‘My home is not a toilet’: fury after floating festival sinks into anarchy
Regent's Canal choked with bottles. Photograph: George Steptoe.
Broken glass, beer cans and abandoned dinghies lined the Regent’s Canal towpath in the wake of a floating party that has drawn widespread condemnation from residents of the area.
The Canalival, an event promoted via social media and billed ominously as the “Atilla the Hun of flotillas”, was cancelled at the last minute, with organisers voicing fears about safety and “waterborne pathogens”.
But defying the warnings to stay away, hordes of people streamed into the stretch of canal from Gainsborough Studios to Broadway Market, partying well into the early hours of Sunday morning and leaving a trail of destruction in their wake.
As recriminations flew over who to blame for the chaos, residents painted scenes of anti-social debauchery in which homes were urinated on, drugs including cocaine were openly passed around and the nests of birds that live along the canal were rammed by boaters and trashed.
Charity the Canal and River Trust today bemoaned the “lack of co-ordination” and “dreadful mess” strewn about the waterway, adding: “We are not happy with the organisation of this event, with the lack of co-ordination and the dreadful mess left in its aftermath.
“We are grateful for the people who volunteered to help clean up yesterday, and to our own contractors who worked for more than 12 hours, from 5.30am on Sunday, to clear all the rubbish and broken glass from the towpath. We are all now counting the cost.”
Bill Bolloten, a 54-year-old education consultant who lives in London Wharf said: “It was characterised by ineptitutde of organisation at every level.
“It’s absolutely disgraceful. Who are Canalival? They don’t have a website or address, or any names or numbers. It’s completely unaccountable. There’s no means of dialogue, participation. It’s amateurish, ramshackle party-loving idiots who want to have fun no matter what the expense or consequences. They’re completely oblivious to the concerns of local residents.”
Unconfirmed allegations of criminal damage to property and waterfowl being killed by partygoers have been circulating on Facebook.
The Hackney Citizen has contacted Hackney Police to inquire about whether any arrests were made and whether these allegations are being investigated and is awaiting a response.
this Bill Bolloten must be very pleased with himself, what a local hero and figurehead giving interviews! get a life mate.
I have a life mate thanks very much. It doesn’t involve urinating on people’s property and trashing the local area. Nothing wrong with speaking to the media – at least Hackney Citizen is interested in the impact that this event had on local people.
Just in case people haven’t read your comment on the other thread jim – here it is: “no waterfowl died. Even if they had it still would of been worth it because it was a cracking party.”
I don’t need to add anything, because everyone reading it will now see what a complete muppet you are.
Jim, it is better to be a local hero than a global irresponsible and drunk idiot.
hipster c*nts !
Here’s a video with a time lapse of the event.
Worth a watch.
Why do all the residents keep going on about everyone being hipsters?? Because the event was in East London? Is that what you’re basing it on? In which case, you’re all ‘hipsters’ too?
Also, not everyone was littering. We didn’t put a thing in the canal except our boat. We had a licence and we helped with the clear up.
Not all the residents are blaming ‘hipsters’. I’m certainly not. My guess is that a lot of the people who came aren’t Hackney residents. Uncharitably perhaps, I suspect that a lot of them thought that it was ok to piss on the towpath / leave cans and bottles behind / trample on community flower beds because ‘it’s only Hackney’.
I’m sure that not everyone that came left litter behind when they left, and a few (and it was just a few, a couple of handfuls at most) did come back the next day to clear up. However, a lot of people did leave a lot of shit (in some cases, actual shit – we found human turds on the dock of the Laburnam Boat Club) behind. In the little section opposite our block, between the railway and Kingsland Road, we found at least 10 abandoned rubber dinghies. That’s a lot of rubber!
