Campaign to save Victorian homes pumped up by ballet twist
Shocked: members of the Wilberforce Road Guardians. Photograph: Max Eckersley
Campaigners fighting to stop the demolition of a row of Victorian houses are hoping a discovery about a famous dancer will leave the developer without a leg to stand on.
As revealed in the Citizen back in April, Rainbow Properties wants to tear down a stretch of period homes from 3-25 Wilberforce Road in Finsbury Park to build accommodation for young professionals.
Now, just days after the proposals were submitted to Hackney Council, campaigners from Wilberforce Road Guardians (WRG) have unearthed an interesting fact about number 23 – it is the birthplace of English National Ballet (ENB) co-founder Dame Alicia Markova, who died 13 years ago at the age of 94.
WRG’s Hugh White said: “The discovery was fortuitous. There was an excellent, volunteer-produced, local magazine called the Finsbury Parker. It had some funding from both Hackney and Islington and was published every couple of months from 1975 to 2002 or so.
“We found mention of the Markova birthplace in it and one of our members, Barry, did some researching.”
In an interview with The Herald in 2000, Markova herself described the house as “where my parents lived… at the time I came along”.
When informed by WRG campaigners that the dancer’s birthplace was under threat, author Tina Sutton, who penned a biography called The Making of Markova, wrote back: “The British ballet world, and England, owes so much to Alicia Markova. Please don’t let part of this woman’s illustrious history be destroyed.
“I’ll leave the last line to the hard-to-please, esteemed dance critic of The New York Times, John Martin. After seeing Markova dance her most famous role of Giselle – a performance of such mesmerising virtuosity and heartbreaking emotion that even the most hard-to-please balletomanes swooned – he wrote, ‘She is not only the greatest ballet dancer in the world today, but very possibly the greatest that ever lived.’”
White added: “We shall of course do what we can to preserve number 23 along with the rest of the houses and we hope the ENB and other dance bodies with connections to Dame Alicia will support our campaign.”
Virtual memory: a mock-up of a blue plaque for Markova. Image: Wilberforce Road Guardians
WRG has even created a fake image showing a blue plaque in memory of Markova outside number 23.
The ENB, fresh from a two-week tour in Japan, told the Citizen it is looking into the matter and has requested more information before deciding on a course of action.
As for the developer’s proposals, which residents were given a first glimpse of in April, White said they were “as bad as first feared”.
Although the campaign is still digesting the planning documents, he did give an initial response on behalf of WRG: “Residents in the Brownswood area are shocked by the proposal to pull down 12 houses that could easily serve as family accommodation for many years to come. Wilberforce Road was missed by war-time bombs and is largely as it was when the houses were built.”
Nick Perry from the Hackney Society, a local conservation group, said it was “baffling” that such a large proposal has no flats available at a social rent: “It’s clear from the developer’s documentation they are hell-bent on total demolition of half a street of some of the best Victorian stock in the area.
“Their own heritage assessment completely fails to recognise the value of the group of buildings despite heavy hints from the council that it feels differently. Until a less destructive scheme is on the tale it’s hard to take this one seriously.”
The proposals include 146 new Homes of Multiple Occupancy (HMO) – bedrooms in a communal living space – along with 16 new flats and the restoration of 27 Wilberforce Road.
Perry added: “It’s baffling that such a large project with so many, densely-packed, tiny flats that fail to meet recognised space standards, cannot, according to the developer’s own figures, provide any ‘affordable’ units. With projected rental rates starting at £247.50pw for a tiny 18 square-metre ensuite bedroom, this project is a scary future for London housing.”
A spokesperson for Quatro, the PR firm acting on behalf of the developer, said: “The affordable housing contribution will be calculated via a viability study Hackney Council are conducting. However the new HMO units will provide a more affordable form of private rental living than traditional flats, and will be a much better quality than the current poorly designed hostel type accommodation that is on the site at the moment.
“HMO units cannot for example be sold off to end users in the same way as private residential dwellings can be, therefore the normal mechanism for social housing does not apply in policy terms, but we are in discussion with Hackney planning officers about the best approach.
“At the public exhibition held in April it was clear that there are long term issues with anti-social behaviour at the northern end of Wilberforce Road. The new homes will mean a settled community for the area helping to reduce this problem.
“By building new homes that people want to live in, we hope to offer decent, modern, affordable accommodations for people starting out on their own. Thank you to everyone who took part in the consultation exercise and for the comments received. We are looking forward to working with local residents over the next few months as the planning application progresses.”
On the discovery about 23 Wilberforce Road, the spokesperson added: “We are aware of the connection with Alicia Markova and are working on a way to best acknowledge the history of the building in which she was born. This may take the form of a plaque or even naming a build after her but will be done in consultation with her relatives.”
Update: this article was amended at 19:47 on Friday 21 July to include a comment from PR firm Quatro on behalf of developer Rainbow Properties.