Another Dalston "opportunity site" burns down

Last night the ninth major fire in Dalston over the last four years burnt out yet another of our old houses.

This was Ashwin Street, Dalston, yesterday morning (with the cranes which are building New Dalston's towerblocks in the background). Sealed off, fire engines and police.


The Ashwin Street 1860's Victorian terrace had been abandoned by the owner and left tinned up and increasingly derelict very many years ago. Even squatters had given up on the houses when roofs started falling in.

Conversation yesterday morning - Fireman at the scene: "I'm 100% there was no electric or gas on. Must have been a naked flame"

Policeman: "Someone jumped from the house and had to be taken to hospital"

This afternoon the street remained sealed off. Contractors were on site.

Conversation yesterday afternoon with policewoman at the scene: "We asked the Council who owns it. They say its nothing to do with them. They don't know"

An architectural historian had expressed delight in the corner site (white) building following a recent informal inspection before the fire. She suggested a structural survey would identify whether the facades of the rest of the terrace could be retained to preserve its setting.

Will Hackney bother with a survey or just bulldoze the whole terrace of old houses?

Conversation yesterday evening with policeman on site: "Hackney now say they own the building. One puff of wind, they say, and it'll collapse. They've been telling us for years they were going to demolish. Its all dodgy.Now they can go ahead."

In the 2005 public consultations OPEN proposed that the Ashwin Street terrace could be converted for affordable studios and small business units as part of a Dalston cultural quarter, linking the new Gillett Square and the now demolished Dalston Theatre and Georgian houses on Dalston Lane. The Council didn't respond to these proposals. This year the street was designated as an "opportunity site" in the Council's draft Dalston Area Action Plan. The "opportunity" wasn't explained further.

All of Dalston's nine major fires have been on sites the subject of redevelopment proposals. These have included the Council's own housing office in Rosebery Place which burnt down in May 2005 just behind Old Dalston's Theatre. The previous month a contract had been prepared for the demolition of the Theatre which identified the need for hardstanding to place demolition equipment. The building slab, once the the burnt out Council offices had been demolished, proved ideal. A happy accident, serendipity, one might say.

They also said the Theatre needed demolition because of fire but OPEN's structural engineer found no evidence of either fires or irreparable structural damage. The Council demolished the Theatre anyway

Conversation this morning with a policewoman: "I would have expected to have heard about the person who jumped from the window - you know, that they're OK."

Four Georgian houses have been burnt out by fires in Dalston Lane. The Council had auctioned off the terrace to an absentee slum landlord in 2002.

In July 2004 a major fire completely destroyed 74 Dalston Lane (Dismop) the vacant building next to the Star Bakery which was facing possession proceedings. A temporary roof covering was provided but, during a period of high winds some weeks later, this roof blew off and landed in Dalston Lane, a major bus route. A later fire destroyed the house next to the Ganges restaurant which has since suffered serious water penetration and structural damage.

The houses at 62-64 Dalston Lane were the subject of a planning appeal when in September 2004 fires occurred there after permission for demolition had been refused.

A man had to jump for his life from the front windows - he'd been visited a few days earlier and warned to get out. The Council continued to talk about its heritage policies but did nothing for four years until recently when it demolished three of the houses because their structural stability had finally failed.


We live surrounded by dereliction and decay. We can take little pride in our environment and where we are from. The Council's deliberate neglect of our historic town centre may soon lead to the remnants of its once thriving local economy and fabric being lost forever. A cloud of suspicion hangs over Dalston.

Robbing Peter to pay Paul

Hackney's report to its Planning Committee on 24 July, concerning Hammerson's 51-storey Bishops Place scheme planned for Shoreditch, indicated that the Council would like to spend substantially more public money propping up Transport for London's private towerblock scheme at Dalston Junction.

