Summer newsletter published

  • Haggerston School Under Threat
  • City Academies
  • Olympics
  • Broadway Market
  • A View from Hoxton
  • A View from Haggerston
  • More!

Hackney Independent, Summer 2005 issue (pdf format)

More newsletters


Hoxton Independent?

Hackney Independent has been going out across Shoreditch since 1999. In that time we have:

  • opposed Council plans to cut, close or sell-off our essential services and facilities
  • played a part in some victories like getting rid of ITNET
  • supported the parents, kids and staff at Apples and Pears adventure playground who fought off council plans to build flats on their site

We have had some defeats like the closure of Laburnum school. Other campaigns, like to re-open Haggerston Pool are still going on. We have established the Independent Kids Cinema and run benefits and repairs advice surgeries.

And we have marked out as being different from any other political organisation in two important ways.

  • we keep going every month of the year and don’t just turn up when there is an election
  • we go door to door asking your opinions rather than try to tell you what you should think.

In 2002 we stood for election in Haggerston Ward and got 610 votes – just 90 short of beating Labour. We have built on that in Haggerston with advice surgeries, kids film shows, campaigns for Laburnum School and against privatising estate management. We have support and contacts on every estate in the Ward. While we have some support in Hoxton we are writing this appeal to Hoxton tenants and leaseholders to come forward if you want to help build a stronger independent force in Hoxton.

Should Hoxton rely on the Labour Party? Or should we build an independent force to campaign for repairs to our estates, facilities for our young people and to look at community solutions to the problems of anti-social behaviour? Hoxton, it’s up to you. Get in touch. Hoxton tenants and leaseholders: do you want an independent force in Hoxton? or should we leave it to the Labour Party?


Hoxton Failure?

Government report brands Hoxton regeneration a failure
A ‘scuffle’ has broken out between Shoreditch Our Way (ShOW) and the government’s Department of Culture Media and Sport (DCMS).

A DCMS consultation paper written by London Metropolitan University has branded ‘culturally-led regeneration’ in Hoxton a failure. The report describes the area as ‘one of the most sought after in the city, with upmarket bars, cafes, galleries, clubs….’ It also describes the reality for local people: ‘1000 local jobs a year have been created, but the local unemployment level never seems to change… land values in the area have soared. So locals who get jobs often have to move outside the borough.’

The DCMS report just confirms what Hackney IWCA and local residents have known since the gentrification of Shoreditch began in the 1990’s. ‘The impact of regeneration and economic development generally can be divisive and create resistance/resentment.’

However ShOW’s chief executive Michael Pyner has hit out at the DCMS paper in the pages of the Hackney Gazette [July 8th, 2004], calling it “nonsense” and “unhelpful”. Pyner, who lives in Brighton, is quoted as saying: “It seems ironic that we had John Prescott touring Shoreditch not long ago and telling us what a success the regeneration of the area is and now Tessa Jowell [Culture Secretary] is producing a report saying it’s not working.”

(Incidentally, a few pages further on in this same issue of the Gazette, a group of Hackney artists are to be found bemoaning the high rents which forced them to move out of Hoxton where they had been living and working. More ‘nonsense’, presumably….)

ShOW, described in the Gazette as a ‘property company…run as a charity’, is one of 50 New Deal for Communities (NDCs) around the country set up by Prescott’s Office of the Deputy Prime Minister five years ago to target resources at some of Britain’s poorest areas. Despite criticisms that NDCs have largely failed to make a difference, the government has announced that it plans to extend the scheme to other areas if it wins a third term. No surprise then that Prescott is prepared to overlook reality to defend his ‘baby’.

The fact remains that the £50 million that ShOW was given to spend in Shoreditch over ten years is a drop in the ocean compared to the financial resources wielded by the property developers and business investors currently transforming/gentrifying the area (encouraged by Hackney Council), and doing so at the expense of local people. ShOW’s practice of buying up property — sometimes evicting community users in the process — and selling it to developers, hardly exemplifies a community asserting itself in the face of the City’s greed and indifference, as it (ShOW) sometimes likes to present itself. Pyner is at great lengths to emphasise that ShOW is resident-led, but tenant and resident elected representatives are not in the majority on the board. The criticism often leveled at many other of New Labour’s arms-length government initiatives (usually referred to as QUANGOs under the last Tory government), that they trumpet community ‘involvement’ and ‘empowerment’ but are in reality consultant-led, is also true of the NDCs.

For example this recently appeared in the Guardian [1st July, 2004]:

‘The Bishop of Liverpool, the Right Rev James Jones, has attacked regeneration professionals and the government for failing to give power to the communities they serve. Bishop Jones, the former chairman of a New Deal for Communities scheme in Liverpool, complains[s] of a gulf between ministerial promises of community empowerment and the reality. “There is a chasm between the professionals who have the money and the power and the people who live in communities.” He highlighted the contrast between community leaders who attend hundreds of meetings for free, and consultants who charge large fees. “Professional regenerators are paid thousands to day trip into communities to devise solutions. That cannot be just,” he said.’

