Final nail in the coffin of the East End, warns Councillor Marc Francis
A controversial new plan to build more than 52,000 high-rise homes in Tower Hamlets was approved after a fierce debate in the council on Wednesday.
The New Local Plan will allow more tall buildings to meet the borough’s “exceptional need for affordable housing”.
Previous zoning regulations restricted tall buildings above to just five areas. The new plan will allow buildings of up to 80m, approximately 20-25 storeys, across a large swath of the borough called Zone F.
The new zone includes iconic East End areas like Bishopsgate, Brick Lane, Bow Common Lane and Whitechapel.
Each new development will also have to deliver a minimum of 40 per cent affordable housing, subject to viability.
Over the course of an hour, councillors from Mayor Lufhur Rahman’s Aspire Party hailed the plan as an answer to overcrowding in Tower Hamlets.
It demonstrated the council’s “commitment to deliver thousands of affordable homes”, in a borough where “every family can live well and look forward to a brighter future,” said Councillor Kamrul Hussain.
However, politicians from the Labour and Conservative parties derided its high-rise ambitions as a threat to both heritage, mental health and more.
Councillor Marc Francis of Bow East called the plan “ugly” and claimed its “permissible” approach was “destroying the East End.”
“The historic churches of the East End will have their settings compromised, and no living room window will be safe from yet another tower block plonked two metres in front of it,” he complained.
Others like Labour’s opposition leader Sirajul Islam, claimed that tall buildings would endanger the mental wellbeing of residents both young and old.
“Many health assessments were done and [they] found that living on tall buildings impacts children’s health, depression and mental health,” he said.
“Just imagine a child living on the 15th floor coming down the lift to go and play outside, if that lift worked, that is,” he warned.
His views were echoed by the only Conservative in Tower Hamlets Peter Golds: “If there’s one thing that our families don’t want, it’s [being] stuck on the 50th floor of a tower block. We need to somehow come forward and develop homes that people want, that are near the ground.”
The plan’s 40 per cent affordable housing minimum also came under fire for being unrealistic. Councillors Peter Golds, Ohid Ahmed, and James King all dismissed it as a meaningless statement.
“We know from our own experience, these numbers mean nothing. Actually, in delivery, we are always far behind our target,” said Councillor Ohid Ahmed.
Despite the multitude of criticisms, Aspire party members defended the local plan. It cited an urgent waitlist of 29,000 people in need of housing and dismissed the anti-high rise sentiment as frivolous.
“Millionaires can live in penthouses, so why can’t ordinary working-class people stay in a good quality home, so be it if it’s in a tall building” asked Councillor Saied Ahmed.
He also challenged the other parties to come up with a better solution to the housing crisis, instead of “scaremongering” with “wild allegations.”
The nearly two-hour debate ended with a vote in favour of submitting the new local plan, after the Labour party was outvoted by Aspire. The plan will now be passed on to the Secretary of State Steve Reed OBE for examination with an independent planning inspector.
If it’s found effective, justified and consistent with national policy, what Aspire calls the borough’s “most important statutory planning document” will shape housing until 2038.
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