Hammerson's Bishops Place scheme on land owned by Hackney Council. Hackney has already subsidised TfL's £39million concrete slab over the new Dalston Junction station by demolishing historic buildings and disposing of its flattened site for a peppercorn to the developer, Barratt. The lack of any affordable housing on TfL's site has been an embarassment to the authorities. Hackney hoped that Hammerson would sign up to planning agreements providing for a £14million payment towards "off site affordable housing". Hackney proposed to then take the money from Shoreditch to subsidise housing on TfL's Dalston site - robbing Peter to pay Paul. However the Planning Committee, which had convened for a special meeting, decided to defer consideration of Hammerson's Shoreditch application.

The Dalston developer, Barratt, has been in serious financial difficulties with the crash in development land values and house sales. Its recent renegotiation of covenants with its bankers has been described in the Financial Times as "lifting the coffin lid a fraction." Other house builders are reported to be in even worse financial trouble and there is talk in government circles of intervention if insolvent house builders abandon unfinished developments.



There is however no sign of Barratt pulling men off the Dalston Lane development site and leaving us with concrete stumps. But TfL have been reported recently to have expressed doubts about the use of the concrete slab for a bus turnaround above the new Dalston Junction station - the cost of which predetermined the whole logic of the Dalston towerblocks scheme. OPEN objections to the scheme included a concern that it was a "profligate use of financial and natural resources".

A spectre of corporate malice is said to stalk Dalston's Ridley market

OPEN has previously written here about how Hackney's beancounters were going bananas in Ridley Road market.



We told the story of Janet Devers who is the sister of Colin Hunt, one of the original metric martyrs. The Council are prosecuting Janet for selling by the pound whilst not also showing prices in kilos, and for selling unweighed fresh produce by the bowl or the bunch. Now you can hear what Janet herself has to say in this video.



Sadly the situation has got much worse. Recently the Council have applied to add another 9 charges to those which Janet will face in the Crown Court jury trial in January. The Council are also making new allegations about her brother Colin. And evidence has now come to light which, reports suggest, show that Colin and Janet are being deliberately targeted for punitive action by the Council. A spectre of corporate malice is said to be stalking Ridley market.



The traders of Ridley Road Market in happier times - a day out for the ladies.

Hackney's Mayor Pipe has rubbished the traders protests that over regulation is driving them out. As for the recent disconnection of all the electrics in the market that is, he says, because the installations are damaged and dangerous due to traders breaking in to steal electricity. Nothing to do then with the last Council refurbishment of the market's electrics being so shoddy that it was unable to produce an electrician's certificate that the work was up to health and safety standards.



The traders of Ridley Road Market in happier times - a day out for the gents

So. No electric, no electric scales. The traders will just have to rely on their clunky old fashioned manual scales for their weights and measures which are only in er... pounds and ounces.

Mayor Pipe has also denied plans for Olympic redevelopment of market land. But he has yet to give his view of the consultant's recommendation to redevelop the market's Birkbeck Road site for residential use. Or to explain why its market's store has been left derelict for so long.

Do you know anyone in this photo? What are they saying?

Regeneration Blues - a new poem by Dalston resident Michael Rosen

Regeneration blues

Once upon a time

In days of old

Great minds tried to figure

How to turn metal

Into gold

They dreamed of the day

When a chunk of iron

Could make them rich

Turn junk into treasure

A magic formula

They failed

Never found it

But the news is: it's happened near you.

In the city centres

Along by the canals

And the old railway yards

Land worth a little

Is now worth a lot

The same patch of mud

Sitting under a shed

Under an old shop

Car park or cinema

Has turned into gold.

In the town halls

Councillors get excited:

“That old street

full of shops

run by people from

Africa, Turkey, the Middle East

With flats up above –

Aren't they on short lease

Cos we were once

Going to put a road through there?

That old pool 

That old school

Don’t we own that?

You know what?

We could demolish the lot 

Get developers in:

No time to wait

Reeee – generate.

Modernise

Energise

Put up high-rise 

Buy to rent

For young professionals

Yo-pros, don't you know.

Change the geography

Change the demography

So the developers arrive

With their brochures

And sharp shoes

Their power points

and bullet points

They've done the sums

They can make it work

If the council plays a part:

If it compensates

Decontaminates

Covers losses

Shares the load

Builds a road

It's a partnership

Public private

Private public

The area will be

privatised

Our money will

subsidize

The deal is done

But the law says 'Consult'

A meeting is held

And on the screen

The derelict sheds

And the crumbling shops

'Look!', they say, 'The area will die.