Not a situation confined to Liverpool…

Leaving aside the ulterior motives Pyner and Prescott may have for declaring Hoxton’s regeneration a success for local people — in the face of much evidence to the contrary (like the proliferation of yuppie flats amidst neglected council estates) —, the solutions proposed by the DCMS report go nowhere near far enough to giving the residents of Shoreditch a real say in what happens here.

The report concludes (in part) that cultural and artistic projects can ‘play a key role in community consultation, animation and empowerment in the fraught development process.’ This is vague, to say the least. And we are justifiably suspect of empty concepts like ‘consultation’ and ‘empowerment’, favourite buzz-words of the middle-class engineers of gentrification and thoroughly discredited in the eyes of working-class communities. However unlikely it is that Hackney Council or John Prescott or Michael Pyner or Tessa Jowell would ever welcome it, what is needed is for residents to have a real say in the process of redevelopment, not just involvement in some ‘cultural projects’ designed to make swallowing the pill easier. There is nothing wrong with art and culture, provided that it supports rather than substitutes itself for genuine democracy.


Spring 2004 Newsletter

 

OPEN LETTER TO HAGGERSTON RESIDENTS
by Nusret Sen, Peter Sutton and Carl Taylor

Two years ago we stood in the council elections as independent working class candidates. We argued New Labour only represents the middle class in this area – they act in the interest of loft-dwelling City workers and their developer friends . We said that the working class majority in the area needed independent representation. We wanted to put your issues first and after talking to over 1000 people on estates in the ward we campaigned on the issues of crime and anti-social behaviour, housing repairs and transfers, and defending our vital community facilities.

Against a Labour Party bankrolled by big business we did well. With no experience of standing in an election before, we came within 90 votes of winning. We were the closest to beating Labour anywhere in the Hackney South and Shoreditch constituency. More people voted in Haggerston than in neighbouring wards, mainly because people who don’t normally vote saw us as something different and gave us a chance.

But Labour scraped back in. Since then what have they done?

• Haggerston pool is still shut (and now Clissold pool in Stoke Newington is shut as well)

• Laburnum School was closed despite protests from parents and the community

• Estate management has been handed over to private companies – tenants and leaseholders weren’t even given the choice of staying with the council

• Grant funding to Apples & Pears adventure playground and the One O’clock club has been cut

There will be another council election in two years time. It is our view that Labour do not deserve to keep representing this ward. We think there should be another independent working class challenge to Labour – whether this is us, or other independent working class candidates. That challenge has already begun. We know how to fight elections now, but we also understand that community politics is not about ticking a box once every four years. It’s about our involvement in the day to day issues of Haggerston. We will work with anyone who wants to fight Labour’s plans for privatising and gentrifying this area.

 

 

NEWS UPDATES

Tenants Petition ShOW over New Development
Activists from the Shoreditch Tenants Association have been petitioning the estates in the Pitfield Street area of Hoxton about the proposed redevelopment of the old cinema. Shoreditch Our Way (ShOW) have pushed a bid for the site, currently a warehouse. They say they want to reopen it as a community cinema. However, the planning application leaves it open for “mixed use”. Local residents are clear that while they would welcome a local community cinema — including a Saturday Morning Club for local children — they object to more yuppie flats and late-night bars. In short, local people do not want the so-called Shoreditch “cultural quarter”, with its high prices and anti-social behaviour, to creep further North from Hoxton Square into residential areas. Shoreditch T/A’s petition will be submitted to both ShOW and Hackney Council’s Planning Office.

£30 million – Down the Drain?
Hackney hit the headlines again with the closure of the £30million Clissold Leisure Centre. During the last election, the IWCA campaigned for “the re-opening of Haggerston Pool as a publicly owned facility at affordable prices.” A fraction of the cost of Clissold would have refurbished Haggerston Pool, but New Labour preferred to open their very own Millennium Dome in the borough instead.

Working Class Candidate for London Mayor
The IWCA recently announced its candidate for the London Mayoral election on June 10th. Lorna Reid, 39, is an advice worker who lives on a council estate in Islington. She aims to give a voice to the concerns of the millions of working class people in London who find they are ignored by the mainstream parties. The message she is sending is: “We live here too!”

More information: http://www.iwca.info

Get Involved with Community Politics!
This newsletter is put together by community activists who want to work together to defend working class interests in Haggerston and Hackney. If you would like to work with us then contact 020 7684 1743

The Truth about the Olympics
Ken Livingstone and New Labour are promoting the lower Lea Valley for the 2012 Olympic Games. While vital sports provision for the rest of us continues to be cut (bear in mind that dozens of football pitches on the marshes will be lost to make way for a coach park), what is being kept quiet is the plan if the Olympics doesn’t happen.

Thousands of jobs will be lost from the hundreds of local companies who will be evicted, so that thousands of riverside flats for Canary Wharf yuppies can be built.

Camden Tenants Fight Housing Privatisation
Housing Minister, Keith Hill called tenants in Camden “irrational” after they threw out government plans to hand their homes over to an ‘Arms Length Management Organisation’ (ALMO). More than 3 out of 4 tenants voted against the ALMO, rejecting the advice of Labour councillors, highly-paid consultants and top council officers. ALMOs are limited companies, set up to run council housing but tenants realised that it would quickly be sold off to a housing association. There has to be another vote before this can happen, but the ALMO is just a half-way house which the Council uses to get tenants used to the idea that Council housing should be privately run.