This is just another example of local resources being colonised by irresponsible self ingulgent young people who (probably because they are predominantly white) have enough money to fritter it away on over priced drink with no respect or regard for people who actually live in the places they vandalise. This is what happens to Broadway Market and London Fields every weekend. The outsiders comes with their colonial attitudes of rights to indulge themselves at the expense of others. And Hackney Council facilitates this. Local money from local taxpayers is invested in placating these weekend tourists while local ammenitities are underfunded. eg a ill thought out and potentially dangerous new pedestrain crossing at the London Fields end of Broadway Market. The anti socially placed new toilets in the same area for the bladdered weekenders whilst no funding is made available for example local youth to have the limited new sports area to be lit at night, etc., etc., etc.. But most grotesque and overt is that if this was not a predominatly white middle class group of affluent tourist slummers, but in fact local youth from Hackney’s decreasing ethnic minority communities, who are being squeezed out of their homes, the police would have down with riot shields making arrests for anti social behaviour. If anything better illustrates the divided country that first of all Labour and now the coalition is re-inforcing is this type of brazen exhibition of the presumed rights of the dominant group.
I didn’t attend the canal party, though I did pass through. Judging by some of the responses to it, a number of issues spring to mind.
People do not need anybody’s permission to gather in public spaces and it is important to assert this basic fact. All of us could do with re-learning how to go outside and play without supervision.
But the great outdoors belongs to everybody, not just the party people. Therefore it is important to remind ourselves that freedom and autonomous assembly goes hand in hand with raised consciousness and awareness. Excessive litter and destruction of bird nests and gardens etc etc is unacceptable.
But you do need permission from CRT for events though, canal law is separate and different to local authority law and managed by the trust, not the council.
30 years ago, public were not even permitted on the towpath.
So in that respect it isn’t a public space like a park, no.
All craft should be licensed and swimming in the canal is not permitted, for a start.
@HackneyR the pictures showed clearly that the people involved were hipsters .. who else would be so disrespectful to the community they have invaded .. 2 years or so shittin’ (quite literally in this case) on hackney then back off to mummy & daddy in the home counties …
@JW far more eloquently put than me but couldn’t agree more … 😉
Before moving to London Fields I lived next to the Notting Hill Carnival route and people used to use our driveway and flowerbeds as a urinal – it’s just what happens when lots of people gather in London. Not that I condone it – I used to pour buckets of water on the pissers heads from five storeys above them.
It is worth noting, in this case, that the canal is not public space or public property. Canals are private property and the leaseholder could have moved everyone on.
This comment was deleted by a moderator
The people, who are responsible for Canalival, clearly couldn’t organise a piss up in a brewery. Many who attended had no respect for the local wildlife on the canal or the residents and Tenants who had to put up with their “Lets rip the arse out of it” attitude. They just walked away and left the mess and mayhem they created, for others to clean up.
There is nothing liberating or emancipating about destroying the local environment. Local people who were neither consulted or participated in this event are quite rightly angry and want answers, from the local representatives, be it council, police or waterways authorities, on why this was allowed to happen.
By all means utilise our space and have more events, but not a repeat of what happened last weekend.
If this had been organised by Hackney’s young people there would have been a totally different response from the authorities. As it was, they were middle class Hipsters. That speaks volumes and clearly illustrates the different approach to managing such an event.
Young people locally are quite rightfully complaining about two different approaches used when it comes to policing and local authority’s enforcements policy.
By all means party and have a canalival, but not at the expense of the local people and wildlife. There is a clearly a desire for outdoor festivals on and off the canal, so lets do that next year, but it must include the local people, business and finish the main event in a non residential stretch of the canal, which there is plenty..
Bill can’t even figure out which postcode he lives in, sometimes it’s E2 and others it’s E8.
I have serious doubts he even knows what day it is.
So witty Jeremy. I am sure everyone is in stitches. You should try doing stand-up. I am sure you would be a great success. Have you considered there is more than one Bill living in the area? Probably more Jeremys as well – I guest they might be capable of more intelligent and helpful contributions than you are.
Terry has made a number of excellent suggestions. The key thing is that events are inclusive. On Saturday there had been no planning or thought for the needs and participation of children, older people, local residents and people from different ethnic minority communities.
