Designs have been unveiled for a multi-million pound fashion hub, bringing some ghetto chic to the borough’s traditionally mean streets.
Chatham Place and Morning Lane are being transformed into a high-end ‘shopping village’, the first to be built in an inner-city area. The £100 million project is part of a push to revamp the bedraggled streets.
The site, already home to Pringle of Scotland, Burberry and Aquascutum stores, was dubbed last year by Vogue as the capital’s latest luxury fashion hotspot. The shops already attract 600,000 customers a year, many of whom are Asian tourists, arriving on organised coach trips before hurriedly exiting the borough again.
The next stage of work, to be completed by 2016, would see the Duke of Wellington pub, converted last autumn into the Pringle store, demolished. The gravel pit chapel, sitting just across the road, will
also be knocked down; although Aquascutum now occupies this building, it was once the pulpit where Joseph Priestley, who discovered oxygen, preached.
If planning permission is granted, these buildings will give way to 7,000 square metres of retail space, including shops, restaurants and design studios. The 21 railway arches that run along the side of Morning Lane will also be converted into boutiques and cafes.
Investment includes £2 million from the £70 million earmarked by the Greater London Authority for post-riot regeneration, but the project, announced by the council in January 2012, has not still met with universal approval.
A spoof website, Hackney Haute Quarter, has been set up, promising opportunities for “the most daring brands in fashion to build on the area’s anti-social capital.”
Well let me give you some facts about whats happening on Morning lane..
All local businesses forced out from the arches by Network Rail..
They have been scared by law-sharks with court letters, bailiffs etc..
Rents are sky high (already) in the area..
There is only one garage left fighting with eviction called Sutherland Motors by Ponsford Road.
This business established in 1946 and trading since.
One of the first MOT garage in London.
Training up to 5 apprentices a year and feeding 6 families.
Network Rail offers only £16000 (sixteen-thousand) to them to move out. They obviously refused it and fighting their case on court. You may never hear their stories since MP`s and Newspapers (they have contacted) are keeping it hush hush..
If you ever walk around that area pop-in to Sutherland Motors and give them your support.
Over 30 businesses forced to move without being relocated or compensated.
The question is; Is the re-generation for the local community or for the property owners.
Hackney has been reducing local housing while the demand has been increasing
over the years now the aim is on local businesses on the high street and in the arches.
Hackney council has millions of pounds in overseas accounts gaining interest.
and rail track is a billion pound private corporation.
Do these organisations need funding from taxpayers???
Re-generation should be for local community and for local businesses.
Hackney fashion hub (as seen on the plans) will not create
any jobs or any skilled jobs for local people.
Over 200 employees lost their skilled jobs without any redundancy or compensation.
Hackney needs investments for local youths. The fashion college generally attracts
middle class students from affluent areas of London and overseas.
What re-generation offers to local youth is a very small space to exhibit their works.
There is no promise of any apprenticeships or any platform to help these students further their careers.
The only beneficery to this project seems to be corporate landlords receiving grants
to improve their properties so that they can gain more profits by charging high rent commercial
properties; which they should be maintaining to high standards anyway
and have been neglecting for decades hence the state of Hackney.
“Designs have been unveiled for a multi-million pound fashion hub, bringing some ghetto chic to the borough’s traditionally mean streets.”
I assume this is meant to be slightly ironic and amusing but I am not sure if people that live in the area would like the term “ghetto” applied to it. Is Chelsea a “ghetto”? The spoif website is a (funnier) attempt to raise some of the issues at stake here. I lived in Hackney for 12 years and resent it being labelled as having “mean” streets. Shabby yes.
All joking aside there are some serious issues about this development which explain why it as not met with “universal approval”. The investment is partly funded by our taxes as part of the response to the damage caused by the riots. But why should taxpayers be funding a “high end fashion development” in the admittedly poor neighbourhood. It is displacing existing local businesses (not just the fashion shops listed) and not clear if it will create many jobs for the amount invested. The council taxes will be helpful but as noted above most the of spending in such developments is from people that are “ferried in and out” so little benefit for the local economy. The investment should be used instead to help regenerate nearby Mare Street (badly damaged by the rioting-which should be completely condemned ) and opportunities for people on the local estates. Otherwise we are simply recreating the conditions of consumerist display alongside deprivation that were the backdrop for the riots?
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