No Big Tesco and no Social housing, no vote

At our public meeting on Saturday 18th October, there was a mix of frustration, disappointment and anger at Hackney Council’s design ideas for 55 Morning Lane, after they ignored what residents need and demand – a big Tesco and 50% social housing. These demands are consistent with those made in previous surveys, meetings, council consultations, and conversations. But the discussion of what to do next was full of new and innovative ideas.

We’re encouraged by Hackney Council increasing the amount of social housing in the plans from zero when we started our campaign to about 26% now. We’re disappointed by their insistence on downsizing Tesco despite claiming at the start of the consultation in December that no decision had been made beyond promising Tesco a minimum size for any new store.

There was overwhelming support for making Hackney Council’s plans for 55 Morning Lane an electoral issue by demanding that Labour councillors develop the site for the community if they want our votes in May. People at the meeting also want to increase the specific pressure on cabinet members ahead of them making a decision on this which Council Officers have told us will happen this year.

Working in small groups we developed demands, questions and campaign ideas and then we shared these. Here are some of our questions:

Why are we not building 50% council housing on council-owned land? Have all funding routes been explored? Why can’t the council be the developer?

Can we put pressure on Tesco? Why is Tesco not paying any rent?

What is the risk of financing the deal via sales of private housing? Can we defer the decision?

Can we challenge the consultation? Did the consultation reach beyond the digitally literate?

How much is the parking currently being used? What is the impact of the loss of the parking on local businesses?

And finally we developed slogans in each of our groups to capture our key messages to Hackney Council:

Not getting my vote in 2026 unless: large supermarket, car park, 50% social housing – Hackney Council, you have been warned, listen to us!

Alternative funding model or no development

Council homes on council land

Election issue: No social housing, no vote

Vote 2026: For: Social housing, Big Tesco, Blank: Labour councillors

SOS Save Our Store

Election pressure on Mayor and cabinet, Call for Review, Lobby government for council housing

Oh no! Not another Fashion Hub

The council reveals its options for 55 Morning Lane

In a workshop on the 26th April, Hackney Council invited residents to look at three models of options for how they could redevelop the Tesco site at 55 Morning Lane and to comment using sticky notes. There was no introduction nor any summarising session, and the only questions written down asked people about what they wanted by way of consultation going forward. Informal conversations were encouraged, although key personnel were not easily identified. There was an expectation that public responses would target each display separately, however almost all ignored this, preferring to be unrestricted. In fact, many chose to write at length on large sheets of paper rather than confine themselves to sticky notes. We have become tired of waiting for the council to post information from this workshop, so we are doing it. Below you can see the three models and the feedback on them.

Hackney Council’s three options

There were models and boards explaining each of the three options. Photographs of the boards are below. We cannot see any way that these options were shaped by the consultation process. The two key differences between the community’s vision for the site and the Council’s are the size of the new Tesco store and the proportion of social housing. But instead of presenting options with bigger and smaller supermarkets and more and less social housing, all three designs reflect the Council’s vision. They all have a much smaller Tesco that is the minimum size that the Council is contractually obliged to build, and they all have a more-or-less identical housing mix, with 25.8-26.8% social rent homes, 17.3-17.8% shared ownership properties, and 55.3-56.8% market rate housing

The boards accompanying the designs do not explain how residents’ views expressed in the workshops, survey and other engagement activities have influenced the designs. The rationale is purely practical and financial. Design 1 avoids the expense of basement work which caps the height of the buildings at 8 stories. Design 2 factors in the cost of basement work to allow taller buildings, but caps their heights at 15 stories, matching the only three tower blocks in the area. This means that the projected income from the market housing does not cover the development costs. Design 3 has multiple high rises including one 23-storey tower block and so contains the 500 housing units needed to cover the cost of the basement work.

How residents responded

Below, we have listed and categorised all the comments from members of the public at the workshop. This workshop provided more depth and detail than the first Vision Workshop and elicited responses that reflected this progression. However, the responses only amplified those made in the Vision Workshop and there is no evidence that the community’s red lines have changed. This again shows that the Council has neither genuinely engaged nor listened, and it too has not changed its opinions. Taken as a whole, this makes depressing reading. It appears that the consultation process has not worked despite employing a co-design team.

Our demands for Hackney Council from our public meeting

On 29th March we held a public meeting to talk about the Council’s plans for 55 Morning Lane. Hackney Council are currently consulting residents about this but their three public meetings seem to be less about listening and more about convincing us that there is no choice but to downsize Tesco and fill the site with private flats. At the Morning Lane People’s Space public meeting, we talked about how we can challenge the Council and how we work together to get themto build something that puts people before profit.

