Former councillor defends Morning Lane role following ‘insider’ claims

The site at 55 Morning Lane. Inset: former Hackney planning chair Vincent Stops.

A former Hackney councillor has defended his role in a major Town Hall redevelopment following claims that he was “smuggled in as an insider”.

A recent report by campaign group Morning Lane People’s Space (MOPS), formed by residents concerned about plans to revamp 55 Morning Lane, was scathing in its assessment of the council’s consultation process.

MOPS is pushing for more social housing at the site, and for a large Tesco supermarket to remain there.

One of the criticisms in its report was the selection of former councillor and planning committee chair Vincent Stops to represent the community in evaluating architects for the project.

The campaign called it a “particularly egregious example of a lack of transparency”.

The report argues that “control and a lack of information” from the council “helped conceal that at least one of the three people who ‘represented’ residents in the appointment of the architect was Vincent Stops”.

Stops was a ward councillor for Hackney Central, where the Morning Lane site is located, for 20 years.

For 16 of those years he also chaired the Town Hall’s powerful planning committee – a group of councillors who decide whether or not to approve planning applications across the borough.

MOPS wrote: “If you paste ‘from:vincentstops mopscampaign’ into the search box for X/Twitter, you will see that Vincent has often interacted with our campaign since he left elected office.

“In these interactions, he consistently, unsurprisingly given his recent experience, puts forward a position identical to that of Hackney Council.

“For example, he states that the provision of housing below market rates is ‘subject to viability and many constraints like HS1 tunnels below’ and that 50 per cent council housing is an ‘unachievable demand’.

“The purpose of engaging community members is to bring in outsider perspectives, even if these are challenging.

“Instead, the council smuggled in an insider under cover of engaging the community.”

But Stops has hit back at those claims.

He told the Citizen: “I participated in the Hackney Central community panel after I retired as a councillor.

“I put my name forward to participate in the architect assessment as one of three panelists.

“I think, as an ex-councillor of 20 years and chair of the planning committee for 16, I had reasonable credentials for being selected.

“The panel only contributed to a small element of the selection scoring.”

The Hackney Central community panel was set up by the council to ‘discuss and shape the future’ of the area.

According to the Town Hall, all members of the panel, including MOPS, were invited to help select the architects carrying out the RIBA Stage 1 work.

Three panel members responded and took part, including Stops, who is a local resident and a member of the panel.

RIBA Stage 1 is understood to be a very early project brief stage and not a design stage.

MOPS later quit the panel, citing the process of appointing an architect as one of its main reasons.

The council said that applications to join the Hackney Central community panel were open to all.

Members were selected based on their connection to the area and understanding of the local context, interest and desire to make Hackney Central better, and the representation of different issues and diversity of stakeholders in Hackney Central.

According to the Town Hall, Stops applied to the panel as a local resident and joined along with other residents, representatives of youth organisations, charities, residents associations and businesses.

Stops added: “I was the planning chair for 16 years. One of my decisions was to turn down the original Tesco scheme against officer advice. It was an awful scheme. There had been minimal input from the community.

“And so if it hadn’t been for my intervention, none of this discussion would be happening as Tesco may well have built their scheme a decade ago.

“The council bought the site in order that there could be input from the council and the community. But it clearly had to be viable and conform to policy.

“The MOPS aspirations are simply not going to be viable without a very big grant from somewhere. As far as I know this is not likely.

“Anyone can come up with unviable schemes as MOPS have done. The trick is to come up with something that might have a chance of getting built!”

In a previous statement responding to the MOPS report, Mayor of Hackney Caroline Woodley said: “After Tesco put 55 Morning Lane up for sale, the council bought it to ensure we could directly influence what would be built in this key town centre location.

“We’re committed to putting the community in Hackney Central at the heart of these plans, which will help create a new part of the town centre and deliver new homes, including for social rent, better public spaces and a new Tesco store.

“The views of thousands of people have already helped define the priorities for the site and the wider Hackney Central area, and over the last six months alone we have worked with hundreds of residents to explore potential ideas and high level design options for the future of 55 Morning Lane. This work is at a very early stage of the design and development process.

“MOPS continue to bring a huge amount of energy and drive to the engagement process. We would like to thank all residents for their participation during these early stages and look forward to continuing to work together constructively on this important site in Hackney.”

You can read the MOPS report in full here.