Newsletter - Hackney Heckler
Object
newsletter
Production date
Autumn 2009
Object number
2009.262
Physical Description
Hackney Solidrity Network was set up in early 2008 to facilitate joint working and campainging. They held monthly open meetings at the MOTH Club on Valette Street. 3,000 copies of this newsletter 'Hackney Heckler' wre printed and distributed across the borough to let residents know about campaigns.
This issue's lead article covers regneration plans for housing on the Woodberry Down Estate.
This issue's lead article covers regneration plans for housing on the Woodberry Down Estate.
Material
paper
On display?
No
Inscription
COMMUNITY INFORMATION
Hackney
Online
Listings
freelondonlisting.co.uk
Decent listings service
londoncitizen.org.uk
Members include faith groups, schools,
students organisations, union branches and
presidents groups.
lcap.org.uk
This activist organisation takes effective,
direct, grassroots action against poverty
and social injustice in London.
hackneycitizen.co.uk
The Hackney Citizens is an independent
quarterly.
hackneypodcast.co.uk
Your monthly serving of Hackney-drives
fare.
whitechapelenerarchlstgroup.wordpress.com
The notorious…rousers
pogocade.co.uk
London’s best vegan cafe and alternative
political hotspot.
HACKNEY ON FACEBOOK
Save The General British Pub
His!
I’m from Hackney… Booooo! That scared
You!
A page to bring all of Hackney’s people
together, born and bred or who moved in
Hackney to live.
You Know When You Lives/Or Have Been
Brought Up In Hackney When…
Thoughts on how people inside and out-
side the borough are Hackney residents.
Springfield Massive Or alternatively “I Survived Growing Up In A Hood Called Upper
Clapton”
Memories from the 80’s and 90s.
Stamford Hillies the Original ghetto!
This group invites anyone who has had a
past, with the bill.
Save Ridley Road Market
Traders versus a council determined to sell
off their patch.
I love Hackney
You soppy old gits.
RIP Kirm Celebi
17-year-old Kirm Celebi was gunned down
by two cowards. Joining this group will
show your support for Etem’s family.
Hoxton Reunion
Yeah you guessed it, to reunite people from
Hoxton.
samiballars.com
Support in Hoxton for Sam Mallam’s campaign is quite phenomenal. His wrongful
conviction is discussed here. See Page 3
HACKNEY ON BLOSS
finsburypark.wordpress.com
Thing to share campaign information
paraturpots.typesperun.com
Musings or sport, racism and politics.
nohackneyhighrise.org.uk
Opposing the construction of sowers round
London Fields.
uncarved.org/blog
John Kiden on politics and culture
Save Ridley Road Market!
The trades are convinced that the
council will do all it can to run down
Ridley Road Market and do their
upmost to sabotage it. Our informed
opinion is that they would like to
sell the site of our market, of
nearly 200 stalls, to
property developers
with one eye on the 2012
Olympics. One of the
traders made a very apt
comment; “This market
has survived two world
wars, will it survive
Hackney Council?”
Unemployed Workers’
Group
Being unemployed on tour fault and
we’re tired of being treated like we’ve done
something wrong when we’re using the
Jobcentre. We meet every Thursday from
12 pm in Cafe Bohemien, Bohemian
Place, off Mare St, Hackney.
Call 07932.243-737
At least some decent
restneration.
The local
artistic types, complete
with fashionable haircuts
and mental taste
in clothes, have picked
the half-dead old
industrial estate
round Hackney Wick
Station for their
next colonisation
Project. Out of the
Way and
undesirable, just
for once it’s not
displacing people
Nice one!
Hackney Wick Station, by the entrance.
There is some good graffiti some here.
Reel News and Hackney
Solidarity Network presents…
Monthly documentary films
showings on the second Sunday of
each month at the Moth Club in
Valetter Street, 7pm. Films cover a wide range of
topics.
September features reflections by minors 25 years
on from miners strike, a look at the RAAT rail
strikes of 2009 and the Seniors Aires Tube weekers’ struggle.
