Latest news with #HackneyCouncil
Yahoo
29-07-2025
- General
- Yahoo
Hackney Council reveals plans for four shut primary schools amid significant drop in pupil numbers
Closed primary schools in Hackney may be transformed into temporary accommodation or specialist sites to help children with special educational needs. Hackney Council shut four primary schools last year following a significant drop in pupil numbers in the borough, and is having to close a further four schools this summer. A year after the four sites closed, the council has put forward potential alternative uses for the schools, with the Mayor of Hackney insisting: 'We cannot let these buildings sit empty or simply offload them to the highest bidder.' Baden Powell Primary School in Hackney Downs could be adapted to become a special school and host extra school places for children with Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND). The Baden Powell site will be an expansion of Ickburgh School and will serve autistic children with severe learning difficulties, to help meet the growing need within Hackney, as more children need access to support closer to home. Meanwhile, Randal Cremer Primary School in Hoxton and De Beauvoir Primary School in Dalston may both be converted into temporary accommodation to help alleviate homelessness in the areas and to keep families in Hackney. A perfect storm of factors has hit London, forcing families to live elsewhere. Brexit, the Covid pandemic, the cost of living crisis and the lack of affordable housing have made it extremely difficult for families to afford to live not just in Hackney but across the city. Hackney Council is also exploring options to transform Colvestone Primary School, which sits just off Ridley Road in the heart of Dalston. The council's preferred option is for the school site to be leased to an organisation 'offering social value'. Interested groups and organisations are being invited to set out their plans for the Colvestone – which has been empty since the school closed last summer. Plans could include the school remaining as an educational facility, but also alternative uses such as the arts, leisure or social enterprise. The council has said it will take a similar approach when a further four schools close their doors this summer, due to pupil numbers plummeting even further. Jo Riley, the headteacher at Randal Cremer school, previously told the Standard that parents unable to afford living in London had been a "huge factor" in the declining school numbers, and her school was left "a ghost town". In an interview with the Standard, the Education Secretary warned that London's plummeting birth rate has become a 'challenge' and other areas of the country could also face a drop in pupil numbers in the years to come. Bridget Phillipson urged councils to 'think creatively' about how closed-down schools could be used to help solve the country's special educational needs (SEND) crisis. Caroline Woodley, Mayor of Hackney, said: 'Like many other boroughs in inner London, Hackney has seen a rapid fall in the number of children attending local primary schools, and having to close these schools as a result has been incredibly tough – for the pupils and their families, for teachers and school staff, some of whom had also been pupils at the schools, and for the wider communities in which they had previously played such an important role. 'We cannot let these buildings sit empty or simply offload them to the highest bidder, but have a duty to ensure they remain important public assets that benefit our communities. 'That's why we're bringing forward plans that not only bring these spaces back into use, but also tackle some of the most difficult issues we face. 'We're putting forward a range of proposals that will help to provide specialist SEND education, support families in critical housing needs, and engage local communities. 'While there is work to do to deliver on these plans, we're committed to keeping the communities who are invested in the future of these buildings informed and involved, starting by encouraging organisations to put forward proposals for Colvestone Primary School.'
Time Out
29-07-2025
- Time Out
The east London borough named one of the best places in the world for cyclists
Cycling through London can be a terrifying prospect. You've got to share the road with huge double deckers, swerve distracted pedestrians and navigate your way around some perilous junctions – to the uninitiated, it doesn't sound at all appealing. But if you've ever thought about swapping public transport for a bike on your morning commute, there are few better, safer places to do it than the capital (honestly!). And there's one particular part of the capital that has just been named one of the best places for cyclists in the world. The People for Bikes City Rating ranks places across the world based on 'how well the bike network in a given area connects people to the places they want to go'. It considers each area's number of protected bike lanes, the off-street paths, slow road speeds and safe crossings to give it an overall score out of 100. Hackney ranked 29th in the world with an overall score of 83. It was named the second best place for bikes in the whole of the UK, just beneath Cambridge, and earned most of its points for its safe bike access to major shopping centres and to recreational amenities like parks and trails. Hackney has put a lot of effort into becoming a bike friendly borough. Its 'cycle permeability programme' sets out to make streets even safer and more accessible for cyclists and to encourage people to hop on their bike instead of their cars or public transport. Hackney Council says that it has the highest number of people cycling to work out of all the London boroughs. Unfortunately, all those bikes are a prime target for thieves in the area. Recent Met Police data has shown that Hackney is the worst place in London for bike thefts – it saw triple the average number of thefts across the city over a 12-month period. But back to the positives — London boroughs did pretty well all round in the People for Bikes City Rating. In fact, they dominated the UK's top 10. Islington ranked third in the UK, Newham came in fourth, Waltham Forest was fifth, Southwark was sixth and Westminster landed in seventh. The number of cycle routes across the capital has more than quadrupled since 2016. Now, its cycle network covers more than 400km, with more routes (like this one on Shaftesbury Avenue) on the way.