Jeremy’s just been Billed.
It’s ‘Residents-are-understandably-pissed-off-because-their-homes-have-been-pissed-on-by-drunken-hipsters-Day’.
Terry is quite right to complain about the differences in reaction according to who the offenders are. I imagine the police would have been much more heavy handed with 1000 black kids from Haringey if they appeared en mass one day and started taking drugs and causing disruption.
An awful lot of people who have recently moved to London seem to view it as some retro playground in which to find ever more novel places to get drunk and consume cheap drugs. I doubt many of them know or care that people actually live in narrow boats.
I’m not even against the idea of Canalival, but as somebody who frequently runs the canals from Limehouse to Paddington i’m struggling to think of a less suitable stretch for such an event. Maybe had the organisers engaged with residents, a mutually satisfactory location could have been found, maybe near MIle End park or the Olympic village.
Having attended the party I have to say it was for me and many people I talked about a totally unique and enjoyable experience and think if some money that was raised went towards hiring toilets and the clean up operation instead of cancelling an event and returning the donations to the senders then it would have worked really well. The fact that the place was left in a mess is regretable but by 11am the next morning the majority was cleared away as I was there helping and also cycled along the route afterwards. To blame “hipsters” is utterly ridiculous, it was merely young people going to an event that they’d heard about and thought would be good. And Cock&Balls you’re hypocrisy is mindblowing, you speak of hipsters invading and being disrespectful, this pales in comparison to the sinister violence and lawlessness inflicted on Hackney and Mare St by locals 2 years ago. With the way the internet is involved in organising events nowadays there is little that can be done to stop a flashmob, the police did the right thing to an extent, let it pan out. Going in heavy handed has always proven to be a huge mistake. The ultimate end is no injuries and a mess that was cleaned up in the guts of a morning. Next time police endorse it, allow there be toilets and event attendants to fund professional cleaners by donations. And everyone can have excellent day out on the canal.
Actually Alan, there is plenty that can be done to prevent a repeat. The canal is not, as you lot repeat, public land. It can quite easily be blocked off and sections are shut every night. Longer term, drinking could be banned along its route. The problem the is that the people who are capable of enjoying the canal considerably will suffer.
As for the clean up, it doesn’t matter as it shouldn’t have happened in the first place. If I gave you a black eye there would be no sign of it in a week or so, does that make it ok? What about if I claimed it was just a bit of fun?
In amongst all the nonsense, you did get one thing right – Saturday was indeed totally unique. There won’t be a repeat!
Not sure how one manages these things as they can and will occur – unfortunately it is likely they will continue to grow and become regular events as “flash mobs” impromptu gatherings and so forth.
As a resident I frankly loathe what Hackney has become – this notion of some sort of party destination which has seen a degradation of the area. The attempts by some to justify it are tedious – “it’s a laugh” “we cleaned up most of the mess” etc. since the damage and fouling of the canal is still evident. What is not recognised is the noise and intimidation felt by many to hordes of drunken twits engaging in their little bubble world.
The residential nature of the area and the Borough is surprisingly not made up of incomers, trust fund bunnies and those who have “discovered” Hackney it is an eclectic and often family orientated mix. Many came here because it was not filled with the selfish and self-indulgent but increasingly we find ourselves put upon by their antics and their supposed joie de vivre that we all allegedly lack. We lack it as we enjoy the area in a different way, a mens of building homes, communities and relationships that do not involve playgrounds for overgrown kids.
As for the wildlife to claim no damage was done is absurd since it is prime nesting season at the moment and I would doubt that many of those attending would recognise a nest when sober let alone drunk or able to avoid one (should they wish) when the canal was filled with boats. Damage was done. It was inevitable and to say otherwise is to be blind to the truth.
Can you image a few hundred local youths from the Hackney Estates turning up in rubber dinghys for a paddle in the local rivers of the home county shires most of these pathetic nu-media idiots come from? Police choppers…baton charges….riot police would be called in within hours to disperse them.