Hackney Council’s ‘nil’ sex policy approved by licensing committee
Still from Hands Off, a film by Winstan Whitter
Hackney Council’s licensing committee this evening voted to approve a new ‘nil’ policy on sex establishments. If approved by full council later this month (26 January) , it will mean that no new strip clubs or sex shops will be allowed to open in any of the borough’s 19 wards (localities). Following a protracted debate, an amended version of the originally-proposed policy was approved by a narrow majority of committee members.
The policy as originally drafted would have threatened Hackney’s five existing ‘sex establishments’.
Hackney currently has one licensed sex shop and four premises (strip clubs) that are “licensed to provide live performances or displays of nudity solely or mainly to sexually stimulate audience members.”
A public consultation on the proposed new measures showed that over two-thirds of respondents were against the complete ban on sex shops and clubs from the borough; the committee nevertheless approved the ‘nil’ policy, with amendments designed to protect establishments that are “longstanding” and “well run”.
This will mean that if any of the five existing premises closes, no new establishment can be expected to be allowed to take its place. If the council decides for whatever reason that one of the establishments is no longer “well run”, it can be closed down.
Commenting on the borough-wide policy which proposes to still allow the existing strip clubs and sex shop in Haggerston ward to continue trading, Cllr Brian Bell (vice-chair of the licensing committee) said: “If you go outside this room and say …[this]… is a ‘nil’ policy, they’d laugh at you.”
Councillors Brian Bell and Rick Muir said they did not think the proposed policy should include sex shops, the latter saying he had not realised that it does in fact include them.
Another of the dissenting committee members, Cllr Geoff Taylor, described the policy as ” not a ‘nil’ policy upfront but a ‘nil’ policy by stealth.”
“What is being hoped for by somebody – and I don’t know who it is – is that the clubs that we’re talking about will wither on the vine, and we will finish up with what the people of Hackney in the consultation have said they don’t want: a nil policy,” he said.
“Because once one closes, anything coming along cannot by definition be a long-standing club, therefore it can’t open…
“So as they close, they will stay closed – despite the fact that two thirds of residents said that wasn’t what they wanted to happen. What was consulted on was either a ‘nil’ policy or no policy, and I don’t approve of the policy… and I don’t approve of the method.”
Cllr Emma Plouviez said that she thought that the proposed ‘nil’ policy is right: “When we had the application for a new establishment in the borough it did provoke more opposition than anything else,” she explained, “that’s where this policy came from, this policy wasn’t dreamed up by a bunch of mad, rabid feminists.”
Campaign group Object have been vociferous in their support of the ‘nil’ policy, while Hackney trade unionists have opposed it.
The policy that the licencing committee has approved will be voted on at a meeting of full council on Wednesday 26 January.
Related:
Sex establishments consultation: majority say no to Hackney Council’s ‘nil’ policy
Hands Off: women speak out over Hackney strip clubs
Strippers and vicar unite to fight cleanup campaign
Hackney TUC condemns council’s proposed ‘nil’ policy on sex establishments
Sex establishments: the other side
The council is trying for, as cllr taylor, said going for a nil policy by stealth. Give it a year and I can see the council finding a reason to change regulations in such a way as to push the businesses out.
The council wanted a consultation and they got a response how can they say well we will have a nil policy when over 2 thirds of the people who voted are against it. What is the point of consultations if the council fail to act of them? The consultation is another waste of money if the nil policy is pushed through like this.
When this nonsense was dreamt up by Harman (a “mad, rabid feminist” if ever there was one !) the official justification was to give local people more of a say on what happened locally. The consultation excersise demonstrated that the “exploited” dancers and locally born female owners of the pubs were against the nil policy, so were the local TUC and GMB, so was the local Vicar, the local Police have no public order or crime problems with the pubs, and now on a big poll the local population has voted heavily against. This though is not good enough for the likes of “Big Nanny” Plouviez who wants to press on regardless. This farce is a nil policy by stealth and the greaseball councillors on the licensing committee that want to carry on will try to revisit this issue when they think nobody is looking at some point in the future. Lets hope there is more integrity on the full council.
As I understand it, the ruling Labour group is far from united on this issue; without the imposition of the party whip, there’s a reasonably good chance that the ‘nil’ proposal will be thrown out by the full council.
It seems, for at least the time being that this rather laughable attempt to impose the will of Object on Hackney is over.