Hackney Residents Group
Hackney temporary accommodation
& hostel residents are campaigning to
get housed quicker and in better con-
ditions! Every two weeks people meet,
discuss issues and plan action.
Hackney Hero
Johnny Walker from
Hackney and Leyton
Sunday Football
League.
Mr Walker, we salute you for
defending Hackney Marshes and the
football pitches to the hilt against all
corners. Legend.
Game Monitor is
a network of people raising
arouncreness about issues within the London Olympic
development process.
We want to highlight the local, London and
international implications of the Olympic industry.
We seek to deconstruct the ‘fantastic’ hype of
Olympic boosterism and the eager complicity of the
‘Urban elites’ in politics, business, the media, sport,
academia and local institutional ‘community stakes-
holders’.
Take a look at gamemonitor.org.uk,for more.
About the Heckler and Hackney Solidarity Network…
Hackney Solidarity Network
(HSN) was set up in early 2008
To:
Provide a space where both in-
dividuals and group driven across
Hackney can come to network..
report back on what they are doing,
and to share their skills and
knowledge with others.
Improve communication be-
tween campaigns, groups and in-
dividuals in Hackney and beyond
Give people the opportunity
to meet and socialise with each
Other.
Facilitate joint working and
campaigning.
We believe that the solidarity
network will over time come to
play a key role in regulating the
continued attacks on our con-
manities by the councell and
others; and indeed come in play
a positive role in helping to build
a strong, peaceful and waited
Hackney.
We hold monthly open meet-
ings at the Moth Club on Valette
Street (off Morning Lane), where
we have reports from different
campaigns - leaving the most
Time for informal chatting and
Networking.
We organise occasional meet-
ings about topical issues e.g. to
support the International cam-
paign of El Movement for Jus-
tice in El Barrio (M,IB) a mainly
Mexican saigrant New York com-
munity organisation, about their
struggle against displacement
by gentrification in Harlem by
a London based property devel-
oper.
Recently we joined up with
Reel News activist video col-
lective, to show inspiring and
thought-provoking short films
about a wide variety of issues,
from workers strugglers in the UK
and other parts of the world in
ours about the environment and
climate change.
3.000 copies of this newslet-
ter are printed and distributed
across the borough. If you want
to let Hackney raildents know
about your campaign, group or
community activity - then please
get in touch with the details.
Or if you want to write an ar-
tickle, have your say, take photo-
graphs or draw some cartoons.
for us - again get touch.
Or if you would be writing to
take some copies to give out in
friends, family or neighbours
- then we’d also love to hear
from you.
STAY IN TOUCH
If you would like to receive in-
vites to our meetings, film sights
(held every month) and other
activities - send us your email
address and we will add you to
the mailing list. Content us
using the details below.
(Mouse) www.hackneysolidarynetwork.org.uk
(Keyboard) hackneysolidary@hotmail.com
(Phone) 07757 289-726
HACKNEY
HECKLER
Overground life, P2
Hackney tunes, P2-3
Sam Hallam, P3
Newsletter of the Hackney Solidarity Network
free/donation
Issue 1, Autumn 2009
WOODBERRY
DOWN BLUES
How East Enders are making way for a profit grab
Dick Turples used to rob the
wealthy as they rode over
Stamford Hill. Now Hackney’s
right wing Labour council is
trying to rob from the poor to
give to the rich.
Woodberry Down Estate was
once one of Britain’s finest
social housing schemes.
2,000 flats and houses with
All the facilities needed for the
residents from cradle to grave.
There was the then ultra
modern John Scott health
centre and youth club, libraries, pubs and an old people’s
home, all right next to a…
two tube and Finsbury Park.
It was a place of pride for the
East Enders who moved there
from Isolated post-war inner
London. But after its transfer
from Greater London Coun-
cil, Hackney Council ran the
estate down.
The secondary school was
shut, for no reason (false
chains or dodgy writing) and the
old people’s home demolished.
Repairs were left, and left. By
the 1990s the estate needed
major works. As old Labour
council would have done some
thing but the new one had a
different plan - use it to make
money for the rich and houses
for the middle classes.