Minister Keith Hill has shown the contempt he has for tenants who don’t just go along with Labour’s privatisation plans and who want improved council housing with no strings attached. Watch out for Labour’s plans for bringing in an ALMO in Hackney.

New Labour – Privatise Locally, Privatise Globally
The charity War on Want has recently criticised the government severely for tie-ing overseas aid to the privatisation of public services. Hackney residents have become very familiar with New Labour’s fetish for privatisation. However, until recently most of us didn’t know that New Labour’s commitment to selling off everything that moves also extends to Africa, Asia and South America…


More "Social Cleansing" for Hoxton

The old cinema on Pitfield Street, Hoxton is next in line to be redeveloped into exclusive flats. It’s part of the process that has been driving local, working class families out of the area and importing new “yuppie settlers”. The IWCA has long opposed this trend in the borough and elsewhere, arguing that the needs of the working class majority should take precedence over those of the moneyed newcomers. But with more and more of our local resources being sold off and buildings such as Laburnum School, Haggerston Pool and many other schools and nurseries under threat, where will it all end?

Below: flyposter making local peoples’ views clear:


Light Up Shoreditch

Hackney IWCA (Hackney Independent as of summer 2004) has launched a campaign in Shoreditch to pressure the council to prioritise working class areas for improved street lighting.

Jules Pipe – Hackney’s New Labour mayor – has pledged to improve lighting throughout the Borough as a key part of his anti-crime strategy.Hackney IWCA spokesperson Carl Taylor said:

 “One of our criticisms of the Mayor is that we do not believe he will ask the council to prioritise those areas that need most improvement, working class areas of the Borough where crime and anti-social behaviour, and the fear of it, is the top priority for tenants and residents.”

This has been borne out by a street survey carried out with local residents recently – in a small dark, area of Haggerston ward – where 14 street lamps were discovered to be out of order. They have been reported to the council.

The Light Up Shoreditch! campaign seeks to encourage Shoreditch tenants and residents to join in demanding the council takes action now.

But in launching the campaign, Hackney Independent also attacked the limitations of the council’s own anti-crime strategy.

IWCA supporters putting the spotlight on lighting

IWCA supporters putting the spotlight on lighting

“Jules Pipe has made improved street lighting the core plank of his anti-crime strategy. We think that is pulling the wool over people’s eyes. In Shoreditch – and across Hackney – a large number of community facilities have had their funding cut or been closed. Restoring access to these facilities for young people will do far more in the fight against crime than changing a few light bulbs. We recognise that better street lighting can help reduce crime, but we won’t be fooled into thinking it should be the core part of the council’s strategy,” Carl Taylor added.

Winter 2002 Newsletter

 

How many councillors does it take to change a lightbulb?

The IWCA survey in Haggerston last year proved what everybody knows: that crime and anti-social behaviour is the biggest single issue in the ward. If you have not been directly affected by crime then it has probably affected one of your friends or family. This isn¹t whipping up the fear of crime ­ this is how we are living.

Tony Blair famously said that a New Labour government would be “tough on crime and tough on the causes of crime.” Recently a series of measures to punish the perpetrators of anti-social behaviour was unveiled. But much of this is like closing the stable door after the horse has bolted.

How can Labour seriously claim to be tough on the causes of crime in inner-city areas like Hackney when its local councils are cutting the resources that we depend on to ensure that young people don¹t get involved in crime in the first place?

This is not to excuse anti-social behaviour. Muggings, assaults and lesser offences make our lives a misery and should not be tolerated. But any serious solution must recognise that without access to real opportunities some young people will start to offend.

In the current issue of Hackney Today our New Labour mayor tells us that the solution to tackling crime is “by fixing or upgrading street lights and putting in CCTV in high crime areas”. This really is an insult to our intelligence. It is not just that CCTV does hardly anything to reduce crime (as government reports acknowledge). It is that New Labour also presides over the slashing of resources that would go some way to preventing young people involving themselves in crime. You just have to turn the page to see how this is happening in Haggerston.

Hackney Council cuts are causing crime.

Improved street and estate lighting would not solve all our problems but we do know that muggers prefer to operate in the dark and reports show that lighting can be an effective way of reducing criminal activity. The mayor says he wants to improve street lighting. However we don¹t believe that Labour will prioritise working class areas.

That¹s why the IWCA is launching a campaign to improve the lighting in this area. It will be the main subject at the ward meeting in December. (see box below). Come along and support the campaign. We will be contacting every tenant and community group, as well as the schools, asking for their support.

And we need to hear from you. We want you to call and tell us the blocks where the lights haven¹t been working, where the darkest spots are, and if you want to help with the campaign. You can leave a message on 7684 1743.

Together we can force this council to fulfil its responsibilities ­ by lighting up Shoreditch.

Haggerston News Updates

ONE O’CLOCK CLUBS

We reported in the last issue of this newsletter, that the Haggerston One O¹Clock Club, which is based in Haggerston Park, was due to close next year ­ due to having it¹s funding withdrawn.

