London Bangla A Force for the community…
NEW GREEN Mayor of Hackney, Zoë Garbett, has wasted no time in launching a quest to find out who owns Hackney. It’s an investigation into who owns land in Hackney and how the land is used.
Mayor Garbett’s quest is part of a larger commitment to reclaiming public spaces for community benefit and to increase community access to buildings. She also hopes to improve transparency over property ownership.
For those of you picturing Mayor Garbett putting her cardi on, picking up a notebook and stepping out of the Town Hall saying “I may be some time”, you may be disappointed. The Mayor is drafting officers in to help. The team will be conducting an audit of land usage across Hackney; producing options for bringing empty spaces back into use (even if the Council has to use Compulsory Purchase Orders to do this); and reviewing how Council buildings are used.
Mayor Garbett said, “”People in Hackney have seen their neighbourhoods change around them dramatically over the last two decades, and they are right to ask who controls this and in whose interests.
“Who Owns Hackney is the first step in giving Hackney back to its communities. It will reveal who owns land and how it is used, increase understanding around the Council’s own assets and how they are used, and set out the options we have to repurpose spaces for public good.
“I know that we can’t control how every property in our borough is used. But this investigation will help us use every power we have to reclaim spaces for community benefit, so that they meet the needs of Hackney’s residents first.”
●To keep up with the progress of “Who Owns Hackney”, you can follow @mayorofhackney on Instagram or sign up to:
Hackney News
●Read more about it:
Greens get down to work in Hackney
Starmer loses it for Hackney to the Green surge