I do not think that any of the venues will close of their own accord. They have been there for 30 years and there is little reason for this not to continue another 30.
The Labour Group is divided and the division is between pragmatic councillors that thought for themselves and reached their own conclusions and their opponents, the politically ‘rad’ who see the borough as a venue for the imposition of their own beliefs.
This has gone some way to restoring my belief in local democracy and I am really hoping that we can go back to our lives now and get onto achieving whatever futures we have planned for ourselves.
Chasmal, I’m not so sanguine as you about local democracy in Hackney when it comes to this issue and am more inclined to agree with Tony’s views, above.
Most politicians would make welcome having a majority the size of the one that voted against a nil policy. The licensing committee’s decision does NOT reflect the majority view. Not that I’m for sex venues here, there and everywhere, but it would have been more democratic to have allowed the existing NUMBER of establishments to continue, whatever happens to the existing venues.
I agree with Gordon, I suspect this “exemptions” thing is just a way of marking time until they get another chance. The “public consultation” overwhelmingly rejected the nil policy but that is what they are doing anyway.
Incidentally I notice our friends from Object are keeping a low profile at the moment, given their normal attitude to the truth I am surprised they have not been claiming victory!
Bill, could it be that Object are beginning to realise that the general public is starting to see through their doctored statistics, out-of-context data and misrepresentations of this country’s licensing system? Or perhaps they’re waiting until the dust has settled, to regroup and start churning out the same Big Lies as soon as the opportunity presents itself.
I think that they will try again, in about a year, but I also suspect it will be a lot harder to change the regulations within the context of the licence.
Object are being very quiet at the moment though. I suspect that they realise that to trumpet victory about a Nil policy that essentially changes nothing would be rather foolish.
Its difficult for me to see where Object can go next. A three year campaign to change the licensing law has, at this point lead to no club closures at all, at least as far as I am aware.
Finally, do you notice how the only people that are contributing to this thread are those that are against the Nil Policy. Where are all of the Object supporters and ‘local residents’ that used to comment?
In the government report on the 2009 criminal bill, councils are warned about groups like Object.This council though probably welcomes their comments and input to justify what is a flawed policy.The council have been debating the nil policy since 2008, yet one of them didn’t know that the policy included sex shops.
Many key members of Object are gender ‘feminists’ (i.e. political misandrists) and the campaign to bring about the closure of striptease venues by a change in the licensing laws is merely the thin end of their agenda, chosen because it the industry was considered a ‘soft’ target; it’s a pity that reputable feminist organisations such as the Fawcett Society fell into the trap of supporting them, and that they were lent credibility by senior ministers (e,g, Harriet Harman, Jacqui Smith) in the last government.
They are indeed gender feminists and were given £35k by the Joseph Rowntree Reform Trust to fund their campaign.
I wonder if certain people convinced themselves that the consultation would be overwhelmingly in favour of the ban and got a nasty surprise when it was published.
The policy may not have been dreamed up ‘by a bunch of mad, rabid feminists’, but it was certainly influenced by them as I understand that Object approached Hackney Council to get the policy created and approved. It is a truly frightening thing when single issue groups start influencing policy.
In an earlier posting posting I expressed hope that their campaign was over. I no longer think this is the case and we must be very careful. I always saw Hackney as the home of the strip industry and the loss of the venues would have been a major blow. I am betting now that as the months pass there will be a number of unwarranted complaints about this and that from Object inspired residents and I do not not think they will flinch from any other dirty trick.
I read Objects press release of Dec10th. It includes this quote, apparently from a consultation response.
“I worked in strip clubs for over four years… East London is particularly renowned for its ‘seedier’ venues … Many of my colleagues felt that the Hackney clubs were where you ended up if you got a drug addiction or were in real trouble… that these Hackney venues were the worst for trafficked young women… and easily the most prolific venues offering intercourse and oral sex acts.”
Apart from the absolutely slanderous nature of the lies expressed above, I wonder exactly how Object got hold of consultation response data in December. Actually I wonder how they got hold of it at all….
On the subject of consultation,you will find that most locals,and I mean locals,were not aware of,or asked their opinion on the nil policy.The T.A.s and T.M.O.s in the district have made this known to the council in a letter supporting the clubs.Most of the bar and door staff live in the area,and need all the support they can get.
Quote from Kennedy the head of the licensing committtee,
“Operators in Hackney are not so lucky. The council says it is bringing in the “nil policy” because that is what the locals want. Councillor Chris Kennedy, chairman of Hackney’s licensing committee, says residents do not want strip clubs or sex shops.
