We are pleased to anounce that the Planning Committee have unanimously thrown out a plan for a massive new development after opposition from an effective community campaign.

Not in Hackney, obviously, but in neighbouring Tower Hamlets. Their planning committee voted 8-0 to turn down plans by Genesis Housing Group and CRISIS to build a 23 storey tower block with 270 bedsits for single homeless people in the middle of a council estate off Columbia Road and a stone's throw from the Haggerston Ward boundary.

If this had been in Hackney, the New Labour bloc vote would have pushed the plans through as they don't like turning down developers. The difference in Tower Hamlets is that New Labour councillors face 3 other parties actively competing for votes and the very real prospect of losing power - so all parties have to at least pretend to listen to the people.