Time Out
18-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Time Out
Hackney council has unveiled a bold new nightlife strategy – with free phone charging and water stations
Everyone loves a night out in Hackney. Whether it's a sweaty gig at MOTH Club or boogieing into the small hours at Dalston Superstore, the borough's nightlife has long been one of the best things about it. Now, Hackney Council has announced a new strategy aimed at making nights out in the borough safer, more inclusive and better supported. Titled Good Evening Hackney, the plan introduces free phone charging points, water refill stations and weekend welfare teams patrolling the streets. There's also free training for venue staff on drink spiking prevention and noise management, as part of the Hackney Nights accreditation scheme. Accredited venues get a Late Night Levy discount, which might make staying open past midnight a little less painful. There's a focus on women's safety too, and on making nightlife work for communities who've historically been left out of the conversation. In short, it all sounds like a step in the right direction. Plus, the plan lands a few months after Sadiq Khan launched a London Nightlife Taskforce to help revive nightlife across the capital. That group is still gathering public input on what's working, what's not, and what nightlife in London should look like. But what do these new policies mean for helping clubs stay open, protecting them from developers, and encouraging venues to open in the first place? In recent years London has been accused of closing down early (with half of Londoners supposedly in bed by midnight), and shoving out all nightlife to superclubs in the suburbs. Hackney nightlife specifically has been in the spotlight in recent months, with MOTH Club, Netil360 and Night Tales Loft all facing threats from nearby developments. The rollout of this strategy marks a shift in tone from Hackney Council, which was widely criticised in 2018 after introducing strict licensing rules that made it harder for new venues to open late. Good Evening Hackney suggests the council wants to show support for nightlife – but with so many grassroots venues still under threat, it's fair to ask whether these measures go far enough.
Time Out
09-06-2025
- General
- Time Out
This beloved Hackney venue is at risk of closure
The Bath House in Hackney Wick could be forced to close following a Hackney Council decision to end its lease. Sat inside the restored Victorian baths at 80 Eastway, the multi-use, not-for-profit space is a regular host of one of Time Out's top nights out in London, Giant Steps. But it's a lot more than that. The Bath House is home to a cafe, bar and multiple events spaces and studios where people go for things like community-led life drawing classes, ice bath sessions, craft workshops and live music of almost every kind. It describes itself as 'a local institution, fuelled by care and collectivism'. Now, the Bath House has launched a petition calling on local leaders to intervene in the council's plan. It says that it was made without due process. View this post on Instagram A post shared by The Bath House (@ On its website, the Bath House wrote: 'This is about more than a building—it's about who gets to shape our cities. The Bath House stands as a living model of what's possible when local people are empowered to lead: a self-sustaining civic hub generating not just public benefit, but deep social wealth.' At the time of writing, the petition has gathered nearly 4,000 signatures. One signatory said 'I regularly come to London from Oxford just for the ecstatic dances at the Bath House. This community saved me and is a wonderful, healing, fantastic gem,' while another commented 'I can't imagine life without this space. It's been a home and a family for years now. It's an incredibly special places is so central to so many of our community'.
Yahoo
26-05-2025
- General
- Yahoo
Hackney shifts fire door replacement target
A London borough has shifted its target to replace thousands of front doors with fire-resistant models after changes to building safety regulations. In 2018, Hackney Council said it would install 17,000 new doors across its housing portfolio that could withstand fire for 30 minutes. But after new laws introduced in 2022 said only high-rise blocks standing at seven storeys or higher needed to have their doors replaced, the council changed its target. The programme to replace fire doors for thousands of Hackney households came in the wake of the Grenfell Tower fire in 2017. The Local Democracy Reporting Service (LDRS) asked the council for an update on the project's progress after the local authority awarded a £1.2m contract for a similar programme to replace fire doors in 10 Hackney schools. A council spokesperson said that, so far, 3,398 new doors had been installed across the borough, at a cost of £15.5m. They said the new regulations only covered 5,973 doors in the 137 council blocks which had been registered with the Building Safety Regulator and were affected by updated fire safety rules. The regulatory changes had "caused supply challenges across the whole sector", the spokesperson added. Hackney Council had originally estimated it would cost roughly £1,500 to replace a single fire door, but added that had risen to £4,000 due to "changes in the construction industry and material price inflation". "The cost of the scheme has also increased due to the fee charged by the regulator for each block," the spokesperson said. The council now anticipates it will take "around three years" to change the remaining doors. Hackney temporary housing deaths cause concern Grenfell memorial construction could start in 2026 Hundreds suffer heating issues in east London In 2023, the LDRS reported that the council expected the installation of roughly 6,000 doors in its "highest-risk" blocks would take a year. At that time, the council told residents that fire safety tests put the doors through extreme temperatures "unlikely to unfold in real life". In March 2023, the Metropolitan Police revealed that the fire doors installed as front doors of the flats inside Grenfell Tower, manufactured by Manse Masterdor, had failed under test conditions in 15 minutes, when they were supposed to act as a barrier for 30 minutes. Seventy-two people died in the fire in Grenfell Tower in west London in June 2017. Listen to the best of BBC Radio London on Sounds and follow BBC London on Facebook, X and Instagram. Send your story ideas to Hackney Council
