Politicians have joined residents in opposing plans to build a four-tower residential complex in the heart of Shoreditch.
Meg Hillier, MP for Hackney South and Shoreditch, and Jennette Arnold, the London Assembly member for Hackney, have spoken out against the proposed redevelopment of Bishopsgate Goods Yard.
Speaking to the Hackney Post yesterday, Ms Hillier said that it could turn Tech City into “Ghost City”.
“What we need to do is preserve the best of Shoreditch by allowing small businesses access to space. We don’t want to become a dormitory.”
Interim plans for redevelopment of the site, situated just behind Shoreditch High Street, were submitted to both Hackney and Tower Hamlets councils in 2010 by developers Hammerson and Ballymore.
Anger has arisen over the design and height of the towers, the tallest of which is set to be 48 storeys high. The Tea Building, Shoreditch’s current tallest building, is only eight storeys.
The redevelopment would create up to 2,000 new homes as well as office space, shops and leisure facilities. However, only 10 per cent of the Bishopsgate Goods Yard complex is expected to offer affordable dwellings.
Ms Arnold said: “Rest assured, I will be doing all I can to ensure that this development does not simply become another playground of the rich.
“I am all too aware of the number of luxury and market-rate housing developments that have sprung up around London recently, and the plans for Bishopsgate Goods Yard mimic this trend.”
Residents have been involved in a number of community consultations and argue that the final design has gone directly against their feedback.
Matt Johnson, a local artist who was involved in the initial steering group, said: “The developers said that they wanted to get involved with the local community as much as possible.
“I continually brought up our main concerns to do with overshadowing and loss of light, of which they assured us there’d be very little.
“Once they unveiled their plans and we saw that the smallest building was going to be 20 storeys, I just went ‘f***k you – this is a complete charade!’ Instead of being a grassroots consultation, it was astroturf: the whole thing was fake.
“They spent a lot of money basically misleading the entire community.”
Hammerson and Ballymore’s own surveyors have confirmed that the towers will cut natural daylight in the surrounding areas by 45 per cent, leaving Brick Lane, Liverpool Street and Great Eastern Street in semi-permanent shadow.
Public consultation on the project was due to end on 8 November, but owing to an unprecedented level of feedback the deadline for comments has been extended until the New Year.
The East End Preservation Society and the blogger Spitalfields Life have both called on people to register their objections to Hackney and Tower Hamlets councils.