Our red lines are:

  • At least 50% of any new housing on the site must be council housing at social rent.
  • We need to keep a big Tesco on the site.
  • The Council must make good on its promise to co-design the site with the local community.

The current big Tesco and car park are local resources. If Hackney Council cannot currently build something that meets residents’ needs and makes our lives better, they should keep the site as it is until they can.
Hackney Council needs to work with us to create an alternative to the developer finance model. Let’s build a model that includes the savings on temporary accomodation and other services you get from build council housing, and that takes a longterm view.

We want to know:

  • What has the Council learned from the consultation and what has this changed?
  • What conversations has the Council had with Tesco and what has this changed?
  • What are the Council’s plans to address the needs of people in temporary accommodation and on the housing waiting list generally and how does the site fit into these?

We will keep campaigning until Hackney Council listens to residents

Our next action is to go to the Council’s final design workshop on Saturday 26th April 11am-1pm in the Dan West Community Hall. This is an important opportunity for all of us who care about the Tesco site in Hackney Central to make our views clear.

If you’d like to get more involved in Morning Lane People’s Space, email us on morninglanepeoplesspace@gmail.com

Hackney Council’s online survey on 55 Morning Lane

Hackney Council has launched an online survey about their redevelopment of the Tesco site at 55 Morning Lane in Hackney Central. We don’t trust the Council and there are big problems with their survey. But we still think it’s helpful for as many people as possible to fill it in because otherwise the Council will try to use the results to justify their plans to replace the current superstore with a much smaller Tesco and to fill the rest of the site with hundreds of private flats. Below, we explain what’s wrong with the Council’s survey and offer a guide to how to respond to it.

What’s wrong with the Council’s online survey

The survey does not mention the three key points about the Council’s plans for the site. They don’t tell us that they want to replace the current Tesco with a much smaller store (about the size of the Well Street Tesco). They don’t tell us that they plan to fill the site with hundreds of private flats that will be unaffordable to most people in Hackney. They don’t tell us that the parking on the site will be massively reduced.

The survey does not ask anything about the class backgrounds of the people who are filling it in. We know that people with different backgrounds and experiences of Hackney have different views on what they want built here. For example, we found that people from working-class backgrounds and people who identify as Black are more likely to prioritise keeping a big supermarket on the site than people from middle-class backgrounds and people who identify as White.

This is NOT a genuine consultation. The Council launched this consultation after they had already briefed the architects. And the architects will have already developed draft designs before it closes in two weeks time. If the Council genuinely cares about what people locally want, it will use the detailed research we in MOPS have done and that includes the views of thousands of local residents. The head architect admitted he has not even read the results of our research.

Advice on how to respond to the Council’s survey

Here’s a link to Hackney Council’s survey.

Question 1 asks what should the top three priorities be for a new development at 55 Morning Lane. If you want cheap housing and shopping put these in the priorities because the Council is looking for excuses to build private flats and downsize Tesco. Similarly, the Council wants to build tower blocks, to gentrify Hackney and to get rid of the car parking. So if you want something different, put that in the priorities.

Here’s two possible ways to fill in the three priorities based on what we have found most residents want.

Council housing at social rents
A supermarket of the same size as the current Tesco
No gentrification

Cheap housing and shopping (council housing and a big Tesco)
A development for local residents (homes for people on the waiting list, shops that provide products for the diversity of Hackney and provide good jobs for us)
A spacious development (no tower blocks or overly dense development, and genuine community spaces where all are welcome)

Question 2 asks about what public or community spaces you would you like to see included in the development and what would encourage you to visit the area more often. Although the question starts with the words “in addition to potential new housing and a supermarket”, it’s an open question so you can talk about them if that’s what matters to you. So if a big supermarket is why you visit the area, tell Hackney Council that. Or if you think the housing should be public not private, tell them that. Another approach is to connect public spaces with housing and shopping. For example, you can ask for gardens and children’s play areas for the social housing residents and places where the customers of a big supermarket can meet.

Question 3 shows a map and asks you to rank access points to the site. The map shows that there will be three very big new buildings on the site but does not explain what these will be or how tall they are going to be. This question is an opportunity to say something about these blocks for example, you could ask Hackney Council to explain to residents what these blocks are going to be and to consult us about them.

Question 4 asks what you would like to see happen at a redevelopment of 55 Morning Lane. It has some pictures – None of these relate to the most important new buildings that are planned – a smaller Tesco and hundreds of private flats. But there is an “Other” box which allows you to reject the options they give you and say whatever you want. You could write that you want the new space to be welcoming to people from all social class and ethnic backgrounds, like the current Tesco and car park are. Or you could talk about the need for space inside and around the blocks of flats, with balconies and communal areas for social housing tennants and shoppers.