The good news ­ Hackney Council has given it another year¹s funding. The bad news ­ What will happen to this valuable local service, if it can¹t get funding after that ?

We have consistently stated that Hackney Council should fulfil its obligations and fund groups like this, for the long term. Otherwise how can they plan for the future, and look to expand on and improve the services they currently offer ­ if they are continually victim to this short-term funding mentality ?

Ok, they may be able to get money from the central government Sure Start initiative (which is aimed at families with children 0-4 years of age), but this will not run for ever, and again it lets the council off the hook.

These alternative funding regimes are all well and good, but more often than not they are used to fill gaps in the existing services, rather than improve and provide new ones, which is what they are supposedly intended for ­ where¹s the logic in that ?

APPLES & PEARS

Mixed news from the Apples and Pears adventure playground. Earlier this year the IWCA backed the parents¹ campaign to stop the Council selling off their site for a housing development. The Council dropped these plans, but then has tried a new way of forcing Apples and Pears off the site ­ by bringing in a high rent and cutting their grant.

The Council tried to get a £1000 a year rent, with a review after two years. Bear in mid that until now there was no rent to pay ­ and why should there?

The Apples and Pears went to court and got a new seven year lease with no rent review. Bu they still need to raise the £1000 rent each year.

The Council was trying to get the Apples and Pears to run on a grant of £10,000 for 6 months. Through campaigning the parents got this increased to £20,000. This might seem like a victory ­ but again bear in mind that they used to get £40,000 for 6 months ­ so it is actually a cut of 50% – and the council want them to keep opening for the same hours for this money.

The IWCA supports the parents and believes the Council should bring back the full £80,000 a year grant, stop charging them rent and look to give further one-off grants to improve the facilities.

HAGGERSTON POOL

During the Mayoral elections the Haggerston Pool Campaign called a meeting for all Mayor candidates to ask their views. Only one candidate did not promise to re-open the Pool.

You¹ve guessed it ­ Labour¹s Jules Pipe. He then got elected as Mayor ­ with 10% of the vote.

The New Deal (or “Shoreditch Our Way”) continue to push the proposal to put private flats into Haggerston Pool. This issue was discussed at the New Deal¹s Area 4 Forum ­ covering all the estates around the Pool like St Mary¹s, Kingsland and Fellows Court. The Forum voted against the plan for private flats. What was the response of £65,000 a year New Deal Director Michael Pyner? “I¹m ruling nothing out.”

And they keep telling us that the New Deal is community-led. Community mis-led more like. The IWCA will continue to fight along with the wider community to re-open Haggerston Pool with no private flats on the site.

WHAT A LOAD OF RUBBISH!


IWCA members toured every estate in Haggerston one week after the bin strike and found that many were still suffering the effects. Yet our inspection of surrounding street properties found no major problems. Lets be clear – we have no problem with Bin workers striking for more pay. The issue here is that yet again the council has put the maintenance of estates second.

“It was no surprise to us that the Council had left the estates till last as usual, while putting the needs of those in big houses around London Fields first. After all that¹s where the Labour vote is these days” stated the IWCA¹s Carl Taylor in the Hackney Gazette (November 21st).

“IWCA policy is that the estates should be cleared first. This is not just because we always put the needs of the working class first. It also makes sense to us that if 40 flats share one communal bin area you clear that before someone who has their own front and back garden and has a chance of managing their own rubbish.”

Kingsland Estate Tenant & Resident Association Chair Anna Maria Mari echoed the IWCA position. Standing with IWCA members and Kingsland Estate residents by a pile of rubbish that had piled up over the previous two weeks, she stated “We¹ve had enough. We¹re fed up with being at the end of the line. The Council isn¹t managing our estate properly. We¹re considering managing it ourselves.”

Margaret McTernan, pictured with her children Shannon and Sean McCarton said she thought that it was “disgusting” that the rubbish had been left for so long.

The IWCA¹s Peter Sutton said it was ” a disgrace and a health risk” that the Council had left the huge pile of rubbish at Hebden Court, Kingsland Estate. While this was the worst case, estates across the Ward were left with piles of rubbish. Peter criticised the local Labour councillors, “The IWCA may have narrowly lost the election in Haggerston to Labour, but where are our Labour councillors now? We¹re the ones going around the Ward, taking up local issues and campaigning alongside the community. What did Haggerston¹s Labour councillors do about the Council¹s failure to clear the rubbish from our estates?”

After pressure from residents, the tenant association, the IWCA and an article in the Gazette, the Council finally cleared the rubbish 13 days after the strike ended.

Hawksley 2 Orange 0

The ever-vigilant residents of Hawksley Court Estate, in Albion Road, Stoke Newington, have been out on the streets again.

This time, they have managed to prevent contractors on 2 occasions from gaining access to the estate to erect a mobile telephone mast for Orange. On the last successful blockade a few weeks ago, residents waved placards with the clear message “Hawksley 2 ­ Orange 0”.

Unfortunately, the new Mayor of Hackney, Jules Pipe, has decided to get in on the act, and showed his face on one of the blockades. Full of bluff and bluster, he issued a statement saying, “Once again I call on Orange to take the moral course of action and not enforce this contract. Otherwise I will be joining local residents in physically seeking to prevent them from getting onto the estate”.

