Thanks to everyone who came to our public meeting on 31st March 2022. This day marked the end of the 5-year Option Agreement between Hackney Council and dodgy developer Hackney Walk Ltd. This means that our council can now go back to the drawing board. At this meeting we called on them work with us to develop a people’s plan for the 55 Morning Lane Tesco site in Hackney Central.
Everyone at the meeting agreed that the Council must use public land like 55 Morning Lane to meet the desperate need for social rent housing. Our campaign is calling for 50% of all the housing built there to be council housing at social rents. Some people in the meeting felt that was too low. Also on housing, people stressed the need for beautiful housing for families, not just more one and two-bed flats, and for housing that’s energy efficient.
Social rent housing may not bring in the same profits as high private rents but it cuts the the amount the council spends on temporary accomodation and it builds community wealth by giving people secure homes, keeping them safer, healthier and happier, giving them the chance to build roots in Hackney and making them more able to contribute to the life of our borough.
Those at the meeting want to see a new supermarket of the same size as the current Tesco and that like the current store offers culturally diverse food at low prices. We talked about the possibility of making a new store on multiple floors and having the car parking underground.
Everyone also wanted to see more public space including spaces that are family friendly, intergenerational, community run and green.
We’ll be doing more work to bring forward the community’s views in the months ahead. We invite everyone to contribute to that process.
morninglanepeoplesspace.org 