“Previously, people have been against strip clubs opening. Some of the biggest attendances I’ve seen at town hall meetings have been new applications under the old legislation, that have been packed out with residents saying, ’We don’t want this’.”
Good to see he has his finger on the pulse of the borough, a ” nil ” policy because that is what the residents want !
At the Shoreditch Neighbourhood Committee last week all the Councillors present said they would vote for the ‘nil’ policy believing that the existing venues were excluded from it. They aren’t.
Those venues can still be turned down under the policy as the new fudge says that they will only be considered in exceptional circumstances. What’s exceptional about a reapplication?
Councillors also seemed to be unaware that if not deemed “exceptional” the clubs would not have any right of appeal. This creates fertile territory for backhanders and flawed judgements.
http://bit.ly/hngVhm
I fully support Cllr Kennedy and the council in bringing in this policy, which should apply to existing venues as well as any new applications. Shoreditch & Dalston are saturated with bars and clubs which have brought chaos on Fri/Sat nights, plus the worst crime rates in the entire borough – and almost all of this caused by visitors who neither live nor work here. Strip joints are an obvious magnet for stag parties who are some of the most troublesome visitors of all. Almost everyone else in these areas – residents, shops, boutiques, small offices – is fed up with this and would like to see half these bars closed down. We don’t want or need them any more, we can regenerate the area far more successfully, and create far more employment opportunities, without these silly places.
As for the consultation, the results were very misleading – not only could forms be returned anonymously without stating a name or address, but venue owners were getting their customers (most of whom are not local residents) to return the forms en masse. I know of one case where a bar owner returned 100 of the forms himself! That doesn’t sound like a credible vote to me.
Hackney Resident you do seem to be concerned with the vote as you were on another story… which you then admitted the the backers of the Nil Policy were probably out of borough Object. The council chose the way the vote was run, so it lays on their heads.
As I have stated elsewhere So you know how often the police are called out? Why did the police not object to the renewals of licenses previously if there really was such a terrible problem? Why was there an extension granted for the white horse? If there was a “real” problem rather than a perceived problem the police would be screaming about the venues but that hasn’t happened.
As for the regeneration of the inner city, the current economic climate does not really support that unless the council is willing to cut business rates etc to attract new businesses into the borough. The concept of providing new work only works if the local community skill sets fit the influx of business needs or else workers will come in from other boroughs. No offence but those regeneration plans have fallen flat on their face before because of the skills issue. So where does all the money come from to retrain people and provide housing and council tax benefit whilst those people that need training take it? All I am seeing is a council looking for excuses that their brillant plan to get rid of 4 pubs and a sex shop failed miserably. Lets face it, if the pubs were any real trouble to the police the licenses would have been lost ages ago and the lets ask the public well it didnt work the way the council wanted so lets pretend we didn’t ask anyone and claim that everyone who voted was out of the borough multi voting as we the council screwed up big time.
Sorry for the copy and paste but as you keep bringing up the same comments on different stories thought if would be easier if people can see the same arguments in different areas.
Tony N, most eloquently put re the local economy! Given the current fragile state of the national economy and the glut of office space in London (not to mention the said local skills shortage), where exactly is this rush of new employment supposed to come from?
Hackney Resident, you on the other hand appear to be ignorant of the most basic laws of economics: the bars and pubs (and the strip pubs in particular) provide valuable income for the LB of Hackney (at a time when central government spending is being cut), as well as employment; besides, they wouldn’t exist if there wasn’t a demand for their services. Hackney needs revenue today, not jam tomorrow and greasy political rhetoric in the meantime!
The Boffmeister suggests that this rather vague Nil Policy will create fertile territory for backhanders and flawed judgements.
Backhanders? To Hackney’s council officers and councillors? Nah! That’ll never happen!
Pigs may not fly, but some of them might wear Birkenstocks! 😀
great to see these pubs are going to be left alone. hackney resident, I been experiencing harrassment for the 4 years, by a stopthestrippub type, and those that agree to that attitude make me sick. it is only after I got the mp involved in the case that the police began to take my case seriously, but the damage has already been done. hackney resident, I had this harrasser move from 4 miles away, to live 50 yards away from me, sending all sort of stuff to me (michael jackson clipping) , putting stuff up on the net about me, saying I was trying to shut these pubs, and putting my name on petitions to shut them, which I dont agree with, as I want them open, and trying to ruin my life. I didnt go for 2 years to them becuase of this harrassment, and only just came back recently. I’m prob not going to come back, as it has spoilt it for me, all this stuff, but youre type that make me sick. as for leering at women are you suggesting we should all not fancy these woman, and maybe fancy men?, you can look at women in the street, and leer. should looking at all women be barred?