He also goes on to add that the council “MISTAKENLY” signed the contract, which allowed companies like Orange and BT to install these masts on a number of housing estates across the borough. We would argue that Hackney Council “DELIBERATELY” signed these contracts, because it was desperate to get it¹s hands on the few thousands of pounds being offered by these companies, to install these masts on council property. Also, if it means a few working-class people getting ill due to the radiation that comes from them ­ who cares ­ certainly not the likes of Jules Pipe.

Finally, if Orange and the other mobile phone companies are to be permanently prevented from carrying out these installations, it will be down to the hard work and organisation of residents on this and other Hackney estates ­ not a few fine words from the new Mayor of Hackney.

PRICED OUT OF COMMUNITY HALLS

No sooner was New Labour leader Jules Pipe elected as Hackney¹s Mayor than we hear of plans to start charging “market rents” for using the borough’s community halls. The impact this will have on groups who use the borough’s rooms and halls ­ whether for keep fit for pensioners or martial arts for youngsters, prayer meetings or line-dancing ­ is predictable. A lot of very ordinary but worthwhile activities will stop altogether if participants cannot afford to shell out.

A special case has been made for political or lobbying groups; they will not be able to use the halls AT ALL whether they can afford to or not. The IWCA uses halls and rooms in Haggerston and Hoxton to run benefit and housing surgeries for tenants and residents and local residents have made use of community halls to organise campaigns protesting against the council¹s inaction over abandoned cars or the closure of Laburnum school.

If Labour’s proposals go through they will have put another significant barrier in the way of people who want to organise to resist cuts and campaign for improved local services.

If you use a community hall for any activity and want to know how this will affect you then contact the council and ask them. Let us know what response you got by leaving a message on 020 7684 1743 letting us know what group you are from and which hall/room you use.

We almost forgot to tell you…


Stuart Craft became the IWCA’s first councillor, when he was elected to represent the Blackbird Leys Estate, on the outskirts of Oxford.

There were also very good results for our other candidates who stood in Islington and Havering. On average we gained over 25% of the vote in every area the IWCA stood.

Hackney IWCA election candidate, Peter Sutton, said, “This was a great result in Oxford, and the IWCA in Hackney and the other areas will be looking to build on this success in the 2006 elections”.

He went on to add, “We are now concentrating our efforts on getting more local residents involved in the organisation, because the bigger we are, the more effective we can and need to be, in this area. So, if you like what you read in this newsletter, and you think things need to change for working-class people in Haggerston, please get in touch with us.”

NEW LABOUR: SAME OLD STORY

The victory of the Labour candidate, Jules Pipe, in Hackney’s mayoral election now gives them a 33 seat council majority, two MPs and a national Government. Hackney ­ or what is left after large parts of it have been handed over to a series of unelected bodies – is now completely under Labour control. Years of incompetence and corruption have led to the borough being massively in debt. One of the solutions to this problem has been to brutally cut and privatise services. Almost no area has been left untouched, apart of course from the salaries of senior council staff such as Chief Executive Max Caller and his councillor chums. (The latest kick in the teeth is the revelation that councillor salaries are set to soar.)

One other solution, part of the council’s long term plan for the borough, is to replace the working class majority with a higher earning and higher spending middle class. Fewer undesirable working class people means the council has to provide less of the services these undesirables use: nurseries, health care, school places, council housing. This social cleansing of Hackney’s most deprived areas is the reality behind all the talk about regeneration and New Deals.

Every public service in Hackney ­ like many at a national level ­ has been looked at closely with an eye to privatisation, excepting those that have already been closed down or those that cannot yet be legally farmed out to the private sector. For example, in a Council press release entitled “Exciting Improvements to Hackney Leisure Centres”, Labour outline the handing over of parts of Kings Hall and Britannia leisure centres to company Leisure Connection to turn them into private fitness clubs. We are assured that this will provide an “affordable fitness solution”. But as the IWCA asked in a recent letter to the Hackney Gazette: “Are prices going to be affordable to all sections of our community”?

In Shoreditch we have seen Haggerston Pool close with no commitment from Labour to reopen it. Local facilities are constantly under threat of grant cuts or closure. The extension of the privatisation of housing management and the stock transfer of whole estates hangs over the area. Public land is being auctioned off ­ sometimes at give-away prices ­ for developers to build yuppie flats.

Prior to the elections in May, Labour had very little to say about their plans for cuts and sell-offs.

Perhaps if they had been honest about what the council was going to do with Apples & Pears and Laburnum School our three Labour councillors would not have been elected. But of course, the Lib-Dems and the Tories are no better. The Tories¹ national record and the Lib-Dems¹ privatisation of neighbouring Islington¹s council services provides more than enough evidence of what their agenda¹s really are.

The IWCA is the real opposition to Labour in Haggerston. We came close to taking at least one of their seats in the May elections having said very clearly that we supported the campaign to reopen Haggerston Pool and opposed cuts in local services.

The IWCA’s priorities for Shoreditch could not be more different to New Labour’s. Our concern is for the ordinary people of this area ­ where we live and how we are living ­ not to try to solve our problems by either pretending they don’t exist or farming off much-needed facilities to the private sector.


