An iconic housing estate in East London made famous as a battleground between residents and their corporate landlord is set for a sweeping redevelopment next year.
Hackney’s New Era estate hit the headlines in 2014 when its close-knit band of tenants campaigned against New York investment firm Westbrook Partners, whom they feared wanted to evict them or treble their rent.
Garnering support from celebrities and politicians, including the current Mayor of London and scandal-ridden comedian Russell Brand, the families claimed victory when Westbrook later sold the estate to the charitable foundation Dolphin Living.
Pledging to “secure the legacy of New Era as a community affordable to working Londoners”, in 2020 Dolphin put forward plans to flatten and rebuild the 1930s-era estate while more than doubling the amount of existing homes. The plans were overwhelmingly backed by residents, who have now been temporarily rehoused by the landlord until the project’s completion.
At Hackney Town Hall last week, New Era resident Lindsey Garrett, one of the original campaign’s leaders, gave her vocal backing for the redevelopment which has been approved by Hackney Council. “The existing estate is crumbling, and while Dolphin has addressed these issues as best as they could, it’s obviously becoming increasing difficult,” she said.
Image: Point 2 Surveyors
The foundation has promised half of the 208 new homes built will be at ‘intermediate rent’, and tenants will have the legal right to remain in possession of their property even after the end of their initial lease term, known as ‘security of tenure’.
“I can’t stress how important that is for us,” Ms Garrett said. “We’ve been living with uncertainty for a long time.”
However, neighbours and members of a local conservation group said the latest designs were “fundamentally flawed”. While agreeing that New Era “badly needs redeveloping,” on behalf of the Hackney Society, local architect Trevor Horne called the current plans “excessive, monolithic and overbearing”.
The new tower blocks rising up to 13 storeys would see neighbouring properties overshadowed, they said, in some cases robbing nearby flats of half their existing daylight. Mr Horne cited an independent report the society had commissioned, which found “fundamental flaws” in the applicant’s modelling.
The group added that London planning policies required tall buildings to be “sensitively designed” to fit their local context and to be independently scrutinised, but this “had not been allowed to happen”.
Independent Socialist councillor Penny Wrout was also “disappointed” at the scheme’s perceived shortage of family-sized homes.
But the applicant’s consultants, Point 2 Surveyors, disputed that daylight modelling was flawed, and insisted their designs followed the industry standard and had been run through a computer simulation. He claimed the Hackney Society’s adviser had only assessed the impact from the existing building conditions, rather than the proposed future designs.
Council officers acknowledged there would be a loss of light in some cases, but said the overall the benefits of the scheme outweighed the “potential harm”.
In the end, the Town Hall’s Planning Committee backed the redevelopment. While works are now expected to commence in spring 2026, the decision will need final approval from the Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan.
As Shadow Justice Secretary in 2014, Khan called Westbrook’s actions “shameful” and embodied the worst parts of the capital’s “broken housing market”. He said at the time: “Ordinary Londoners are suffering, with their homes ripped from underneath them and their lives and families pulled apart, just so international investors can make a quick buck, with no regard to the community they are destroying.”