Simon H, the likes of Hackney Resident load their (rather cliched) rhetoric with weasel-words in the hope that ordinary people will be distracted from the hard facts; theirs is the type of politics which most people leave behind in the playground when they leave school.
Hackney council have tried to make it impossible for these bars to go on operating.Its all political,nothing to do with anti-social behaviour etc.coming from the strip venues,if it was on those grounds the clubs would be safe.By the way hackney resident,you must go to different T.A. meetings to me,those i go to residents are more concerned with the work thats being done by the decent homes prog.The residents are now having to look forward to a rent and service charge raise in April,presumably to help pay for this consultation that you disagree with.By the way does anyone know the cost of this farce so far?
Steve no idea of the cost, the council’s new draft on the nil policy didnt include that. The only cost impact they admit to is the loss of the sex encounter licenses at £24k a year (not sure if that is each or total but guessing each). Nothing about the loss of jobs and if the venues close loss of business rates. They have siad nothing about what it will cost the tax payer but how gone to great lengths to hide away little snippets that make it easier for them to destroy the businesses later without having to consult. My favourite was that at any point the council may alter, amend or add regulations without any notice to the licensee. Can see what that could be used for.
It’s somewhat ironic (not to say more than a little suspicious) to see a faction within Hackney Council put artificial pressure on successful licenced premises, at a time when more pubs than ever before are going out of business in Britain.
Tony n,The reason i have asked is that i was given a quote on costs etc.which if it were true would mean that everyone,councillors,officers,printing staff must have worked for free.I will check with what i was told,dont want to mislead people.
TonyN, The figure the council is quoting is £900, don’t laugh.This must be a record low for hackney. Surely this can’t be the same council who spent £38,000,000 on agency staff last year. But it could explain why the consultation was done how it was.I never saw any respondents from N1. I have spoken to many residents from N1 who knew nothing of all that’s gone on here.
Steve having worked in Local Government I know how easy it is to hide the figures in budgets. One council bought a laptop every year from their Crockery budget. The consultation was outsourced so that would have cost. No member of staff would have worked for free but they would have put that in as the cost of staff was already covered (not that it is as they are taking someone off other work). I did wonder where the council got finances from the budget came from somewhere.
Having worked in central and local government over the years I do tend to look for the truth being bent and the finance issues do seem like that.
Dear Hackney Resident
So you ‘know of one case where a bar owner returned 100 of the forms himself’ Interesting point, but exactly how do you know that? Is it a bar that you frequent, or was you told by someone, who knows someone, who heard that…………
I think that I stated elsewhere that Object were fully aware of non residential submissions and in fact encouraged it. I can prove this as well, if I have to because I have evidence that would stand up in court.
So, Hackney…..what supporting evidence do you have for your statement about 100 submissions?
None I imagine, but I look forward to response that answers my point. Also could you make a bit more effort in the thread because that way its more fun to take your arguments apart.
28 – the information is correct. However If you think I am going to divulge my sources in a public forum such as this, then I’m afraid I am going to have to disappoint you!…which no doubt will prompt another intriguing rant from you and the other bar supporters on this thread.
NIghty night.
No rant as you proved on the SPA thread anytime you feel that the vote wasn’t what you want you immediately claim the vote was corrupted. At this point any claim you make seems rather laughable. Whatever my personal opinion on the SPAs you have just turned me to support stopping them.
30…not at all. Both consultations had the same basic flaw that forms could be returned anonymously and en masse, and that is exactly what happened on both occasions. If you think that is a fair vote, then that’s up to you, but I do not believe the result is credible or truly representative of genuine local residents.
Cheerio.
Hackney Resident, as someone who used to work for a firm of opinion pollsters many years ago, I’ve read your (somewhat repetitious) comments re the flaws in Hackney Council’s consultation with interest. Yes, perhaps it would have been possible IN THEORY to have a more tightly focused survey carried out by a professional pollster; but in practice, the cost is likely to have been prohibitively expensive, with the possibility that the number of usable responses may actually have been far fewer than those from the online survey.