Finally we hope you’ll join us at our next public meeting where there will be a chance to talk openly about what we want from the development of 55 Morning Lane. It’s on Saturday 29th March, in the Dan West Community Hall on the Trelawney Estate, with lunch at midday and then discussion from 1-3pm.

Hackney Council’s vision workshop on 55 Morning Lane

On Saturday 7th December amid the xmas parties, Hackney Council held its first workshop on its plans for redeveloping 55 Morning Lane, the Tesco site in Hackney Central.

After years of secrecy, in this workshop we learned a little about our Council’s current thinking, including two key things that contradict what they said previously:

First, Hackney Council have not decided they will redevelop the site. They might sell it in an attempt to recoup the £60 milliion they spent buying it from Tesco in 2017. They have appointed architects and community engagement consultants but both are on 3-month contracts. At the end of these, they will present a set of options for 55 Morning Lane and say how feasible they think each of them is.

Second, the deal between Hackney Council and Tesco defines a minimum size for a new store on the site but not a maximum size. The architects have been tasked to negotiate with Tesco so there is hope that our pressure will work and the earlier plans for a much smaller store will be changed and we can keep a big supermarket in Hackney Central.

Most of the workshop was spent in small groups discussing what we want to see built on 55 Morning Lane. As always, people had some great ideas but after years of talking to residents about what they want to see on the site and doing thousands of surveys, we weren’t surprised to hear again that our community wants cheap, spacious and local-oriented council housing and a big supermarket.

There are three more meetings planned in the new year – one in January and two in February – alongside specific outreach to young people and other community groups. Through these, the architects and engagement consultants will create three options for 55 Morning Lane and assess their feasibility. We, like many of those at Saturday’s workshop, based on past experience, are sceptical about whether residents will genuinely be involved in this process.

Why we’re resigning from the Hackney Central Community Panel

An open letter to the Mayor of Hackney from Morning Lane People’s Space

We’re MOPS (Morning Lane People’s Space), local residents who for five years have been working to get a voice for residents in our Council’s plans to build on the Tesco site at 55 Morning Lane in the heart of Hackney Central. We have listened and consulted widely. We have stood outside Tesco and talked to hundreds of people about what they want to see on the site. Thousands of local people completed surveys, and we shared the results. We have held public meetings, and much more.

We’re sad to be resigning from the Hackney Central Community Panel. We’ve been one of its most active members. In a recent review, we pointed out it’s not representative of the community. It is unclear how new members are involved. The content and logistics of discussions are controlled by the Council. Perhaps the top-down approach is why attendances at the two meetings held this year were in single figures.

Our reason for resigning is Hackney Council’s decision that the community reps who will help choose an architect for 55 Morning Lane will come from this unrepresentative Council-controlled Panel. If we remain, we will be validating this half-baked and corrupt process.

On Thursday 10th October, Hackney Central Community Panel members were invited by Nicola Hudson, the Council officer responsible for the Tesco site, to apply to participate in the evaluation panel, to help select an architect for the site’s redevelopment. The invitation was short notice – giving organisations just four days across the weekend to complete a nomination form. The architect is to be appointed only a week later on the afternoon of Monday 21st October and anyone putting themselves forward has to be free to attend then. Also at late notice, successful applicants will need to attend a training session – though its time on 16th October is not provided, and will need to fit in hours of required reading during the week.

There are about 25 people on the Community Panel – a mix of businesses and community organisations. The businesses include one property development financier, four bars/pubs, three shops, and two networks. The community organisations include a few grassroots groups like us with elected officers and regular meetings, but most aren’t directly accountable to residents. They include the London College of Fashion and Sutton House. None of the many Tenants and Residents Associations in the area are on the Panel. The Council decides who is on the Panel and which of these groups will help them select an architect. MOPS believe in an open process where, as a community, we – not the Council – choose who represents us.

Rather than civic engagement this feels like a last minute, tick-box exercise. It could have been very different.

Less than three weeks before Hackney Central Community Panel members were emailed, MOPS held a public meeting with 50+ people present. The Mayor and Deputy Mayor responsible for regeneration, and Nicola Hudson attended, with a 10-minute platform to share how they planned to engage the public via ‘co-design’! Nicola said she wants to design the site and select the architect with us. She didn’t say that five architects had already been shortlisted and their presentations scheduled. Or that the many interested and informed residents attending the meeting would not be eligible to take part in the selection process. Rather than seize an opportunity to share and get feedback on the process, she ignored all the pleas for transparency.

