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A High Court judge yesterday found in favour of OPEN in its claim that Hackney Council, in late 2005, made an unlawful attempt to demolish the historic buildings at 4-14 Dalston Lane, without public consultation.

OPEN issued proceedings on 13 December 2005, challenging the Council’s decision to proceed with demolition of the buildings without making a full planning application. OPEN is committed to seeing some or all of the heritage buildings restored for new uses as part of regeneration of the wider area. OPEN argued that a full planning application, involving public consultation and a decision by the elected Members of Hackney Council, was required. A High Court injunction was subsequently issued preventing any demolition work until yesterday’s judicial review. The injunction has protected the site from December 2005 until now.

Finding in favour of OPEN’s claims yesterday, Mr Justice Lloyd Jones stated in his judgment that the Council had created the impression that it had taken a decision to demolish the buildings as soon as prior approval was granted by the Planning Department and that full planning permission was not required. The Judge found that OPEN was justified in issuing the proceedings for an injunction and judicial review. He ordered the Council to now pay OPEN’s legal costs.

Bill Parry-Davies, chairman of OPEN, expressed satisfaction at the outcome but cautioned that the buildings remain highly vulnerable to Council demolition. ‘The Council did not deny in Court, that at a meeting in late September 2005 its Property Manager, Head of Planning and Hackney’s Mayor agreed to demolish without further consultation with either the public or elected members‘, said Mr. Parry-Davies. ‘The Council’s contempt of legal and democratic processes is quite breathtaking. Our campaign continues.’

Since the issue of the High Court proceedings on 13 December 2005, and following representations made by OPEN to the Planning Department, the Council have accepted the need to make a full planning application for demolition. After a 21 days period in which the public could lodge objections, the Council’s application for total demolition came before a Planning Sub-Committee on 6 February 2006. Despite the overwhelming number of objections to the proposals the Planning Sub-Committee voted to demolish the buildings in their entirety. The Sub-Committee imposed a condition that, prior to demolition, there must first be a survey to record historical structural and architectural detail of the buildings and expressed hope that the more notable elements could be relocated in the redevelopment of the site or elsewhere.

Evidence has also come to light that, sometime between 18 October 2005 when the Council secured the buildings against squatters and 16 December when a planning officer inspected them, the Victorian houses at 4-6 Dalston Lane have been deliberately damaged and made uninhabitable by the removal of the staircases.

Since Sunday 19 February the buildings have been occupied by people concerned to prevent their demolition.

OPEN is now considering the legality of the Council’s Planning Sub-Committee’s resolution on 6 February, and any decision by the Council to now act on the planning permission granted to demolish the buildings.

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(Via OPEN Dalston High Court backs local campaign and orders Hackney Council to pay up: .)

9:45:42 PM    

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The Victorian and Georgian buildings at 4-14 Dalston Lane, E8, are now occupied by people who are concerned at the threat of demolition. OPEN understands that council officers are currently seeking to effect re-entry to the buildings.

The historic site, which consists of the Victorian Dalston Theatre and a pair of Georgian townhouses, was condemned to total demolition by a Council Planning Sub-Committee on 6 February 2006.

The Council Committee’s decision to vote for total demolition disregarded many objections from the local community, heritage agencies and community groups as well as OPEN, which is committed to seeing the buildings re-used as part of a wider regeneration for the area.






photographs: mikejwells@yahoo.com

"

(Via OPEN Dalston Dalston Theatre occupied in protest at demolition threat: .)

9:45:15 PM    

"NATURE lovers are up in arms over the felling of trees as part of a major restoration project at a Hackney church..."

(Via Hackney Gazette Trees face the axe: .)

9:44:18 PM    

"COUNCIL plans to ban loft extensions are institutionally racist, according to Jewish community representatives, who are set to take their case to the top race relations watchdog..."

(Via Hackney Gazette Lofts decision sparks race row: .)

9:43:43 PM    

"HACKNEY households will have to pay an extra 65p a week in council tax from this April to fund the 2012 Olympic Games and extra police..."

(Via Hackney Gazette Council Tax hike: .)

9:40:36 PM    

"UNBRIDLED passion filled the town hall square as residents young and old declared their love for Hackney on Tuesday. Loved-up folk enjoyed fun and frolics as part of the council's I _ Hackney civic pride campaign..."

(Via Hackney Gazette All you need is love: .)

10:09:57 PM    

"HACKNEY'S benefits system is in crisis' after government figures revealed the borough to harbour the second highest number of suspected fraudsters in London..."

(Via Hackney Gazette Hackney benefits crisis: .)

10:09:21 PM    

"HACKNEY men have one of the lowest life expectancies in London, according to government figures, with the borough's women outliving them by more than six years..."

(Via Hackney Gazette Hackney men die earlier: .)

10:09:04 PM    

"HACKNEY'S finalised GCSE results for last summer were released on Thursday. The revised figures show improvements for five of the borough's eight secondary schools for students achieving five or more A*-C grade GCSEs..."

(Via Hackney Gazette Schools make the grade: .)

9:26:24 AM    

"'They (the police) said they would take me home because I was being followed. I got really told off by them for walking home alone at night.

'I said that I lived there, and that's what you had to do. They said 'well I suggest you live somewhere else'.

