‘Not your typical high street’ – residents express concern over new Aldi on Hackney Road
The Aldi branch (not pictured) is set to open on Hackney Road. Photograph: ALDI
A new Aldi is set to open its doors in east London but scores of residents fear it could stoke anti-social behaviour in the area. In October, Hackney Council granted planning permission for the German budget grocery chain to open a second store in the borough alongside its existing Dalston branch.
But on Monday (1 December) the retailer was confronted by locals incensed by its bid to take over commercial space beneath their block of flats block of flats on Hackney Road in Hoxton – and dead-set on stopping the firm from obtaining an alcohol licence.
Resident Darina Van Barthold said her family was “extremely worried” about people being able to buy booze late at night and make “public nuisance and noise,” which would travel directly up to bedrooms of flats where many families with “very young children” were living, including her and her infant child.
“This is not your typical high-street site,” she said. “A large source of alcohol from this precise point will just draw people from the homeless shelter opposite, and from nearby streets, literally to our doorway.” She added that other shops on this road had “constant run-ins with the homeless and drug addicts.”
Planning permission has been granted for the new discount supermarket branch. Photograph: Google
Having already submitted a letter of objection signed by over 40 other people, including local businesses, Darina’s concerns were echoed at the hearing.
The Metropolitan Police withdrew their initial objections to the licence bid after agreeing with the chain that no alcohol would be sold after 11pm on any day.
Aldi’s representatives said the store would have staff patrolling to stop littering and security placed on site throughout trading hours. But resident Oliver Trotman suggested this could “just result in these people being ejected onto the street where it is then the resident’s problem in the community [and] the wider community’s problem.”
On behalf of Aldi, Lisa Gilligan said the retailer would be “responsible” and had an “unblemished enforcement record.” The company’s lawyer added that another solution to limit anti-social behaviour from drinking would be for the shop to only sell drinks with 6.5 per cent ABV or below – as other Aldi supermarkets have done.
Hackney Council’s licensing committee also suggested providing a contact detail for local residents to speak to Aldi’s area and duty manager about any concerns. However, many residents left the meeting still feeling the changes had not put them at ease.
Note: This article was amended
It’s great for the area. It’s not all middle class blow ins who live here. About time we had a supermarket that doesn’t cater for just expensive cheese, quinoa and sourdough. The majority of residents are thrilled. Welcome Aldi!!
A cheap german shop like ALDI will always attract unwanted people. Let’s do not forget it is Hackney which does have a high crime rate.
Hope that the block managmet and freeholder can stop the process of opening it.
Brilliant news to have another choice of supermarket! The moaners are seriously clutching at straws here like the area isn’t already rough!!
i am delighted for this to happen. I live opposite the block of flats. As a poor disabled person, having somewhere an easy walk for me that i can afford is a life saver. Everyone ive spoken to about it is thrilled. The people who have lived in Hackney for years before it was gentrified are pleased about it. The ones that are complaining can leave and gentrify somewhere else.
absolutely spot-on, ew.
to be fair, i don’t live in shoreditch and prefer lidl, but an aldi on my doorstep would do nicely, thank you very much.
aldi do a great line in cost-busting sandwiches, by the way – even better than lidl’s – but it’s just a pity they don’t do the beef-and-horseradish variety any longer…
i used to live in a hostel opposite the well street lidl: effing heaven-on-earth, mate.
yep, i’m sure most real eastenders – and indeed cockneys – would regard having an aldi dropped on them as an infinite improvement over the 5512 lb “max” bomb.
no wonder, john, my old courier-controller at kl in clerkenwell was so horrified by the british labour government’s devastating blitzkrieg on baghdad – you see, cockneys actually knew what it meant to be “bombed-out” – but so do hipsters, i suppose…
jägermeister, anyone?
remember that britain’s docklands were hit dreadfully during the war – and i still suspect that churchill and hitler had formed a secret pact to koventrieren each other’s communist strongholds…
of course, if neo-nazi-lovers sir killer strafer, macwrong, ruttebugga, and mad “max” merz continue to escalate their personal war against russia – and to allow british special forces to mastermind deadly attacks against russian infrastructure and establishment-figures – we’ll soon experience even deadlier airstrikes on london – which’ll leave planning permission docs wafting in the depleted uranium, or radioactive, dust…
so thanks again labour – thanks a bloody bunch…
an’ quite frankly, the pseudo-science-pushing establishment-nobs in the nato-leching, nuclear-nurturing grüne partei are no better, neiver.
mein gott…
eat yer heart out petra kelly…
up the aldi und…
vorsprung durch sauerkraut.
as the above comments all ably indicate, this article somehow delves to the root of an extremely topical and politically divisive issue – namely, hackney’s gentrification by cia-capitalized crooks.
if hackney’s corrupt cia-controlled council had not criminally colluded with cia-coke-dealers, cia-organized property-developers, and cia-licenced landlords in order to maximize the obscene profits to be generated from the cia-coke-snorting gentry, it’s pretty-much certain that rents and property-prices in hackney would still be at a level affordable for the common species of homo hacknienz – and that as a social consequence, hostels for the homeless would not need to be constructed wholesale next-door to disgraceful whingeing bourgeois snobs, who with the help of greedy manipulative estate-agents, have indecently immigrated to this lovely london borough – in small ev‘s – without local leave.
now, if i were mayor of hackney, i’d erect on the borough’s borders large red-yellow-and-green entry-signs which read this is a hipster-free zone, and which on their reverse-side read ‘f’-off rich ‘c’s…
and furthermore, i’d enshrine in local legislation the right to bear firearms – so that hackney citizens could protect themselves from the unwanted attentions of pestilent pampered poodles, pugs, pomeranians, cockapoos, cocker spaniels, cavapoos, curly-coated retrievers, chow-chows, chihuahuas, schnauzers, french bulldogs, spanish water-dogs, labradoodles, goldendoodles, lagotto romagnolos, staffordshire bull terriers, barbets, bichon bloody frisés, and dachshunds which have become the scourge of our borough’s pavements, towpaths, and parks.
of course, we used to have in hackney certain non-profit special interest groups which dealt with the anti-social spectrum of aforementioned problems, so err…
come back class-war: all is forgiven.