The developers had kept
their eye on this area for
decades. An enormous plot
of land right by park and
leisure facilities and with
some of the best transport
links in London. It never
had a hope.
So a massive so-called
regeneration plan was drawn
up which would see, at the
coast of £1 billion, the whole es-
tate demolished, good houses
and rundown flats, to provide
4,500 apartments.
2,250 were for private sale,
850 for part buy part rent and
just 1.480 were social rented
units - 25% lease than were
originally there. And the posh
flats would get pride of place
on the estate.
As with all these “regeneration-
Woodberry
Down was a
Place of pride for
The East Enders,
but Hackney
Council ran the
Estate down
Woodbery
Down was a
place of pride for
the East Enders,
but Hackney
Council ran the
estate down.
tion schemes” this is simply
a land grab by the speculators
— one than is going belly up as
we speak. The scheme has es-
caustically been mothballed.
Although hundreds of flats
have already been evicted and
Demolished, not one single
new dwelling has been built.
Berkeley Romea, the key pri-
vate builder in the scheme, are
not building private houses for
sale building private houses for
sale because no-one will buy
there. Their share prices
have more than halved,
though they continue to
raise money to buy cheap
Land.
It is ironic that the share
price goes up with taxgay-
Ers’ offers of financial sup-
port to these companies,
which exist only to fierce
that taxpayer. And without
Berkeley’s funding there is no
money for the rest of the plan.
Until recently the public was
told the government had no
money for social housing.
Then they realised with
unemployment about to rocket
and their mates in the building
forms in trouble they needed
to ball out the same private
companies that were making
a killing out of buying public
land on the cheap.
So the Houses and Communi-
ty Agency, at the start of March
came in with a £1 million
rescue package to kickstart
the flagship Woodberry Down
regeneration project.
It will allow the council’s
Partner, the developer Berke-
ley Homes, to build 117 social
Rented Homes on the Old
School site of the aprawiting
housing estate.
Mayor Boris Johnson has
approved their ‘masterplan’ but
his approval signals so more
available money.
Wouldn’t it be brilliant if
the housing crisis forced the
state and LBH to end up using
all this site for social housing
— so doubt they would claim it,
was what they wanted all along
— nut through gritted teeth.
(Mouse) www.hackneysolidaritynetwork.org.uk
(Keyboard) hackneysolidarity@hotmail.com
(Phone) 07757 289-726
Hackney
Online
Listings
freelondonlisting.co.uk
Decent listings service
londoncitizen.org.uk
Members include faith groups, schools,
students organisations, union branches and
presidents groups.
lcap.org.uk
This activist organisation takes effective,
direct, grassroots action against poverty
and social injustice in London.
hackneycitizen.co.uk
The Hackney Citizens is an independent
quarterly.
hackneypodcast.co.uk
Your monthly serving of Hackney-drives
fare.
whitechapelenerarchlstgroup.wordpress.com
The notorious…rousers
pogocade.co.uk
London’s best vegan cafe and alternative
political hotspot.
HACKNEY ON FACEBOOK
Save The General British Pub
His!
I’m from Hackney… Booooo! That scared
You!
A page to bring all of Hackney’s people
together, born and bred or who moved in
Hackney to live.
You Know When You Lives/Or Have Been
Brought Up In Hackney When…
Thoughts on how people inside and out-
side the borough are Hackney residents.
Springfield Massive Or alternatively “I Survived Growing Up In A Hood Called Upper
Clapton”
Memories from the 80’s and 90s.
Stamford Hillies the Original ghetto!
This group invites anyone who has had a
past, with the bill.
Save Ridley Road Market
Traders versus a council determined to sell
off their patch.
I love Hackney
You soppy old gits.
RIP Kirm Celebi
17-year-old Kirm Celebi was gunned down
by two cowards. Joining this group will
show your support for Etem’s family.
