Residents fight Town Hall plan to build on Hoxton community garden

Residents on a Hoxton estate are campaigning against Hackney Council plans to build housing on a community garden they have tended to since 2010.

The council wants to put up a six-storey block on the site of St John’s Community Garden and the adjoining community hall on St John’s Estate.

The scheme, which has been approved at pre-planning stage, would deliver 32 homes, all for social rent. It also includes a replacement community hall and a new garden elsewhere on the estate, co-located so that indoor and outdoor events can run together.

The council says the new garden would be around 10 square metres larger than the existing one, with an accessible toilet for gardeners, covered and shaded seating, a dedicated water supply, a boot-washer and lockable tool storage.

Eighteen mature trees would be retained and 25 new ones planted, with pine, yew and memorial trees transplanted to new positions.

Campaigners say none of that answers the central objection: that a mature garden cannot be picked up and put down somewhere else.

The garden was founded on Mothers’ Day 2010, when two residents cut the first turf on a triangle of grass behind the community hall. Its co-chairs are Angela Large, who set up the nearby Ivy Street Family Centre, and the artist Graeme Miller.

Fruit tree whips planted in the early years with help from volunteer groups have matured into apple, apricot and plum trees. Beds built from donated railway sleepers are used by residents to grow vegetables and herbs, and the garden gained a pergola last year with council funding.

Most flats on the estate have no balcony or garden of their own.

A petition to the council, which runs until 7 November and had attracted 89 signatures by time of publication, argues that moving the garden would cause “terminal damage” on both social and environmental grounds.

Campaigners want the mayor and cabinet to step in and reconsider the plans for the site.

They said the consultation has been “inadequate” and “misleading”. Two events drew 16 and 10 residents respectively, they said.

They also criticised a recent ‘Fun Day’ event on the estate, which they claim was actually an “attempt to gather support from residents” and was organised “without any communication with stakeholders”.

The council did not answer the Citizen‘s questions about the consultation process or the ‘Fun Day’.

The campaigners added that documents published by the council suggest residents are in favour of relocating the garden, but they claim that evidence “points to the opposite”.

The estate has seen three new blocks built over the past eight years, a mix of social and so-called affordable housing.

Residents say some existing flats now look onto brick walls six metres from their kitchen windows, while older blocks have been left with leaks, damp, black mould and crumbling concrete.

The community hall, handed to residents in the 1970s, is now let commercially by the council at rates the garden group says it cannot afford.

The campaigners, who say they support new social housing, argue that building on the garden is at odds with the priorities of the borough’s new Green administration.

Cllr Alastair Binnie-Lubbock, cabinet member for regeneration, planning and inclusive neighbourhoods, said: “Hackney is facing an acute housing crisis, and these plans will provide 32 desperately-needed homes – every one available for social rent and ring-fenced for local families in critical need.

“But this is not a question of homes versus community facilities. As part of the changes, we are proposing a new, larger community garden with improved facilities and 25 new trees.”

He added that the council recognised the garden’s work and was “keen to work with them” as the development was planned.

The gardeners are hosting a campaign event at St John’s on Tuesday 1 September from 5pm to 7pm.

For more information, visit stjohnsgarden.org.