As for your ‘informal poll’…the questions which appear in a given survey have to be chosen with extreme care, as does the manner in which they’re worded, in order to avoid introducing any element of bias. Given your apparent fondness for weasel phrases and smears (to judge by the content of your comments), I doubt very much that your little effort would past muster!
Sorry HR but you seem to be the boy who cried Wolf. You claim both were massively corrupted based on the people you have talked to, and I expect, share similar views to yourself. So you parade your opinion round expecting everyone to follow your beliefs and yet here after all these comments you seem to be thinking that the council will ignore peoples wishes. Which is quite likely after the history with Boff. Even here you seem to be slightly outnumbered on opinions against.
Anyway anyone reading your vitriol on the consultations will now suspect that anytime a consultation happens you dislike you will cry FIX with or without proof.
hackney resident must have seen Cllr Kennedy’s quote: local residents don’t want them (the clubs). He was talking about Stoke Newington not Shoreditch obviously. The council accepted the poll results, they organised it.
Interested in Hackney residents 100 comments and mass returns, in fact when you read the report the council only received 137 physical questionaires in total, must have all come from that one pub eh doesn’t seem very likely to me.
If all the “mass” returns were discounted it would make no difference to the poll.
Steve, I am looking forward to hearing how Cllr Kennedy justifies the Nil Policy at full council on the 26th. The even though we got the wrong result on the consultation we know best for everyone approach may jar one or two councillors.
They are still trying to close the venues down as if you read the amended policy it gives them loopholes for a later date that do not require anything more than introducing a regulation that cannot be complied with in any reasonable time scale. I wonder how many of the Cllrs will even bother reading the full policy.
Tony N, I’ll be contacting one councillor I know today, to remind him to check the small print! 😉
GSoB when he is looking at the small print tell him to look at the clause about the license being non transferable. It stops the pubs being sold as they currently are and should a licensee die the person who inherits would be unable to operate it as strip bar. The way round this might be to move to private limited companies so the license doesn’t move the shareholders do. However not a lawyer so not sure about that.
35 – interesting. However the issue is not physical vs online (returns), but name & address given vs anonymous. If the majority of returns were anonymous (be they physical or online), then it is simply not possible to conclude that a majority of local residents voted against the ban.
Anyway I’m sorry but I have to go, I am too busy to debate this any further at the moment.
Regards.
Tony N, well spotted! This reminds me of the restrictive covenants (preventing future use as licenced premises) pubcos sometimes use when selling on a pub for redevelopment – another sneaky trick which is a pet hate of mine.
Hackney’s councillors ought to bear in mind that their words in the chamber, as well as the way they vote, are a matter of public record; for an issue I expect many of them had hoped would pass ‘under the radar’, this could be a real test of local democracy.
Hackney Resident, you go to great pains to keep pointing out how ‘busy’ you are, but whenever someone posts a point of view contrary to your own, it seems as though you’ve been hovering around in the background like a bad smell! It’s also notable that you’ve decided to split hairs with Bill re the consultation exercise, whilst conveniently ignoring the point I made about opinion polls…
Quoting HR’s original post,
” I know of one case where a bar owner returned 100 of the forms himself! That doesn’t sound like a credible vote to me.”
As I pointed out in my post “en masse” returns from pub owners can hardly be said to be a major cause of the no vote as only 137 out of over 2,700 votes came as printed forms. I’d also suggest that given only 137 were recieved in this way your “100” votes from a bar owner is a typical Object fact ie wrong.
Gsob democracy was one of the first words used in The Hackney Gazette when they intervied one of the club owners about the nil policy.Let the people choose what they want,was part of the article.The people have chosen but that isnt good enough for some.Hackney resident wants it both ways.
42 – why? you seem to be assuming that only physical forms were valid, which was not the case. The forms which I suspect were returned ‘en masse’ were both physical and online ones, but the issue is how many (of either variety) stated a (valid!) name and address.
Anyway we are going round and round in circles, so I’ll leave it at that. That way Mr Brute will no longer have to endure any Smell apart from his own.
GSoB still not answering your point 😉
HR how exactly were online forms delivered “en mase”, ? You must be a computer expert (it only accepted 1 per computer) as well as having the physic ability to know peoples real addresses.
The form did not require an address valid or otherwise, it’s quite possible people on both sides of the argument (eg I bet the Object crew at Amnesty voted and don’t actually live in the area) from outside the area voted but it’s quite impossible to know which way they voted.
