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Letters -
Letters in the Local Press
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Wednesday, 05 July 2006 |
While all opposition to the tube-centred plan for the class cleansing of Hackney is welcome, the “environmental” dismay expressed by OPEN distorts the issue beyond recognition.
Of course, Hackney Council, TfL, the GLA and their developer friends are getting away with a stitch-up of historic audacity. But, given the likely effect on local people’s lives, outrage about “heritage buildings”, “green space”, “noise and air pollution” and the aesthetic disadvantages of concrete is almost insulting.
Perhaps it needs to be spelled out yet again: the real question is not “quality of life”, but quantity of resources. Who will and will not be able to afford to go on living in the area?
Central government policy says “social housing” rents should “converge” with market levels by 2011 (just in time for the Olympics).
When the Tube and the accompanying upscale and retail and housing complex come to Dalston, market rents and leaseholds will soar out of the reach of the remaining low-income workers and benefit claimants in the area, and “social” landlords will be legally obliged to follow.
When the evacuated space is bought up by another wave of ethically-minded, sustainably-indebted, creative professionals, concern about “environmental needs” will no doubt be unanimous. Dalston will win awards for its recycling record.
It should be noted, too, that however sincere the inbuyers’ enthusiasm for “vibrant” multi-cultural diversity, class cleansing also inevitably entails ethnic clear-out.
Young white creatives don’t have to be BNP supporters to benefit from policies that will price a disproportionate number of black and other “ethnic minority” residents out of the neighbourhood, along with the rest of the working and wageless class.
Environmental and “heritage” campaigners’ willingness to stand up to the council and its allies is admirable, but they should consider how closely their own language chimes with the Hackney Labour “cleaner greener” agenda.
Those of us likely to find ourselves on the wrong end of “regeneration” are well aware that what “a cleaner greener Hackney” means is “no more dirty poor people”.
Matthew Hyland
Hackney Gazette, 29JUN06
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