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Our communication with the new Hackney councillors

On 7 June, about a month after their election, we emailed Hackney Council’s new Mayor Zoë Garbett, Deputy Mayor Dylan Law and cabinet member with responsibility for 55 Morning Lane Alastair Binnie Lubbock. They responded positively a week later and we’ll be meeting Dylan and Alastair in early August. Below is our correspondence.

After offering “congratulations on your recent elections and your new responsibilities for housing, planning and development in Hackney”, we said that “we welcome the new administration and hope this will mark a change in how Hackney Council engages with us and other residents about the plans for 55 Morning Lane”. We continued:

“We know that you’ve all engaged with MOPS in the past and we invite you to re-engage with us in your new roles. Specifically, we are emailing to ask for a meeting with a small group of MOPS campaigners before the summer break in order to discuss your plans for the site.

“Given what you know about our work, you will not be surprised that we urge you to bring transparency (e.g. by releasing the unredacted Option Agreement and the report on the consultation that concluded in April 2025). Nor will it surprise you that we urge you to quickly open a dialogue with the local community and we would be happy to discuss partnering with you on this.

“We see it as key for you to involve Tesco in any dialogue with the community, to re-frame the brief for the site, to look for new ways of funding any development, and to only develop this site in a way that adds social value over and above its current uses.”

We finished by suggesting that “in the longer term, there is a need to look again at the Hackney Central Plan given the outcome of earlier consultations” and informed them that “we plan to publish our correspondence with you on our website”.

Alastair’s reply thanked us for our email and stated:

“I would very much welcome a meeting with MOPS campaigners. I will raise the points about transparency with officers and see if there is any legitimate reason those items cannot be made public, but I don’t see why they shouldn’t be, indeed I have already asked to see a copy of the engagement report myself.

“I agree that we need to set out a vision for this site and bring Tesco to the table to get an outcome that delivers the maximum possible social value for the site which was acquired at some cost to the council by the previous administration. I look forward to working with you and the wider community on this incredibly important site and I thank you once again for all of the work you’ve already put into making sure we get the best outcome we can.”

Hackney Council elections

On 7th May, Hackney residents voted for change, electing a Green Mayor and replacing most of the Labour councillors with Greens. This desire for new leadership in Hackney was evident at our last public meeting on Saturday 11th April, which was an opportunity to question candidates in the then upcoming elections.

We were joined by Zoë Garbett (Hackney Greens), Heather Mendick & Alana Heaney (Hackney Independent Socialists), Ken Gabbott-Rolph (Liberal Democrats), Brian Debus (Trade Union and Socialist Coalition), and Clair Battaglino (Independent). We also invited the Labour Party, the Conservatives and Reform.

We started by asking our panel: What are your plans for the Morning Lane Site? They were also asked about how they would manage housing repairs, fund the building of council housing, and support local democracy.

Zoë spoke about greater accountability and transparency, she wanted to look at other options for housing such as a Community Land Trust and to make sure Tesco aren’t operating rent-free on the site. She said that she will push back against developers and will work with us and other community groups.

We oppose the threat to Argun Stationers in Hackney Central

We support Argun Printers and Stationers who are threatened with an early termination of their lease if they do not consider moving from their present premises on Mare Street to the derelict ‘fashion hub’. Their landlords are the Arch Company who purchased all the railway arches from Network Rail. The Arch Company has itself been taken over by Blackstone, an American Private Equity company notorious for their predatory investment strategy. Their aim is to maximise profits by turning the many arches into bars and restaurants.

For over thirty years Argun has been a central part of Hackney. As owner Farukh Adia says the attack on them is “an act that not only jeopardises our business but threatens the fabric of a community staple”.

Argun is situated on the edge of the Tesco site, 55 Morning Lane. MOPS has been campaigning for six years to make the community’s voice heard over the council’s redevelopment plans for this site, working for meaningful involvement in the planning and design processes and to put community needs where they should be – at the heart of any changes. The community’s need is for Argun to remain, to support businesses that have nurtured and resourced our community, and to prevent developers controlling changes to the future of Hackney Central.

MOPS have a long record of campaigning in the area and we will be organising to support the retention of Argun in its current location. We urge everyone to sign the petition against the forced relocation of the business and to join us on Saturday 7th February 11am-12.30pm outside the shop to collect signatures. The needs of Hackney’s residents and workers must determine what happens in our borough’s Town Centre.

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 10thOctober, 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:

Being OPEN
TRUSTING us
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:

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.

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.

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.