Autumn 2002 Newsletter

 

NEW DEAL
ShOWing Themselves Up
In 1999 the IWCA was the first group to come out publicly and say that there was a problem with the New Deal for Shoreditch. There was a big row about it at the time, and the New Deal printed a page in their newsletter attacking us, but it is worth quoting from what we wrote 3 years ago:

“£50 million sounds like a lot, but by the time they pay their consultants and put up new lamp posts and railings there will be very little left. Hackney¹s councillors, officer and housing associations plan to use the New Deal to make a permanent change to Shoreditch. They want to change the profile of the population from it being a working class area to it being a middle class playground ­ with canal-side flats within easy reach of the City and all the yuppie bars and restaurants.”

So were we right?

Sara Adams, writing in the Wenlock Barn TMO newsletter this July, stated that as part of the New Deal “residents have felt disempowered and that their voices have not been heard or simply did not matter. The problem was that ShOW (the New Deal¹s new name) was not just representing the interests of local people, but also that of Government, Local Authority and Business. Residents views were not adhered to because often they were in conflict with these other aims.”

Of course the New Deal has done some good things, under pressure from the community, and of course Hackney Council is a bigger problem. But from the very start the New Deal have been committed to bringing in more private housing and less council housing. It is in the delivery plan ­ their founding statement. We know that most of the community reps disagree with it – but it is what the New Deal¹s paid staff are working towards.

That is why they have pushed demolition of our homes so hard before, and why they have not given up on it yet.

And the good things the New Deal have done have all been things that the Council should be doing. We were promised new money for the area ­ but the truth is that the council have pulled huge amounts of funding out of Shoreditch and New Deal money has been used to plug the gaps.

It¹s not all bad news, though. The elections for the Board are coming up again and we expect nominations to be in by the end of the year.

Candidates are coming together who will try to make the New Deal more accountable to the community, who won¹t let decisions be taken behind closed doors, who will oppose demolition of our homes and who will try to rein in the consultants and privatisers around the New Deal. Sara Adams argues that having two Wenlock Barn TRA members on the Board “has ensured that the consultation with the estate has evolved around the wishes of local tenants.” Lets get 12 community reps elected onto the Board who can block the privatisation agenda and argue for a Shoreditch that puts working class interests first.

REAL NEWS FROM HOXTON & HAGGERSTON

HAGGERSTON POOL – YUPPIE FLATS?
Since Councillor David Young promised to save Haggerston Pool two years ago, there hasn¹t been much good news about it.

During the recent election the IWCA campaigned on a programme of supporting “the re-opening of Haggerston Pool as a publicly owned facility at affordable prices.” We take the 610 votes that we got as a mandate to keep campaigning on the Pool issue and to oppose the private-sector solutions that are now emerging.

Hackney Council and the New Deal for Shoreditch’s new plan involves:

*No money from the Council for repairing or running the Pool
* The New Deal to use its funds to carry out some of the repairs
* 30 Private flats to be built on the site
We oppose this, because before we know it, once the flats get built, the developers will apply pressure to get the whole building converted into yet another private housing development.

45 people attended the IWCA Haggerston Ward meeting in July and voted unanimously against any flats in the Pool. We need the building re-opened as a pool and we need the Council to pay for it. After all, they found millions to open Clissold Pool for Stoke Newington ­ so why not the same in Haggerston ?

The Pool User Group meets on the second Thursday of every month at 7pm at the Fellows Court Community Centre. All welcome.

Why is the Library closed on Saturdays?

If you’ve tried to visit your local library on a Saturday recently, you will have noticed it was shut. Why is this?
In October 2001, Hackney Council breached a nationally reached agreement, which ensures all library staff that work on a Saturday get what is in effect “overtime” pay.

Because of this library workers across Hackney have been on strike for nearly a year now, to try and get this money back from their employer. They are not doing this because they are greedy or they want to stop people using the libraries; but because like a lot of people in this borough, they are poorly paid and rely on this additional day¹s pay to make ends meet.

The Council has also recently been advertising for “Saturday Library Assistants”, who will be non-unionised and are being cynically used to break the strike. The irony being it will cost more to employ these agency staff, than it would be to pay the librarians what they are asking for, and settle the dispute once and for all. Make sense of that if you can!

The union is also accusing Hackney Council of “political manipulation”, because Max Caller, the Council¹s Chief Executive, has asked in a leaked memo that this change be delayed until after the mayoral election “to prevent unnecessary industrial action during the election campaign”. After all, we can¹t have Council Leader, Jules Pipe’s mayoral campaign interrupted – can we now?

WENLOCK BARN YOUTH CLUB BLOCKED
Three years ago, we had high hopes of getting a youth club when Islington & Shoreditch Housing Association bought up three sites just to the south of the estate.

Two sites were to be used for housing and the other for our youth club. The final result – two sites developed for housing and no sign of the youth club. Hackney Council got involved first and sold off the last site for £5 million. And we haven¹t even seen the benefits of any of that money.

To make matters worse estate agents Nelson Bakewell have sold off the nearby community nature site. Some people with long memories remember the site being given to Wenlock Barn TA on behalf of the community by the GLC. In those days we had some councillors who cared about the community and understood the need for open spaces.

