hackney as well by emailing mayor@hackney.gov.uk

£63,000 Council scaffolding job to stitch up Dalston's "Cultural Quarter"

Next Monday Council officers are recommending Hackney buys £63,000 of scaffolding to erect in Ashwin Street, for health and safety, in case bits start falling off its buildings.  There's no price given for the cost of repairs to stop that happening. Or even any independent professional survey to be seen. Hackney are also recommending the outright sale of the buildings, privately, with vacant possession, for "best consideration". Everyone there's been told to get out.  (It does sound like a stich up. Ed.)

If you wanted to read the Hackney Council Cabinet Report, with more about the sell off and the £63,000 of scaffolding which could be arriving soon, you can't.  It's not published on Hackney's website. There's only rogue advance copies circulating marked Supplementary Papers II. 

Update: Hackney have published the report. It's here

True, scaffolding is not really news in Ashwin Street, We've seen it before in 2010, with Four Deaths and a Burial, when Hackney scaffolded and demolished the heritage terrace at 2-8 Ashwin Street. Hackney said it didn't realise that it had owned them since1977 as they gradually fell into dereliction . That site is now up for sale too. And the one opposite, destroyed by bombs in World War II ( I'm getting a sense of deja vue here. Ed.)

The management of Dalston's heritage and cultural buildings, including the Ashwin Street "Cultural Quarter", has been one of neglect, studied decay, sale and demolition. 

Edwin Horne's surviving 1870 Ashwin Street buildings are a fine legacy in Dalston. They should be revealed and cherished, not concealed by scaffolding as if awaiting some mortal fate.  

 (It's rumoured a load of scaffolding has fallen off the back of a lorry locally. Anybody else heard anything? Ed.)

Dalston's "Creative Quarter" and community Eastern Curve Garden are again officially at risk

On 24 March Hackney's Cabinet will be considering the sale of some family silver - sites it owns in Dalston's "Cultural Quarter". The sites include 10 -14 Ashwin Street, townscape buildings which are locally listed and in the Conservation Area. They are currently providing affordable studios for 30-40 artists and have a long cultural legacy, including performance arts, since the 1980s. The site also includes the Eastern Curve Garden's only indoor space - its "Hothouse" meeting place, office and toilet. How will the Garden survive if it loses those, on top of having a redevelopment site next door?

Cash strapped Hackney is said to be seeking a sales valuation based on demolition of the buildings and re-development as luxury flats. It has already said that all the artist tenants must leave by 1st April, because the buildings have suddenly become 'too unsafe' to remain. The Eastern Curve Garden is also partly on the site so a future purchaser could decide its Hothouse and facilities have to go too. 

The sell-off is part of a plan to privatise Dalston's "Cultural Quarter"sites first revealed in 2018. The buildings have a rich legacy of cultural and community benefit, but this has yet to be appropriately valued by Hackney. Responding to community outcry in 2018, Hackney's previous Mayor appeared concerned to ensure that preservation of the local heritage, culture, community benefit and affordable workspaces was fully considered. ( What has changed...will the new Mayor feel the same way? Ed.)

10 -14 Ashwin Street was designed by the eminent Victorian architect Edwin Horne in 1870. The frontages have decorative brick, stone and iron work detailing although these are presently disfigured by shabby white paint. Edwin Horne's other houses in Ashwin Street were demolished by World War II bombs and in 2010 by Hackney Council. He also designed the Reeves and Son Artists Colourworks at 18-22 Ashwin Street and the stations at Hackney Central and Grade II Listed Camden Road.

To the rear of 14 Ashwin St is the former engineering works of Tyer & Co who, in 1852, invented the railway signalling system which was adopted throughout the UK and in France. Consultants, instructed by Hackney, reported that this former factory is of HIGH historic value as forming  part of Hackney's industrial legacy.

Entrance to Ashwin St. off Dalston Lane around 1900 - the Railway Tavern's design is also attributed to Edwin Horne

Between 1985 and 1994 the buildings were occupied by the registered charity, Pyramid Arts Development. Pyramid had raised government and charitable grants to buy and renovate the building particularly for the Black community to teach and promote performance arts. The former Government Minster Sir George Young 6th Baronet personally visited to wish them well - as achive film footage reveals. But for some mysterious reason the buildings were bought in the Council's, and not in Pyramid's, name. Hackney seems to think there are now no charitable or other constraints against their sale. 

Pyramid's musicians included the Grammy Award nominee Steve Marshall, Lee 'Scratch' Perry and the American jazz prodigy Clifford Jarvis who mentored many British jazz musicians there. Early participants included internationally acclaimed  Courtney Pine - a founder of the Jazz Warriors.  Also in 1985, Deborah Baddoo MBE opened a dance studio there which focussed on dance and choreography. Since 2005, under V22's ongoing studio management, many eminent visual artists have benefitted from the facilities including Dame Phyllida Barlow DBE RA, Fernando Marques Penteado, Peter Kennard, Fergal Stapleton and others. 

Could Hackney's latest planning policies save the Cultural Quarter from destruction by the mammonists? The recent Hackney Plan 2033 aspires to protect the Eastern Curve Garden and to resist developers seeking to demolish heritage buildings and changing affordable and cultural uses into luxury flats. But the local cultural economy and heritage buildings are fragile. Even if a private developer promised to try and save the facades of 10-14 Ashwin Street, and give its scheme a new cultural gloss, public ownership and the local vibe will be lost. Like the houses of Dalston Terrace which were sold off, demolished and then re-built in "heritage likeness" with no affordable housing at all.

What can you do about this?

You could write to the newly elected  mayor@hackney.gov.uk  to express any concerns which you have. Does 10 - 14 Ashwin St really need to be sold? If so, couldn't there be a binding condition for refurbishment only and for continuing cultural uses? Doesn't obtaining "best value" include valuing existing social and community benefits as part of the reckoning?

This short 2018 film "Dalston Arts 150" reveals Dalston's 150 year long association with the arts and Hackney's original plan to sell off Dalston's Cultural Quarter sites to "maximise capital value and rental revenue for the Council". That plan could now be realised - the privatisation and loss of public cultural spaces.