Industrial heritage sites in London’s East End must be protected from encroaching developers turning them into yet more luxury flats, a London Assembly member has urged.
Jenny Jones has called on Mayor Boris Johnson to use his powers to safeguard factories on the banks of the River Lea at Old Ford and Hackney Wick, after her visit to the new Truman’s micro-brewery at Fish Island.
“London can’t function without these brewers, carpenters, scaffold yards and other small companies,” she said.
“It’s a huge shame that developers speculate and move in, but not surprising when the Mayor and local authorities are content to see skilled jobs and industries being replaced with luxury flats.”
She is urging the Mayor to use his planning powers to protect and nurture “these pockets of industry” and is using her Fish Island visit for a report in the New Year about the loss of London’s industrial sites.
The Green Party member added: “This could be an amazing space to show off east London’s creativity and energy, bringing decent jobs and prosperity to deprived areas instead of expecting everybody to work in the City.”
Fish Island falls within the planning powers of the London Legacy Development Corporation, which Boris chairs.
But the mayor has a record of favouring more commercial development, after overturing two planning rejections by Tower Hamlets for a skyscraper on the Isle of Dogs and demolishing London’s historic Fruit & Wool Exchange in Spitalfields.
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