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.