Campaigners demand ‘openness’ as council picks architect for Morning Lane rebuild

Campaigners started their own community consultation a few years ago. Photograph: MOPS

Hackney Council has appointed architects for the much-anticipated development of the Tesco site in the town centre, but campaigners continue to lobby for more transparency.

The location on 55 Morning Lane has been allocated by the council for a mixed-use residential and commercial development, including space for a new supermarket.

Following the choice of architects Levitt Bernstein to draw up plans for the development, the council has invited residents to its drop-in sessions to meet the designers and “help shape the initial ideas and options”.

But community activist group Morning Lane People’s Space (MOPS) have criticised the council for a lack of transparency, and urged it to share more information about the proposals — including a “full timeline” and the Town Hall’s “red lines”.

In a post on X (formerly Twitter), they said: “The announcement of the drop-in session on 7 December talks about a new supermarket but it doesn’t mention that the council has already done a deal with Tesco that this new store be less than half the size of the current one.”

The group also criticised the council over the process taking so long.

“It’s two and a half years after they took over responsibility for the Tesco site from failed developer Hackney Walk Ltd, and nearly five years since we started asking people about the site.

“If Hackney Council really wants to co-design the site with residents as it claims, we need openness and honesty.

“Both information and decisions must be shared with the Hackney community. The council has repeatedly refused to do this and has instead used a top-down approach.

“We very much hope this will change,” the group wrote.

The planned development has been fraught with public argument ever since the Town Hall purchased the plot from Tesco for £60 million in 2017.

Mayor Caroline Woodley previously said the council is “committed” to a co-design process with the community.

“Thousands of people have helped shape the priorities for the site and the wider Hackney Central area, through a series of in-person events, surveys and online engagement run by the council and MOPS over the last five years,” she said in October.

But prior to the appointment of Levitt Bernstein, MOPS claimed that, despite the council giving assurances that everything would be done in the open, the local authority sidestepped proper community engagement by shortlisting architects without first asking residents.

This prompted the group to quit the council’s community-run panel for the development, citing a “corrupt, top-down” approach.

They have persistently pushed for more transparency and have called on the council to learn from its past dealings, which they say undermined the community’s trust in the process.

Hackney Council originally awarded the 999-year lease at 55 Morning Lane to developer Hackney Walk Ltd in 2017, but the agreement came to an end in March 2022.

The proposals at the time included a smaller supermarket than the current Tesco, 450 homes in blocks up to 19 storeys high, and 20 per cent social housing.

Campaigner Adam Foreman told the council the agreement had “seriously undermined trust”.

The council had earlier entered into a different option agreement with Hackney Walk Ltd, in 2013, in a doomed bid to convert the old railway arches nearby into a luxury fashion hub or ‘Fashion Walk’.

The £100m scheme was devised by developer Jack Basrawy and funded predominantly by his backers, but it also attracted a £3.7 million investment from Network Rail, which at the time owned nearly 4,500 arches across Britain.

The project was axed in 2019, with all but one of its shop units lying empty.

Local residents, groups and campaigners lambasted the now-abandoned plans.

In 2021, Luke Billingham from community charity Hackney Quest wrote that the scheme was “misguided”.

He also raised the fact that “some of those behind the Fashion Walk” were involved with the planned development for the Tesco site.

The Hackney Society was also critical.

In 2013, it said: “The fashion hub is ultimately a grand, exciting and innovative idea, but rapidly implanted in the wrong place and without major infrastructure changes needed to support it.”

Cllr Guy Nicholson, cabinet member for housing supply, planning, culture and inclusive economy, told the Guardian last year that, at the time, he sincerely believed the fashion hub project would work.

He said: “It’s very disappointing because nothing’s happened — it’s just empty. And the council has been frustrated in trying to change that.

“Civil servants can’t talk to anybody or broker anything, and there’s still no conversation about what is going to happen next.”

MOPS previously accused the Town Hall of “prioritising private interests” over local residents in its plans for 55 Morning Lane.

The group has pressed the council to be transparent and open “at every stage” of the current scheme in order for it to win back public trust.

The campaign wants at least 50 per cent of the council homes proposed for the site to be social rent, as opposed to “affordable housing”.