A former police station on the Isle of Dogs appears to have been converted into housing and let out without planning permission.
Rooms inside the former police station in Manchester Road have been advertised on letting sites such as Spareroom, and Tower Hamlets Council officers have reportedly found people living inside.
It comes after the town hall and the Planning Inspectorate refused permission to convert the building into flats last year.
Matthew Vaughan, who lives on a street opposite the building, said it was as if the building had been “turned into a slum”.
The police station’s front counter closed in 2013, although the Metropolitan Police continued to use the building after that. It was eventually sold to a company called DN Private Equity Canary Wharf Limited, owned by David Nourani, for £2.8million in February 2022. A large cannabis factory was discovered inside the building in July that year.
Another of Nourani’s companies, Milegate Limited – whose main business is selling frozen seafood – applied to the council for approval to convert the building into flats in July 2023.
But the council refused to grant approval for the conversion that September. The Planning Inspectorate upheld the decision in July 2024, following an appeal.
Image: Freepik
No new planning application has since been submitted to the council.
However, adverts on the Spare Room lettings website now appear to show rooms and studio flats available to rent inside the former police station.
One listing advertised as a flat share showed a double mattress in a small room with a mini fridge and a wardrobe, for £800 a month. Another showed a single mattress in the same room as a shower cubicle and a kitchen sink, both by the front door, for £900 month.
Matthew Vaughan told the Local Democracy Reporting Service he and other neighbours had also noticed lights on in the building at night and that more conversion work seemed to be going on inside.
He said: “They closed the police station and now it’s been turned into a slum. It’s just grim to turn one building into a giant HMO.
“The disposal of these assets shouldn’t take place without there being some plan about what happens next.”
Matthew said he also worried that the conversion would lead to noise, and that it overlooked St Luke’s Primary School next door. He said large refuse bins serving the flats were left next to the school.
After Matthew reported the flat to the council, a reply from a council planning enforcement officer seen by the LDRS says they had visited the building and believed it was “an unauthorised use of either Airbnb, guest house, rooms to let, HMO or just plain residential usage”.
The officer said they would be “taking formal enforcement action in due course”.
The council has been contacted for comment.
The letting agent that advertised the rooms, Diako, told the LDRS it is “not dealing” with the company that owns the flats any more. The adverts on Spare Room now say the advertiser “is not currently accepting applications”.
Milegate Limited did not respond to a request for comment. They hung up twice when the LDRS attempted to call.
The discovery comes after the Metropolitan Police announced proposals to close the last of its 24-hour public counters in Tower Hamlets, in Bethnal Green.
The force said it is “having to make a series of difficult decisions about how we can save money to protect frontline policing services”.
