https://conserveconnect.com/campaigns/planning-policy-reform?format=rss&page=1&category_id=1014 ConserveConnect en What this campaign is aboutA major redevelopment proposal for the Aylesham Centre has become a public test of what “regeneration” now means in London: whether a living high-street economy and long-standing communities can survive redevelopment shaped primarily by land value expectations, investor return, and viability assessments that treat affordable housing as the adjustable variable.Why it mattersThis campaign responds to a familiar pattern in contemporary planning: regeneration presented as renewal, while the practical outcome is displacement—of traders, residents, social infrastructure, and the everyday uses that make a place function as a neighbourhood rather than a property portfolio.The core issues are clear:Viability is being used as a decision technology, allowing financial assumptions to carry more weight than housing need and community continuity.Affordable housing is treated as residual, reduced to what can be “made to work” after other priorities are protected.Heritage and townscape language is mobilised as a moral script, sometimes reframing harm as “improvement” and positioning demolition as care.The social costs of clearance are minimised, even where evidence of displacement risk is strong—especially for smaller businesses and marginalised communities.What we are calling forRegeneration without removal: redevelopment must not be allowed to function as a clearance programme.Genuinely affordable housing aligned to local need: not a tokenised minimum shaped by financial modelling.A real right to remain for traders and residents: including binding commitments on affordability, tenure security, and practical routes back.Transparent viability and land value assumptions: full disclosure, challengeable inputs, and a planning balance that does not treat profit as fixed while communities bear the risk.A planning outcome that treats social harm as material: displacement is not an “externality”—it is the core impact.How you can helpJoin the campaign and share it widely.Support community-led monitoring, evidence gathering and public accountability.Amplify the voices of traders and residents most exposed to displacement.Help pressure decision-makers to prioritise housing need, continuity, and a meaningful right to remain. https://conserveconnect.com/campaigns/aylesham-centre-peckham-regeneration-without-removal-right-to-remain 8ebda540cbcc4d7336496819a46a1b68 Sun, 25 Jan 2026 21:29:01 +0000 Community & Cultural Heritage The Save Brick Lane Campaign is a community-led initiative rooted in the historic heart of London’s East End. It is dedicated to protecting the cultural, social and architectural integrity of Brick Lane (E1) and the surrounding neighbourhood—particularly the site of the former Truman Brewery/Old Truman Brewery—for present and future generations.Why the campaign existsBrick Lane has long been a focal point of London’s immigrant, artisan and working-class communities—from Huguenot weavers to Jewish migrants, then the Bengali community (“Banglatown”)—and its built environment, street markets, curry houses, small independent businesses and industrial heritage reflect that rich layering.The former Truman Brewery site itself (which includes historic industrial architecture) is physically and symbolically a major part of that story.The campaign argues that proposed redevelopment plans for the Brewery site (and nearby plots) risk eroding that local character, under-delivering on housing (especially genuinely affordable homes), privileging large floor-plate offices, and shifting the balance of the area away from local needs to external investor interests.It also points to the broader phenomenon of gentrification and community displacement: rising rents, closures of long-standing businesses, change of retail and leisure mix, all of which impact the ability of local residents to stay in their neighbourhood.What the campaign stands forA master-plan for the whole brewery site (and its surroundings) developed with the community, rather than piecemeal schemes that prioritise offices and retail.Development that prioritises housing (including richly affordable housing for local people) and workspaces suited to local creative, small businesses—not purely large corporate offices. Respect for the historic industrial fabric, the scale, character and materiality embodied by the brewery buildings and immediate surroundings. The campaign emphasises that new buildings must respond to the “rugged traditional materials — stone, brick and metal” and maintain low-rise scale in key locations.A social outcome—keeping Brick Lane accessible, culturally vibrant, affordable for local people and businesses, not becoming a homogenised “business park” or high-end retail zone.Key moments and statusIn September 2025, it was reported that the campaign had until mid-October to raise legal funds (circa £20,000) to meet the costs of a public inquiry into the Brewery site redevelopment.Also, recent news from November 2025 indicate that the application(s) for the Brewery site have been escalated: a cabinet minister (Steve Reed) will decide the outcome after the Planning Inspectorate determined that the proposals are of “more than local significance.”What you can do / how to get involvedWrite an objection or comment to the relevant planning authority (in this case Tower Hamlets Council) under the application number(s) cited by the campaign.Sign up with the campaign for updates, volunteer, donate to the legal/advocacy fund if you support the objective of protecting local culture and heritage.Engage with the consultation process (when open) and submit ideas for what you believe the Brewery site should become—housing, affordable workspaces, community uses, permeable open space, connection with Brick Lane’s fabric.Current status: “called-in” but campaign continuesThe significant update: the Brewery site redevelopment proposals have been called in by the Secretary of State, meaning the final decision will now lie with government rather than purely with the local council. However, while this formal step increases the stakes and means the decision-making process is elevated, it does not mean the campaign is over. On the contrary — the Save Brick Lane campaign continues, working actively to influence the outcome, raise funds, mobilise voices, and ensure the local community’s interest is heard and given weight in that elevated process.Useful linksCampaign website / resources: The Battle for Brick Lane – documents case, history and how to get involved.Information Site: Save Brick Lane Google Site - full documentation on the public hearing and mediaNews coverage of inquiry and campaign: Spitalfields Life – A Public Inquiry Into the Truman Brewery Redevelopment News coverage of ministerial call-in: TowerHamletsSlice – Final say on Brick Lane plans goes to ministerConserve Connect News: Articles on the Truman Development Plan https://conserveconnect.com/campaigns/save-brick-lane dc82d632c9fcecb0778afbc7924494a6 Sun, 09 Nov 2025 21:25:30 +0000 Community & Cultural Heritage The Railway Bell matters not simply as a former public house, but as part of the social and material memory of Canning Town. Buildings of this kind are too often treated as expendable once land values begin to rise. What disappears is not only fabric, but a whole structure of local meaning: the ordinary meeting place, the recognisable corner, the building that helps a place remain itself.This campaign opposes the current redevelopment proposal for the Railway Bell site on Cawnpore Street. The scheme should be refused because it fails to respond adequately to the heritage, townscape and civic significance of the site, and because it reflects a wider pattern in which redevelopment is justified through uplift while the social substance of place is steadily stripped away.The issue here is larger than one building. Across London, viable urban life is repeatedly subordinated to speculative logics that speak the language of regeneration while delivering loss, displacement, enclosure and historical erasure. The Railway Bell stands within that wider conflict. Its removal or diminution would not be an isolated planning event. It would be another instance in which the memory of working places and communities is sacrificed to a narrow grammar of redevelopment.We support a different approach: one grounded in retention, repair, adaptive reuse and genuine public value. Where change is proposed, it should begin from the presumption that inherited fabric, local identity and civic continuity are assets to be strengthened rather than obstacles to be cleared. Development must serve the life of the place, not merely the abstraction of value.This campaign welcomes support from residents, local historians, conservation practitioners, planners, civic groups and all those who believe that heritage protection must remain inseparable from social justice and democratic accountability. We encourage the public to read the objection material, engage with the planning process, and support a more careful and humane future for the site. https://conserveconnect.com/campaigns/save-the-railway-bell-and-oppose-the-cawnpore-street-pub-redevelopment 851ddf5058cf22df63d3344ad89919cf Mon, 06 Apr 2026 16:37:44 +0000 Community & Cultural Heritage