The Dalston Mill

A planning application has been submitted to erect a temporary metallic structure at 13 Dalston Lane to the rear of the Peace Mural square, for use over the summer as a community art centre, garden, workshops and a pizza oven (yummy!). You can view the application and images (reference 2009/0965) here. The sponsorship is from the Barbican Art Gallery as part of the Radical Nature festival.

The publicity states "EXYZT have been working closely with various local communities to turn a disused site in Dalston into a vibrant rural retreat for the people of the area and beyond. Literally occupying an abandoned garden, the project offers an exciting programme of events, screening and summer feasts."

Actually the site is literally an abandoned railway line (the Dalston Junction Eastern Curve) recently filled in with hardcore and gravel for car parking use.

Not all of EXYZT previous 'community art installations' have met with universal approval - as you will see from some of the comments here.

Victory for Queen’s Market campaigners

On Wednesday 13th May 2009 the Mayor of London, Boris Johnson directed Newham Council to refuse planning permission for plans to redevelop Queen’s Market in Upton Park, which include the construction of a 96 metre high residential tower block.

The Friends of Queens Market have fought a long running campaign to reach this point. A spokesperson, Lucy Rogers, said: “I feel fantastic. We can hardly believe it. I feel in some boroughs, especially in East London, there is a brutish redevelopment agenda going on which doesn't represent what people want. We are very glad the Mayor has listened. This is exactly what he should be for.”

When plans were submitted to the Mayor for consultation in May 2008, the applicant was advised that they did not conform with the London Plan on several counts, including the quality of the design of the proposed tower.

The applicant subsequently revised the plans but these still failed to address the Mayor’s concerns on the appearance and, in particular the attractiveness of the proposed tower. The plans also failed to demonstrate that a tall building of the design proposed would be appropriate on the site.


The Mayor said:

“I have carefully considered this application. However, it is obvious that a tower of this size, so much higher than any existing tall buildings in the area, is neither attractive or in proportion or suited to any of the surrounding buildings, streets or the general urban realm of Newham.

“I am not opposed to the improvements to Queen’s Market, but I am against this inappropriate tower and have, therefore, instructed Newham not to approve these current plans.”

To download a copy of the Mayor’s Planning Decision here

What's Best for Dalston? the exhibition continues...

Bootstraps, The Printhouse,
18 Ashwin St, E8 3DL

Saturday 2 May: Consultation Day, Bootstraps 

Exhibition continues:

Bank Holiday Weekend:
Saturday 2 - Monday 4 May: 10am - 4pm

Tuesday 5 - Wednesday 6 May: 9am - 8pm

If you missed out on participating in our recent consultation on Hackney Council's Masterplan for Dalston, you've still got time to get involved. We have another special consultation day, this time in Bootstraps, at The Printhouse, on Saturday 2 May 10am - 4pm. 

Once again there will be volunteers from OPEN Dalston to answer questions about the proposals contained in the Masterplan. You can view maps, see what other people think about Dalston and explore issues like the scale and height of buildings, what people want from public space and how can 1,700 new houses be fitted into Dalston in the next few years?

Material gathered during our last consultation day on the Masterplan has already been added.

‘What’s Best for Dalston?’ has been produced by OPEN Dalston with the help of people who live, work and spend time here who all want to celebrate and safeguard the energy, diversity and history of this vibrant neighbourhood.

At the same time, the exhibition gives you the opportunity to get to grips with the key issues contained in the Masterplan, which Hackney Council are consulting on until 15 May 2009. This planning document will have a major impact on life in Dalston, as it will influence building development in the area from now on.

The Masterplan identifies 21 buildings, streets and areas as ‘opportunity sites’. This means many existing buildings have been earmarked for demolition, in many cases to be replaced by bigger, higher developments. Ridley Road Market, Dalston Lane, Kingsland High Street and Ashwin Street have all been identified for major redevelopment.

Several ‘opportunity sites’ are currently home to successful family shops that have been here for many years. Others contain hundreds of thriving small businesses and community organisations. Our exhibition celebrates their stories and highlights the key Council proposals for each of the opportunity sites.

‘What's Best for Dalston?’ is growing and changing, as people add their own stories, photographs, interviews, comments and ideas, so please come along and join in.

Dalston Square flats: Get one half price!

Last year we reported how Barratt, which is developing Dalston Square in a private/public partnership with the authorities, had been credit crunched and was tettering on the brink of insolvency. Its share price had crashed by 90% and its £1.5 billion debt was in the news. Former blue-chip builders like Barratt became relegated to the middle tier as funds flooded out of the sector. But it managed to renegotiate its bank covenants and could "limp along"

Although things picked up slightly in the first quarter of this year, and Barratt's shares rallied, those green shoots have been caught out in the recurrent economic frosts of the credit freeze. Mortgage offers are around only 40% of the boomtime peak and are now falling again. Finance experts are reportedly advising investors to sell this risky housebuilder's shares. These are desperate times with market analyists reporting property prices have not yet reached the bottom. Barratt are now slashing sale prices like there could be no tomorrow.


Can Barratt afford to start building the towerblocks on The Slab, on TfL's railway site next door, which should be ready for development in October?
Will some of the funds allocated in Alistair Darling's budget, to bail out stalled housebuilding schemes, be used to save TfL's Olympic towerblocks which are all intended for private sale?
Hackney Council invested in the £19million shortfall on the loss making Dalston Square scheme. The deal was it would start to recoup when sales went over a certain figure. Will it ever get our money back?

Hackney Council's Masterplan for Dalston

OPEN Dalston, working with local businesses and community organisations, is organising a series of events in April to highlight Hackney Council’s Masterplan for Dalston.