Where votes have gone in favour of a crackdown on strip venues they have involved a handful of submissions (eg Hammersmith got 59) , the Hackney poll got over 2,700 and came up with the opposite result. If you want to try and get Hackney to pay for the Electoral reform society to organise a re run good luck, until you do stop talking utter rubbish on this one just because the result does not suit you.
This poll theme is getting a bit boring, but if Hackney wanted a fair poll that was truly representative, could they not have included a space on either form for peoples poll tax reference number? That way when the poll form was submitted those with invalid or duplicated numbers could have been discounted.
I am not an IT expert but this would have been easy to do, but maybe only for the on-line version of the poll. That said, I do not think that certain people in Hackney were interested in anything remotely representative and hoped for overwhelming support for the nil policy. Something that they did not get.
Ultimately though, we could post reasoned threads all day long and no one from the anti-club group will even stop to think about what any of us say. The comments about bent polls, noise, nuisance, drugs, prostitution etc are just thinly veneered excuses for moralistic intolerance.
Bill, Hackney Resident appears to be party to so much privileged information that I’m surprised s/he didn’t choose the moniker ‘Secret Squirrel’ instead! 😉
What group does HR represent?The privileged information they have must surely be made public.It must come from all them meetings they attend.Are they open to the public?
By “privileged information ” I think you mean “Invented information” like 90% of what Object says.
Object speaks the Council listens. Residents speak the council asks for a stewards.
Object no longer has the ear of central government – their ‘friends in high places’ now sit on the Opposition benches, after all – and the result of the consultation exercise indicates that they can no longer expect to monopolise the debate, despite the efforts of certain councillors.
It don’t think it’s beyond reason for the backlash that’s started against Object to grow, now that people are beginning to wise up to their disinformation, dirty tricks and REAL agenda. If they started to become too obnoxious in the present climate, how long do you think it would take for one of the Sunday tabloids to run an expose about their leadership during a slow news week? It’s not as if there wouldn’t be plenty of genuine dirt to dig!
hackney resident is now on the hackney gazette site with the same comments that were used here.
Bookmarked: (at least) two can play at that game! 🙂
Male that 3. On a serious note have now read the policy and it is a minefield. Not just for the bars but for expectations as well. Looks like a divide and conquer approach. Remembering the gay community voted against the Nil Policy so looks like they will try to get rid of one problem then go after the other. This really is a bad approach and very thin veiled. If it goes through in the amended format then those on the council will be looking at how quickly they can use the amended format to start closing venues.
Tony n this is what its been about from the start. The council say the strip clubs dont fit in with their vision of the future.The other club owners were warned early days that once the strip clubs were got rid of they would be next.I dont think that most of them have had any real dealings with this council aside from getting their licences which at the time the council were throwing away.Now the council wants to switch policy.
Steve, how any councilor can vote for the Nil Policy after all this I dont know. But no doubt on the 26th there will be Object and co whispering in the ears of the councillors that ignoring the will of the people is good because the people dont know whats best for themselves. I dont think that even after the 26th the battle is over no matter which way the vote goes.
Tn There are councillors who are obviously against the bill.But the trouble is that the council is like a ship with no captain. On the ship are those that listen to what is going on around them and those that still live in La La land and believe that what ever happens they know best.I hear that the coffers are empty again,makes a change doesnt it.
Steve, it would be interesting to know precisely what kind of vision certain councillors have for Hackney’s in the future: the kind of municipal Stalinism practiced by Ted Knight in Lambeth during the eighties, perhaps; or a clone of certain Tory-run outer London boroughs (where the unofficial slogan appears to be, “We like it bland.”), as a sop to newer, more middle-class residents worried about their house prices?
No wonder the council is broke, it spent £5m on temp staff from Oct to Nov 2010
GSoB their vision of the future is one where they (the councillors) tell you what you can or cannot do. Regardless of them being elected to do what we tell them what we want. This council was always the labour governments small brother, right the way down to steamrolling people. Next door in Islington they have allowed their clubs to carry on. Obviously there is someone in council trying to get brownie points for this.
Perhaps we’ve all been missing a trick here:
http://www.hammerson.com/phoenix.zhtml?c=133289&p=prol-news-article&ID=1148869&highlight
It would certainly explain all this talk of new employment from Hackney Council and our little friend Secret Squirrel…