The Area of Exception
By Mortimer Ribbons
A proposal has been adopted to relax all planning controls in 50 streets around Stamford Hill. This will allow people with large families to build bedrooms in their gardens. Fair enough, you might think. Until the neighbours build double storey extensions on either side, and you find yourself living in a darkened canyon.
Before the scheme was ever unveiled for consultation it was announced as a major triumph in the Jewish Tribune. The planners saw no point in consulting anyone, since it was a done deal anyway, and their tempers began to fray when the public started to take an interest. Enquiries were met with allegations of racism and anti-semitism – which is unusual in a planning issue. And a public protest meeting, called by Hackney Planning Watch drew 180 people – which is unheard of.
The room was packed, and the police had to be called to stop those outside from banging on the door and demanding that the meeting should be stopped. Under discussion was the document Domestic Extensions and Alterations which gives many excellent guidelines, and then says that Stamford Hill is such a mess that you might as well forget it and build whatever you like. This ‘Area of Exception’ will be the only one in the country, and marks ‘an unprecedented climb-down by the Council’ according to the Jewish Tribune.
All Labour Councillors were conspicuously absent, but the SDP and Conservatives waffled on with a will. They were keen to point out that the document didn’t really mean what it said. Obviously. The Area of Exception would be exactly the same as everywhere else. What’s in a name? The proposal had been swept into being on a tidal wave of public support, underpinned by a petition of 40 thousand signatures!
Planning Watch then pointed out that there were only 4 thousand houses in the area altogether. Most of them had never heard of the scheme because it was thought best to proceed by ‘informal meetings’ rather than trouble the public with a consultation. So were there really 30 people in every Hasidic household?
A slideshow of unlicensed conversions revealed a fundamental aesthetic divide in the room: the Conservationists and Architecturalists drew in their breath in shock at the roll-call of Shame, while the Hasidim shouted Lovely! Beautiful! Who cares? There were stories from the one side of excess rubbish, loss of greenspace and parking problems, and from the other side, moving pleas from orphans with consumption due to lack of adequate extensions.
At the heart of it all is the question of whether a particular minority
deserves separate privileges at the expense of everyone else. The decision is due to be ratified in October, and Planning Watch are appealing to the Secretary of State to stop it on the grounds that it is an illegal move whose real purpose is to allow landlords to create larger flophouses. Labour has no control over Stamford Hill, and a gangland carve-up seems to have been agreed between the Cons and the SDP: You take da Northside, Louie, and we’ll run da Southside, OK?
To support Planning Watch in their campaign contact them at PO Box 44656 London N16 5YX or write to Jules Pipe to protest at these abuses.
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