We'll build towers of steel and glass

To the sky.'

Towers full of the salaried and sleek

Towers with no old people or babies

Towers for people who need gifts and coffee

Only available from brandname shops.

'Transport links will improve'

Say the councillors we elect

'Everyone will benefit, don't object

There'll be a new library.

In there...

Somewhere'

The meeting is noisy

The shopkeepers say

The tenants say

They want to stay

People say

They want the Turkish bread

And the Indian rice.

Someone says that the buildings are oldThey could be restored

Why take away memories

They used to make places

Where we could walk about

Squares and cul-de-sacs

Not canyons between tower blocks.

Someone says

We're desperate for places where families can live

Places where kids can play

Clinics on hand, not miles away

And ground floor flats for the old and disabled

The meeting ends in a riot

When one of the councillors

Says: people round here have no ambition
They want to live in a dump

And the people in it

Are the dregs on drugs

It goes to committee

And five men sit and take a vote

It goes 2-2

So the chair says he must decide

He's in favour of high-rise 

A great leap forward for the community

A revolution in thinking, a retail opportunity.

Within a week the bulldozers hit 

The shopkeepers and tenants have to quit.

Someone digs in files and papers

And finds that the chairman of the committee

Is on the board of a firm

That will supply the locks

In the high-rise blocks.

He says he forgot

To declare an interest 

But it's too late to stop.

History doesn't matter

The people who live there don't matter

The people who run shops don't matter

People who need places for people who have kids

Don't matter

Nurseries, clinics, opens spaces, good cheap housing,

Don't matter

Look say the councillors

It's

Regeneration

And they don't mean

Regeneration

Of the developers' bank accounts.

As the blocks go up

It's income up

But it's us who subsidize

Private high-rise

Regeneration is a lie

Regeneration is a lie

Regeneration is

Degeneration

Regeneration

Is degeneration

Boris loves Dalston peace mural

Mayor Boris Johnson is a fan of the Hackney Peace mural on Dalston Lane. (1 minute 10 seconds in). Thanks to Clapton Pond blog for spotting this one.

The Four Aces Club - a legacy in the dust

click image to enlarge

For over thirty years Dalston resident Newton Dunbar ran The Four Aces Club . The Club started its life in 1966 at 12 Dalston Lane in the entrance halls of the original 1886 Dalston circus and theatre buildings. It became north London's home of international black music and a second home to black musicians. With increasing success in the 1980s Newton expanded the business, as the Labrynth, which regularly packed out the whole of Dalston Theatre. At weekends Dalston Lane was heaving until the early hours.

Filmaker Winstan Whitter grew up in Dalston and his brilliant documentary film, containing historic footage, about The Four Aces is now out. You can visit here to watch the film's trailer and learn more about the history of the club and its relationship with the police and the Council.


The film will be shown on Sunday 6 July at 1pm as part of the V&A's Motown Weekender. More details here

Winstan (centre) at an OPEN Dalston community day

Winstan campaigned with OPEN to save something of Dalston's history and cultural diversity. The historic buildings were landmarks in our lives and in the lives of previous generations. But despite providing popular entertainment for over 100 years the Council said the buildings had no historic value. Despite a petition with 25,000 signatures roofs were removed, The Four Aces Club was evicted and the buildings were left on death row to become derelict and blight the environment. Sadly they have now been demolished by the authorities to make way for towerblock flats.

How did it happen? A ten year plan to destroy 185 years of culture.

Read "The story that was never told"

Barratt Barratt Barratt. Going Going .......

More bad news for Dalston about Barratt. And yet more here
But it aint over yet - unless, of course, you're one of the many homeless or living in desperately overcrowded conditions:
".....The upshot is that there is going to be a huge shortfall in the number of new homes being built this year. In 2007, there were 190,000 homes built in England, according to the Home Builders Federation (HBF), a trade body. Estimates suggest that the figure for 2008 will be half that number and a long way short of the government’s target of 140,000 new homes erected every year until 2016..."