Hoxton Reunion
Yeah you guessed it, to reunite people from
Hoxton.
samiballars.com
Support in Hoxton for Sam Mallam’s campaign is quite phenomenal. His wrongful
conviction is discussed here. See Page 3
HACKNEY ON BLOSS
finsburypark.wordpress.com
Thing to share campaign information
paraturpots.typesperun.com
Musings or sport, racism and politics.
nohackneyhighrise.org.uk
Opposing the construction of sowers round
London Fields.
uncarved.org/blog
John Kiden on politics and culture
Save Ridley Road Market!
The trades are convinced that the
council will do all it can to run down
Ridley Road Market and do their
upmost to sabotage it. Our informed
opinion is that they would like to
sell the site of our market, of
nearly 200 stalls, to
property developers
with one eye on the 2012
Olympics. One of the
traders made a very apt
comment; “This market
has survived two world
wars, will it survive
Hackney Council?”
Unemployed Workers’
Group
Being unemployed on tour fault and
we’re tired of being treated like we’ve done
something wrong when we’re using the
Jobcentre. We meet every Thursday from
12 pm in Cafe Bohemien, Bohemian
Place, off Mare St, Hackney.
Call 07932.243-737
At least some decent
restneration.
The local
artistic types, complete
with fashionable haircuts
and mental taste
in clothes, have picked
the half-dead old
industrial estate
round Hackney Wick
Station for their
next colonisation
Project. Out of the
Way and
undesirable, just
for once it’s not
displacing people
Nice one!
Hackney Wick Station, by the entrance.
There is some good graffiti some here.
Reel News and Hackney
Solidarity Network presents…
Monthly documentary films
showings on the second Sunday of
each month at the Moth Club in
Valetter Street, 7pm. Films cover a wide range of
topics.
September features reflections by minors 25 years
on from miners strike, a look at the RAAT rail
strikes of 2009 and the Seniors Aires Tube weekers’ struggle.
Hackney Residents Group
Hackney temporary accommodation
& hostel residents are campaigning to
get housed quicker and in better con-
ditions! Every two weeks people meet,
discuss issues and plan action.
Hackney Hero
Johnny Walker from
Hackney and Leyton
Sunday Football
League.
Mr Walker, we salute you for
defending Hackney Marshes and the
football pitches to the hilt against all
corners. Legend.
Game Monitor is
a network of people raising
arouncreness about issues within the London Olympic
development process.
We want to highlight the local, London and
international implications of the Olympic industry.
We seek to deconstruct the ‘fantastic’ hype of
Olympic boosterism and the eager complicity of the
‘Urban elites’ in politics, business, the media, sport,
academia and local institutional ‘community stakes-
holders’.
Take a look at gamemonitor.org.uk,for more.
About the Heckler and Hackney Solidarity Network…
Hackney Solidarity Network
(HSN) was set up in early 2008
To:
Provide a space where both in-
dividuals and group driven across
Hackney can come to network..
report back on what they are doing,
and to share their skills and
knowledge with others.
Improve communication be-
tween campaigns, groups and in-
dividuals in Hackney and beyond
Give people the opportunity
to meet and socialise with each
Other.
Facilitate joint working and
campaigning.
We believe that the solidarity
network will over time come to
play a key role in regulating the
continued attacks on our con-
manities by the councell and
others; and indeed come in play
a positive role in helping to build
a strong, peaceful and waited
Hackney.
We hold monthly open meet-
ings at the Moth Club on Valette
Street (off Morning Lane), where
we have reports from different
campaigns - leaving the most
Time for informal chatting and
Networking.
We organise occasional meet-
ings about topical issues e.g. to
support the International cam-
paign of El Movement for Jus-
tice in El Barrio (M,IB) a mainly
Mexican saigrant New York com-
munity organisation, about their
struggle against displacement
by gentrification in Harlem by
a London based property devel-
oper.
Recently we joined up with
Reel News activist video col-
lective, to show inspiring and
thought-provoking short films
about a wide variety of issues,
from workers strugglers in the UK
and other parts of the world in
ours about the environment and
climate change.
3.000 copies of this newslet-
ter are printed and distributed
across the borough. If you want
to let Hackney raildents know
about your campaign, group or
community activity - then please
get in touch with the details.
Or if you want to write an ar-
tickle, have your say, take photo-
graphs or draw some cartoons.
for us - again get touch.
