Campaigners pushing for affordable housing on Morning Lane announce public meeting
Morning Lane campaigners. Photograph: Julia Gregory
Campaigners fighting for more council homes in the centre of Hackney are to hold a public meeting.
Morning Lane People’s Space (MOPS) want to ensure Hackney Council puts community homes at the heart of its plans.
The Town Hall bought the Morning Lane site for £60m in 2017 and developed plans for 450 homes, workspace, and a smaller supermarket than the current Tesco.
It entered into an agreement with developer Hackney Walk – the firm behind the Fashion Walk scheme nearby.
That agreement has since ended and campaigners plan to reveal the details of their latest survey of 1,000 residents.
They claim that just a fifth of the council’s 450 planned homes will be “affordable” and are pushing for a more ambitious target.
They want to see half the homes go to people on the waiting list for housing, and to keep a large supermarket.
Campaigner Heather Mendick said: “Let’s stop the council building hundreds of unaffordable private flats in the centre of our borough.”
Previous MOPS surveys found “people overwhelmingly want to see council housing and to keep the Tesco supermarket”.
Hackney Council policy has a 50 per cent target for council homes in new developments, and the Town Hall said it would cost £90m to meet that target at Morning Lane.
The campaign event on Wednesday 20 September starts at 7.30pm at the Dan West Community Centre on the Trelawney Estate in Paragon Road.
Why is Hackney Council not borrowing the £100m it would cost to build all 450 homes from the public works loan board?
Then they could all be affordable. Complex “deals” with the private sector are always a bad deal for public benefit and this would avoid them. The council could transfer the land to a community land trust of local people to enact a development such as this, like at Coin Street at Waterloo.