The current process is not co-design. It’s not even consultation. It is PR. Although promised in the public meeting, the Council is yet to share key information such as timelines and decision-making processes. While the language of community engagement is sprayed about, Hackney councillors and officers are untruthful. One of repeated comments we hear leafleting outside Tesco is: “You can’t trust Hackney council”. We said: “Come to our public meeting and hear what they have to say”. Sadly, the community has been proved right.

55 Morning Lane is hugely important for Hackney. It is not ‘business-as-usual’ – it is a town centre redevelopment, where the interests and concerns of residents must be central. We will continue our work to get residents’ voices heard by Hackney Council in their plans for the site, and to ensure a large Tesco remains, and at least 50% of any housing built there is public housing that can provide homes for families on the waiting list.

While we’re resigning from the Panel, we’ll always be willing to meet with and talk to you and others at the Council if that happens on the basis of openness and honesty. As the people who’ve stood up for the site for five years, we hope you’ll want to do that.

Hackney Council break their promise to work with residents to co-design the Tesco site in Hackney Central

As Morning Lane People’s Space, we are campaigning for a community voice in the Council’s plans to build on 55 Morning Lane in Hackney Central – currently the site of a big Tesco store and car park.

For years our message to Hackney Council has been that working with residents needs 3 things from them:

  1. Being OPEN
  2. TRUSTING us
  3. SHARING their knowledge

Hackney Council has failed again and again at these.

At our public meeting on 21 September, Nicola Hudson (the council officer responsible for 55 Morning Lane) said that Hackney Council will design the site with the local community. She said we’re starting from a blank slate and we’ll decide the architects together.

This is dishonest because our Council has already shortlisted architects and asked them to submit ideas for the site that include replacing the current Tesco with a much smaller store.

We welcome the Council appointing co-design consultants to work with residents. But these consultants cannot do their job if Hackney Council is not truthful with our community and if they refuse to share information and decisions with us.

Below are 3 conditions which must be met by Hackney Council before they can expect residents to give our time and share our knowledge and skills with them:

  1. MAKE KEY INFORMATION PUBLIC, including:
  • The architects who’ve been selected, their brief, and any responses to it.
  • All restrictions on what can be built on the site.
  • The provisional timeline for the development.
  1. EXPLAIN HOW THE COMMUNITY WILL BE INVOLVED, specifically:
  • Building is not set to start until 2027, what will happen after the consultants leave in a few months time?
  • What support will be given to residents who take part in co-design? This must include money – it shouldn’t just be architects, consultants and council workers whose time is paid.
  1. TELL US HOW DECISIONS WILL BE MADE, specifically:
  • Which decisions will be made by the Council, which by the community and which will be joint?
  • What are the mechanisms for those decisions? e.g. an online vote, consensus at a public meeting, two elected residents to join a procurement panel.


Currently Hackney Council say they’re doing ‘co-design’ but their approach is top-down. We urge them to do bottom-up planning for real. That’s the only way we can create an inspiring development on 55 Morning Lane which serves the people of Hackney and in which we all have a stake.

Hackney Council are excluding residents from a key decision for the future of the Tesco site in Hackney Central (55 Morning Lane)

After years of campaigning, Hackney Council have finally shared a timetable with us in MOPS (Morning Lane People’s Space) for the future of the Tesco site at 55 Morning Lane. Although Council officers talk about the importance of involving residents, what they’re suggesting is more PR than community engagement. Although they talk about co-design, they are refusing to share key decisions with people who live locally.

We understand that co-design is something new for Hackney Council’s staff and councillors, who are used to top-down development. From the failed Fashion Hub to the ‘regeneration’ of Bridport, Woodberry Down and other housing estates, we know that top down doesn’t work. We hope that they take this opportunity to learn about co-design with the community as we shape the future of 55 Morning Lane together.

This statement is in response to the appointment of community engagement consultants next week. We told Hackney Council officers that there must be some public involvement in this. The officers refused to do this citing lack of time, not being able to assess candidates fairly within their rules of procurement, and it being unreasonable to expect candidates to attend a public meeting before they are appointed. Instead, officers suggested inviting their preferred candidate “to attend a meet and greet public session to give the local community the opportunity to meet them prior to confirmation of their appointment”. This is not co-design, it is not even consultation, it is PR, and an insult to the community. Hackney Council bought the Tesco site in Hackney Central in 2017. The years of delays since then are due to bad decision making by the Council as a direct result of not consulting the community. Yet, they are refusing to extend their timetable by the few weeks needed to involve the community in this first key appointment. If the Council’s rules of procurement block community involvement in appointments then this needs to be addressed as a matter of urgency. Other institutional blocks on sharing decisions with the public must also be identified and changed, otherwise talk of co-design is just rhetoric. Finally, any consultant who is committed to co-design would be happy to meet local residents and would understand why this is part of the appointment process.

