A memorial to campaigner Kathy Bracken who battled to stop Raine’s social centre being closed in Wapping is being set up by the mayor of Tower Hamlets.
Kathy, who died from cancer in May aged 73, is having a bench unveiled in her name by John Biggs at the new Wapping neighbourhood hub on October 26.
She led a protest to the town hall in 2018 about a pensioners’ club at Raine's House being put on notice to quit after 45 years so the building could be turned into a commercial functions facility for hire.
“It’s a shame we’re not going back into Raine’s House as a community,” Kathy’s husband Ray told the East London Advertiser this week. “But at least the mayor is putting up a memorial to her, for the people of Wapping to remember her by and all the things she did.”
The Grade I-listed early Georgian building in Raines Street, off Wapping Lane, was originally the site of Raine’s Foundation School in 1719.
It has had a £1.3 million facelift in a programme to turn council-owned buildings into "hubs for hire". Tenders are going out soon for contractors to run the centre.
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