But hats off to the Tenants & Residents Association (TRA) for getting an injunction to stop the Council selling off any sites on the Wenlock Barn estate itself.

Wenlock Barn TRA office is open between 12- 3pm on the last Sunday of the month, or ring them on 020 7684 2551.

APPLES & PEARS – THE ADVENTURE CONTINUES
This year, the Apples & Pears Adventure Playground in Pearson Street, celebrates 25 years of providing a free and safe play environment for local kids. It also occupies a prime piece of land. No surprise then that Hackney Council has wanted to sell it off. Pressure from the community made this a big issue in the run up to the local elections in May. Labour councillors knew this could cost them the election and so they had to stop the sale.

But the council now have a new plan- they are trying to increase the rent on the site until Apples & Pears can no longer afford it. Then the council would be free to sell off the land. To make matters worse, the council has cut the Apples & Pears¹ grant but insists on them providing the same activities as when they got a full grant.

Earlier this year Apples & Pears took the council to court but have now entered into negotiations around the lease. They have said if they do not get what they want, they will continue with their legal action. For now, the parents’ campaign continues…

KEEP LABURNUM SCHOOL OPEN!
Hackney Council say they are consulting on whether to close Laburnum School. If they are listening, there’s a clear answer ­ the kids, parents and the wider community are saying KEEP LABURNUM SCHOOL OPEN.
The Council say that the kids can go to other schools. We say we want to keep the school at the heart of this community. It is an improving school with a new head, new computer room, new science room, new funds to improve the playground and to put in security cameras. And after all this hard work ­ now Hackney Council wants to close it down.

The Council say that if they close the school they will try to put a secondary school there, and if that doesn¹t work they will sell the site. We are no fools. We know that it is too small for a secondary school. And that leaves the plan like it always was ­ to sell the school site to developers.

Our Labour councillors knew about this during the elections in May. They hid the issue during the election, and have hidden from the issue since then.

While parents, kids and staff, with support from the IWCA, have campaigned to keep the school open, Labour councillors have kept their heads down. Already many Laburnum parents are saying that they will never support Labour again.

SHOREDITCH CENTRE: NO TO DEVELOPERS
Residents living near to the Shoreditch Centre behind the Hackney Road bingo hall are opposed to Hackney Council’s recent sell-off of this former centre for people with disabilities.

“The developers plan to flatten the Victorian school and cram in 22 high density flats which will be sold off privately. Why should we lose our community resources and put up with an overcrowded neighbourhood, just because greedy developers have realised the area is now trendy?” says Lucy Guo of Dawson Street.

Residents of all 30 flats in Dunloe Court have signed a petition to stop the development. The Hells Angels, whose London HQ is opposite the site are also opposed. Campaigners believe that the site has been flogged off cheap at about £1/2 million and have discovered that the site will be worth around £1.5 million. This means that the speculators will make around £1 million within a few months.

” This is outrageous considering that it was sold in order to help pay off Hackney’s colossal debt. The building belonged to the community and Hackney had no right to sell it. We will fight to stop the development of the site. This is another story about the most vulnerable members of our society being disenfranchised by the naked greed of speculators and developers,” says neighbour Andrew Lord.

The Save the Shoreditch Centre Campaign can be contacted on 020 7729 8677.

Time up for One O’clock Clubs?
The Haggerston One O’Clock Club is a playgroup aimed at parents with babies and toddlers. Situated in Haggerston Park, it is a haven for young families where parents can chat and the kids can play in well supervised surroundings.

There are two other clubs in the Borough: Springfield Park is due to close this year after Hackney Council withdrew its funding. Parents have been given a 3 month extension to raise their own money to keep it open.

Haggerston One O¹Clock Club will also have its funding withdrawn and is expected to close next year unless other money can be found.

The IWCA supports parents in their search for alternative funding, but we strongly believe that Hackney Council should continue to provide long-term support out of the Council Tax. Our community has seen enough butchering of the facilities used by working class residents. As Celia, a playworker at Haggerston says, ” There¹s less for our kids to do now than there was 30 years ago.”

CANALSIDE – BROKEN PROMISES
During the ballot on Haggerton East and Whitmore estates being sold off, there were no bigger cheer-leaders for privatisation than Labour councillors Fran Pearson and David Young. Now some of the chickens are coming home to roost – the Canalside private landlord is trying to give 47 flats to so-called “key workers” on rents of around £50 a week extra instead of housing local people. Fran Pearson voted for this on the Canalside Board, while David Young ducked out of the meeting and has kept quiet on the issue.

What should local councillors be doing? It’s quite simple. Work with the tenants’ association, who oppose the high rent scheme. Use your votes on the Canalside Board to oppose it. Get the Council to oppose the scheme and put pressure on Canalside to drop it.

There is a reason why Labour councillors aren’t doing any of these things. Labour prefers having middle class hospital managers and high-grade civil servants moving into the area. The IWCA will always put the interests of the working class first.

Two Canalside Board members did come out publicly against the scheme. Nick Strauss and Sheila Seabury wrote “This is bad for people waiting for housing in Hackney, bad for Canalside tenants waiting for transfers and bad for key workers.” Nick and Sheila have now been suspended from the Canalside Board for speaking their minds.