The Council have started a public consultation on their draft proposals for the area. This document will influence the building development that will take place in Dalston in the coming years. Ridley Road Market, the Georgian terraces on Dalston Lane, Kingsland High Street and Ashwin Street are just some of the areas identified for redevelopment. Tall buildings, affordable housing, open spaces and the use of heritage buildings are among the issues covered.

OPEN Dalston’s events will give you the opportunity to ask questions, explore issues and discuss concerns about all aspects of the plans। Information gathered during these events will be included in OPEN’s response to Hackney Council on the Masterplan consultation and the events are also designed to assist people who want to make their own responses.

What’s best for Dalston?

Friday 24 April – Wednesday 6 May
Bootstraps, The Printhouse, Ashwin Street, E8
Exhibition
Highlighting the buildings and streets of Dalston and the experiences of the people who live and work here, this exhibition will grow and evolve over two weeks, as people join in and add their own stories, photographs, comments and suggestions.

Walking tours
The first of a series of walking tours around the ‘masterplan area’ took place on Sunday and focussed on key buildings and sites that the Masterplan for Dalston has earmarked for development. If you are interested in future walks please email info@opendalston.net or call 07531 467276 and we will keep you informed of additional dates and times. So if you are not sure what ‘The Eastern Curve’ is or how proposals will affect the look of Dalston Lane, these walks will help make it clear. Photographs and observations gathered on the walks will be added to the exhibition.

The demolished shops on Kingsland High Street, part of the "Western Curve".

If you would like to volunteer to help with the programme of events, please email info@opendalston.net - research, photography and filming are particularly needed to make it all happen.

The consultation documents for the draft Masterplan are available on the Council's website at: www.hackney.gov.uk/planning-consultation.htm Printed documents are available for reference at all of Hackney's libraries and at the Planning Reception at 263 Mare Street, E8 3HT. You can also email strategic.delivery@hackney.gov.uk or call 0208 356 7740 for more details.

You can make your own comments on the Masterplan proposals until Friday 15 May.

Part of the Eastern Curve.

OPEN event - Tuesday 24 March

Don't miss Iain Sinclair and Patrick Wright who will be speaking at this event at Cafe Oto on Tuesday 24 March. You'll find all the details here.




A limited first edition of Winstan Whitter's film "Save Our Heritage" will be available in DVD format.

Entry is free. But bring some cash because The Broadway Bookshop will also be selling copies of "Hackney, That Rose-Red Empire: A Confidential Report" and "A Journey Through Ruins: The Last Days of London".
You can watch a trailer of the film here:



Watch Michael Rosen talk about the film here:

“On Dalston Lane time itself seems to lie around in broken fragments....”

Don't miss this OPEN event on Tuesday 24th March when Iain Sinclair and Patrick Wright will read from, and talk about, their work. A film from Iain Sinclair's archive, called “Diary Film: Hackney 1969”, will also be screened.

The event begins at 7.30pm at the Cafe Oto, Ashwin Street, Dalston. E8.More details here.

Cafe Oto has limited capacity, the last event was packed, so come early to avoid disappointment.

Admission is free but the event is an OPEN fundraiser (see below) so please give generously.

“On Dalston Lane time itself seems to lie around in broken fragments....”
From A Journey Through Ruins (1991) by Patrick Wright

The quirky and thriving terrace, which Patrick Wright described in 1991, is now in ruins. In April 2002 16 Georgian houses in Dalston Lane were auctioned off by Hackney Council, over the heads of its tenants, to an off-shore slum landlord. Four were later burnt out. A fifth was damaged beyond repair...

A Journey Through Ruins (1991) has now been republished with a new introduction by Patrick Wright entitled Going Back to Dalston (2008).

"...the afterburn of that intrepid cultural historian Patrick Wright eddies around the chaotic bus stop: a spectre from St Phillip's Road still very much active, years after the host body has left town". Iain Sinclair 2009
The Star Bakery was evicted after the auctions, on the grounds of redevelopment, but has since been left on death row. The Council recently demolished three of the Georgian houses as part of its "conservation led regeneration project".

Former Dalston resident, Patrick Wright<, is a writer and broadcaster with a particular interest in the cultural and political dimensions of contemporary history. He is a Fellow of the London Consortium and the author of many books including On Living in an Old Country, Tank, The Village that Died for England, Iron Curtain and A Journey Through Ruins.

Mike Wells' photo of The Slab being constructed above Dalston Junction's railway cutting to provide an Olympic bus-turnaround. There will be towers of flats for private sale, of up to 20 storeys, intended to pay the £40million for The Slab. Now there's talk of a government bailout. But the blocks were never designed for affordable family housing.

“We’re on the edge. It’s like the Berlin Wall and the legacy is uniformity, dullness, storage boxes, a kind of globalisation... a future where the virtual collides with the actual...”
Iain Sinclair on the Olympic developments

Local resident Iain Sinclair is a poet, film maker, psychogeographer and chronicler of documentary fiction. His latest work "Hackney. That rose-red empire" has been greeted with popular and critical acclaim (but to Hackney Council's chagrin)

"Sinclair carried out the poetic realignment of London that would eventually earn him notoriety as the occultist surveyor who had recharted the city..." Patrick Wright in 1991.

In this latest film Iain Sinclair describes Dalston and Hackney as it was and as it has become.

The evening will include a screening of Iain Sinclair’s “Diary Film: Hackney 1969”

Funds raised at this event will contribute to OPEN's community consultation programme - a series of events responding to the newly published Council Masterplan for Dalston.