'I never really thought that I was unsafe until that incident with the police."

(Via BBC NEWS | UK | 'I was mugged by a prostitute': .)

10:53:07 PM    

"Though my corner of Hackney has yet to attain a Middle-Earth level of cosmic grandeur, the ongoing battle between local people and the forces of regeneration has been growing in stature. We've got our very own Dark Lord, in the shape of a property developer called Dr Roger Wratten, who has an underground island base in Tunbridge Wells and a henchman with a glass eye. Ranged against him is a hobbit-like band of local people, who since late November have been barricaded inside Francesca's cafe at 34 Broadway Market, blocking Wratten from pulling it down to build a block of flats."

(Via SocietyGuardian.co.uk | Communities | Hari Kunzru: A dispatch from Tony's cafe: .)

10:14:36 PM    

"Canterbury Foods, maker of processed goods for school canteens and fast food caterers, has been broken up by administrators after its directors failed to persuade its bank they could recover declining sales - in part blamed on Jamie Oliver's campaign for healthier school dinners.

The company, which makes cheap burgers, sausage rolls and other pastries, had been in the midst of a radical review which had seen the workforce more than halved to 270 employees. A factory in Hackney, east London, had been shut and the firm's meat products business was sold last month for £4.5m."

(Via EducationGuardian.co.uk | Schools special reports | Jamie effect finishes school meals firm: .)

10:10:47 PM    

"Dear Broadway Market occupation supporters, A public meeting will take place on January 16th at 7pm in St Mark's Church Hall, Lansdowne Drive, E8 (regardless"

(Via hackneycommunitynews at Yahoo! Groups A Public Meeting about nos 31 and 71 Broadway Market: .)

9:37:22 AM    

"PROTESTERS occupying a cafe to save it from demolition have rebuilt part of the building destroyed by workmen. The activists took over Francesca's in Broadway Market again on Boxing Day after being kicked out by court order five days earlier. Campaigners"

(Via Hackney Gazette Protesters reclaim cafe: .)

9:25:12 AM    

"DRINKING water supplies to hundreds of Stoke Newington homes and businesses face disruption over the next four months as part of a £3 million mains renewal scheme. Work to replace five miles of ageing and leaking Victorian pipework began on Tuesday. Supp"

(Via Hackney Gazette Warning over water supplies: .)

9:24:50 AM    

"A HEAD teacher at a Hackney primary school was made a Dame in the Queen's New Year honours. Anna Hassan, from Millfields school in Hilsea Street, Lower Clapton, is one of five Hackney heroes celebrating after being awarded gongs. The 59-year-old was made"

(Via Hackney Gazette Head teacher is made a Dame: .)

8:46:52 AM    

"A GIRL of five was mown down and killed by a hit-and-run driver as she walked home from her school Christmas play. Charlotte Adams was struck by a red BMW, which mounted the pavement yards from her home on Thursday evening last week..."

(Via Hackney Gazette Taken in an instant: .)

9:03:30 AM    

"CAMPAIGNERS have staged a midnight takeover of a popular greasy spoon to save it from demolition..."

(Via Hackney Gazette Squatters with a cause: .)

9:42:43 PM    

"Dalston Junction Interchange public exhibition As you will already know, The East London Line is coming to Dalston Junction by 2010. Transport for London and"

(Via hackneycommunitynews at Yahoo! Groups Dalston Junction Interchange public exhibition - 24th, 25th & 26th N: .)

10:19:06 PM    

"Hackney Draft Compact Consultation Event - Thursday 24 November The consultation event on the Hackney Draft Compact will go ahead on Thursday 24 November. This"

(Via hackneycommunitynews at Yahoo! Groups Hackney Draft Compact Consultation Event - NOT cancelled - still on: .)

10:18:15 PM    

"A STOKE Newington newsagent, who took on his wholesaler for continuing to send him girlie magazines to sell, has won a small victory..."

(Via Hackney Gazette Top shelf victory: .)

4:27:29 PM    

"BANNER-WAVING children demonstrated outside their school gates on Tuesday morning to back controversial council plans for a 20mph speed limit in parts of Stamford Hill and Stoke Newington..."

(Via Hackney Gazette No need for speed: .)

11:26:31 PM    

"THE 2012 Olympics came a step closer this week as businesses and landowners in Hackney were issued with compulsory purchase orders..."

(Via Hackney Gazette Give us your land: .)

11:26:27 PM    

"North London Line fares are set to double in January."

(Via This Is Local London :: Top Stories Fares are set to double on North London Line: .)

4:45:50 PM    

"Simon Thomsett has been appointed to succeed Roland Muldoon as the chief executive of the Hackney Empire.

Currently general manager, Thomsett will begin the role, when Muldoon and his wife Claire - who is head of programming at the venue - leave in December.

Muldoon took charge of the Empire in 1985, re-establishing it as a home for variety. He oversaw the site’s extensive £19 million refurbishment from the beginning of the fundraising in 1997 to the Matcham-designed theatre’s reopening in January 2004, and is widely credited with saving the venue, which was built in 1901.

Thomsett had been regarded as the favourite to take over from Muldoon, having served as general manager at the venue since the mid-nineties."

(Via The Stage Online :: News :: Thomsett to replace Muldoon at Hackney Empire: .)

11:41:05 PM