Co-design means involving all parties in all stages, all the way through the project, even if the Council has the final decision making role. The community on the Alton estate in Southwark drew up a community proposal, but the Council was not involved. The Council has taken the bits it likes from their proposal and gone ahead with the project. This is not co-design. Co-design involves a commitment that the community be heard and felt by being part of the process from the start to the end. Now is the time for Hackney to show how it can be done, setting an example for others and for future projects. The Tesco site at 55 Morning Lane site is not only ‘central’ to Hackney Town Centre, but also to the local and wider community’s everyday experience. It represents a huge opportunity for Hackney Council to pioneer an inclusive regeneration project at the very heart of our borough.

We organised a public meeting on co-design and set out what it means for us. But what are Hackney Council’s ideas on co-design? How do they envision the community being involved? We invite them to put these answers into the public domain at a public meeting in September.

Our Manifesto

Morning Lane People’s Space is a campaign for our local Hackney community voice to be heard in the development of the 55 Morning Lane Tesco site in Hackney Central. We launched in February 2020. 

We are calling for our Council to put people before profit, to design and develop the site to meet the needs of our borough’s residents. Two years ago, Hackney Council committed to co-designing the development with us, but they have failed to start this process and have not even proposed how they plan to do it. 

In this manifesto we set out our demands for the site, for the co-design process and for development in Hackney in general. These demands are based on our surveys of thousands of residents, and our discussions outside Tesco, in public meetings and online. In contrast to Council consultations, we use open questions, go to places where people are to collect data, report on collective priorities not just individual responses, and feed back results in a range of ways via leaflets, online communication, and public meetings.

OUR DEMANDS FOR THE TESCO SITE IN HACKNEY CENTRAL

Make the case for change: The big Tesco and car park are well used. We want to see our Council building on the site. But it would be better to leave it as it is than to reduce the size of the supermarket, build tower blocks, and gentrify the area. Hackney Council must make the case for change, through open dialogue and by proposing something that improves our lives. 

Any housing built on the site should be a minimum of 50% council homes at social rent: In Hackney, thousands of families live in temporary accommodation and thousands more are forced into the expensive private rental sector. From 2010 to 2022, Hackney Council built just 464 social-rent council homes in the borough. During that same 12 year period, they sold 895 through Right To Buy. This development must prioritise cheap public homes.

Keep a supermarket of the same size as the current Tesco on the site: As well as cheap housing, we need cheap shops, and ones with long opening hours and a big product range.

OUR DEMANDS FOR THE CO-DESIGN PROCESS

Be open and transparent: The previous deals that Hackney Council made are secrets. Even if the Council feel bound by commercial confidentiality, they must speak about what happened and why mistakes were made, and they must be 100% transparent about everything that happens from now on. 

Trust Hackney residents and make decisions with us: Repeatedly, residents have shown greater capacity to predict what will work for Hackney than elected councillors and unelected council officers, as is painfully evident in the boarded-up Fashion Hub just down the road from 55 Morning Lane. For co-design to work, Hackney Council must give up power, including decision-making power, and put their resources at the disposal of communities.

Share knowledge: Hackney residents have a vast knowledge to share with our Council. Hackney Council must also share their knowledge with us – on planning policy, financial viability, housing density, the financing and ongoing cost of and returns from public housing, and everything else we need to be full partners in the design process.

OUR DEMANDS FOR PLANNING AND DEVELOPMENT IN HACKNEY BEYOND THE TESCO SITE

Use the findings and methods of our campaign to guide planning policy: Our consultation shows that there are three community priorities for 55 Morning Lane – cheapness, localness and spaciousness. Council officers have told us that they recognise these as concerns across our borough, so they must put these into their planning policies. 

Embed co-design within the council’s work: The development on the Tesco site is not the only one that can benefit from the knowledge, skills and wisdom of Hackney residents. The Council should replace their tokenistic and biassed consultations with co-design putting people’s lives at the centre of any changes in our borough. Let’s make 55 Morning Lane a model for a new way of working in Hackney and set an example for other boroughs to emulate.

Have more ambitious policies for building public housing: Between 2005 and 2015, 30,000 council homes across 50 estates in London were part of ‘regeneration’ projects. These projects increased the amount of private housing on the estates by 900% and decreased the amount of council housing by 27%. Hackney Council has to show the political will of councils like Wandsworth that are using borrowing to build 100% council homes on public land. Together we can find alternative methods of financing the homes we need.