Or if you would be writing to
take some copies to give out in
friends, family or neighbours
- then we’d also love to hear
from you.
STAY IN TOUCH
If you would like to receive in-
vites to our meetings, film sights
(held every month) and other
activities - send us your email
address and we will add you to
the mailing list. Content us
using the details below.
(Mouse) www.hackneysolidarynetwork.org.uk
(Keyboard) hackneysolidary@hotmail.com
(Phone) 07757 289-726
HACKNEY
HECKLER
Overground life, P2
Hackney tunes, P2-3
Sam Hallam, P3
Newsletter of the Hackney Solidarity Network
free/donation
Issue 1, Autumn 2009
WOODBERRY
DOWN BLUES
How East Enders are making way for a profit grab
Dick Turples used to rob the
wealthy as they rode over
Stamford Hill. Now Hackney’s
right wing Labour council is
trying to rob from the poor to
give to the rich.
Woodberry Down Estate was
once one of Britain’s finest
social housing schemes.
2,000 flats and houses with
All the facilities needed for the
residents from cradle to grave.
There was the then ultra
modern John Scott health
centre and youth club, libraries, pubs and an old people’s
home, all right next to a…
two tube and Finsbury Park.
It was a place of pride for the
East Enders who moved there
from Isolated post-war inner
London. But after its transfer
from Greater London Coun-
cil, Hackney Council ran the
estate down.
The secondary school was
shut, for no reason (false
chains or dodgy writing) and the
old people’s home demolished.
Repairs were left, and left. By
the 1990s the estate needed
major works. As old Labour
council would have done some
thing but the new one had a
different plan - use it to make
money for the rich and houses
for the middle classes.
The developers had kept
their eye on this area for
decades. An enormous plot
of land right by park and
leisure facilities and with
some of the best transport
links in London. It never
had a hope.
So a massive so-called
regeneration plan was drawn
up which would see, at the
coast of £1 billion, the whole es-
tate demolished, good houses
and rundown flats, to provide
4,500 apartments.
2,250 were for private sale,
850 for part buy part rent and
just 1.480 were social rented
units - 25% lease than were
originally there. And the posh
flats would get pride of place
on the estate.
As with all these “regeneration-
Woodberry
Down was a
Place of pride for
The East Enders,
but Hackney
Council ran the
Estate down
Woodbery
Down was a
place of pride for
the East Enders,
but Hackney
Council ran the
estate down.
tion schemes” this is simply
a land grab by the speculators
— one than is going belly up as
we speak. The scheme has es-
caustically been mothballed.
Although hundreds of flats
have already been evicted and
Demolished, not one single
new dwelling has been built.
Berkeley Romea, the key pri-
vate builder in the scheme, are
not building private houses for
sale building private houses for
sale because no-one will buy
there. Their share prices
have more than halved,
though they continue to
raise money to buy cheap
Land.
It is ironic that the share
price goes up with taxgay-
Ers’ offers of financial sup-
port to these companies,
which exist only to fierce
that taxpayer. And without
Berkeley’s funding there is no
money for the rest of the plan.
Until recently the public was
told the government had no
money for social housing.
Then they realised with
unemployment about to rocket
and their mates in the building
forms in trouble they needed
to ball out the same private
companies that were making
a killing out of buying public
land on the cheap.
So the Houses and Communi-
ty Agency, at the start of March
came in with a £1 million
rescue package to kickstart
the flagship Woodberry Down
regeneration project.
It will allow the council’s
Partner, the developer Berke-
ley Homes, to build 117 social
Rented Homes on the Old
School site of the aprawiting
housing estate.
Mayor Boris Johnson has
approved their ‘masterplan’ but
his approval signals so more
available money.
Wouldn’t it be brilliant if
the housing crisis forced the
state and LBH to end up using
all this site for social housing
— so doubt they would claim it,
was what they wanted all along
— nut through gritted teeth.
(Mouse) www.hackneysolidaritynetwork.org.uk
(Keyboard) hackneysolidarity@hotmail.com
(Phone) 07757 289-726