The Real Face of Regeneration

Regeneration or Social Cleansing
The Hackney Independent newsletter has been drawing attention to the real nature of regeneration in Shoreditch for the last three years. It sounds good. Who wouldn’t want money spent in their area: encouraging new job and educational opportunities, less crime on the streets, better housing and community facilities…? But the experience of local people is that it often does nothing for them. Usually the opposite. Regeneration schemes are often another way of socially cleansing working class areas to make room for yuppies.

The New Deal schemes are a prime example of this. The government offered Shoreditch £50 million for regeneration, and set up a board partly comprised of local people to ensure it was spent in our interests. Local people said they wanted the money to be spent on refurbishing homes. The government said ‘no’. The money will only be spent if the community agrees to less council homes in the area and more high-rent or private flats. Now Shoreditch Our Way, eager to please the government, is using the money to buy public land to sell for private flats – claiming this is a victory for local people! ShOW have commissioned reports that recommend the demolition of council housing. Even their plans for the reopening of Haggerston Pool include the development of private flats.

Another recent example is the plan to redevelop Kingsland Basin. £116 million is to be ‘invested’ in the area by a private developer to build ‘live-work’ units, ie yuppie flats, but there will be no affordable housing for local people. Even MP Brian Sedgemore – not known for speaking up about the effects of regeneration in his constituency – has spoken out about the yuppie invasion. De Beauvoir estate’s tenants & residents association are right to point to the fact that Kingsland basin will be lost to local people if the development goes ahead.

The director of the company involved, Investland, says “they would rather lift people out of social housing by providing jobs than create more social housing” (Hackney Gazette, 18 July 2002). How stupid do these people think we are?!

More private flats to buy or at high rents means less affordable housing for local families. Sons and daughters are forced to move away as property prices soar and affordable housing vanishes. The new city workers don’t need a lot of the facilities that local people do, so the swimming baths are shut, nurseries and youth facilities are threatened. New shops and bars don’t employ local people and don’t charge prices we can afford.

The Council is not neutral in this process. It encourages the process of regeneration – and the privatisation that goes with it : the council makes it harder for working class people to stay in the area by cutting funding to the nurseries and clubs etc that local people depend on; it collects rent but often does no repairs, deliberately running down some estates so people will welcome new private landlords that will charge higher rents; it sells its land to property developers who build more expensive flats but it does not reinvest the money where it is needed.

Hackney Independent is not opposed to regeneration, but we are opposed to what is being done in its name. If the New Deals were genuinely run by locally elected people instead of by consultants and business people we would not have much to complain about, if the government would offer money without attaching strings that were not in the interests of local people we wouldn’t be so critical, if the council used our money to improve our lives we wouldn’t be opposing them.

Regeneration is a massive con trick being perpetrated by New Labour, the other political parties and their middle class cheer-leaders. Hackney Independent opposes it in its current form because we are sick of being pushed around and pushed out, of being patronised and dictated to, because we should be given a real say in how we run our own lives…


Shoreditch Tenants – Being Realistic?

Hackney IWCA (Hackney Independent as of summer 2004) member and Chair of Wenlock Barn tenant association, Tony Butler replies to Housing Minister Lord Falconer’s comments that Shoreditch tenants need to be “realistic” as reported in the Guardian on February 14th.

To respond to Lord Faulkers comments “the community need to be realistic” because we choose to have our homes refurbished rather than knocked down – Reported in your article (Flagship scheme under threat) 14 February.

The opposition in Shoreditch to demolition is based on sound reasoning as we know it is backdoor privatisation. No new build homes in Hackney have been council homes. Redeveloped estates Hackney never have the same amount of social homes as before demolition and tenant returnee rates have been abysmally low.

The fact is there is a homeless crisis in Hackney and London. Temporary decantees from demolition in Shoreditch are unlikely ever to return as the Council’s policy is to house those who are the destitute and most vulnerable as an absolute priority. Holly Street is the classic and typical example. Lauded by the PM and in Re-gen circles. 3000 homes demolished 2000 home new build, 800 RSL’s homes, and the rest open market sales. A report commissioned by London Borough of Hackney acknowledges only 1 in 10 tenants returned.

The change in the economic profile of the new residents in Holly Street has been celebrated as an added bonus. New Build, New people, and hey presto! The Government & Hackney has solved the social problems of poverty, deprivation. Simply by dispersing it. We don’t fancy being replaced with anyone including those middle income KEY WORKERS.

We know that talk of ‘Tenure diversification’ of working class areas is all the rage Re-gen circles. Its funny how they never talk about merits of Tenure diversification in Surbiton, Barnes, Hampstead, Buckinghamshire, the Home Counties or any other up market areas where they live. The bottom line is that gentrification/social cleansing is pushing working people out of inner London through the combination of Government/Local Authority housing polices and good old market forces.

Most people in Shoreditch know that they will never be able to afford, or be eligible for the Shiny new homes on offer after demolition; all we want is for our existing homes to be renewed.

That is being realist Lord Faulkner

Tony Butler
Wenlock Tenants and Residents Association
Shoreditch