UK riots analysis - Part 1 - Hackney – a case study

Hackney's riots took place two days after the Tottenham riots, which were brought about by the shooting of Mark Duggan. During the riots, local MP Diane Abbot appeared to expect the riots when speaking on BBC, by saying it was ‘inevitable’ they would spread to Hackney. Why? What is it about Hackney that makes such expectations ‘inevitable’, and what parallels can be made with other poor and marginalised areas in the UK?

This article, the first in a series examining the reasons for the riots, looks at the political, economic and social background of Hackney to consider the root causes of anger spilling out on to the streets.

Background

1960’s & 70’s - Hackney faced local problems with housing but like many other local authorities in the 1960s and early 1970s, was forced to borrow money from central government to finance housing projects. Around thirty such blocks were built in Hackney but loss of local industry and lack of investment in their upkeep meant many blocks became uninhabitable, and were knocked down or placed in line for demolition. This left Hackney in debt, with fewer rent streams to service that debt. Beset with fraud, and a debt scenario similar to the third world, the interest on the debt grew larger than the money available for repayment and it was left to the citizens to pay.

1990’s - In 1995, Hackney faced £30 million worth of cuts in public services, which saw the closure of the school bus service, several nurseries and half the borough's fourteen libraries. This was presided over by chief executive Tony Elliston after a divided Labour group led to a hung council.

2000’s – Hackney made cuts of £70 million over 3 years in its first year alone. The projected savings of £13 million led to further cuts including vital services. This included further nursery closures, surviving libraries faced further budget cuts, home help support was reduced to visits of half-an-hour, grant money to the voluntary services were cut by 38 per cent, clothing awards for children reduced, play group funds were slashed, the criteria for cheap bus passes was limited, the Citizen’s Advice Bureaux’s budget was cut, six youth centres were closed over a period of three years and this led to the occupation of the Town Hall. This economic austerity was extended to the Borough's workers who in October 2001 were forced to accept poorer pay and conditions or face dismissal and given 90 days to sign the new contracts. The workers signed the agreements but produced written protests that the agreements were signed under duress. The extent of the Council's financial burden was reported in a policy and finance committee report in December 2000. The report said: "In total, the council pays around £68 million in interest on capital debt. The majority of this interest is related to housing debt."

2010 - Initially, Hackney was forced to accept cuts of £70million over four years caused by the global debt crisis created by the toxic loans administered by the banks. But at a Town hall meeting in October 2010, Mayor Jules Pipe announced an expected increase of cuts of up to £60 million in the first year alone instead of the projected £32.9 million. This increase may have been due to a near £40 million budgetary shortfall found in its financial forecasts and published from a Cabinet meeting on the 25^th January 2010. Mass local authority cuts were announced by communities secretary Eric Pickles on 13 December 2010 who said: "Every part of the public sector has to play its part...I have sought to achieve a fair and sustainable settlement for local government." This led to the Town Hall being occupied again. Hackney faced the maximum in cuts of 8.9% despite reassurances of 'a fair and sustainable settlement' even though Hackney is Britain's fourth poorest borough. The priorities of Hackney Council itself are questionable given it set aside a budget of £541,000 for graffiti removal and flyposting up until the Olympics. Hackney Council cut Children and Young People's services from £79m in 2010/11 to £69m at a time when youth unemployment was at its highest levels.

In total from 1995 to 2011/12 the amount wiped off the Hackney’ council’s budget and away from community support and projects in just 15 years equals £160 million with a projected £23 million set to come off in 2012/13 and further millions not yet defined over the following two years.

2011 - Riots

National policy, local affect

National policy has also had severe impacts on Hackney in addition to the local budgetary priorities of the Council. These have taken shape in the following form.

Education - University fees were raised and the Education Maintenance Allowances of up to £30 a week to support low-income family students wanting to stay on in education were scrapped in 2011. Only 4 per cent of those living in social housing have degrees, compared to more than 20 per cent of owner-occupiers. Nearly half of social tenants have no qualifications above Level 1, compared to fewer than 20 per cent of owners.

Housing - Poor Hackney families will be hit by the Government policy to impose a £20,000 annual cap on housing benefit. From next October the maximum rent that the Government will help towards will be the lowest third of rents in an area. Even if a working household is meeting the bulk of the rent themselves, it will only be topped up to the level of the cheapest local rents, not the actual rent paid.

The council estimates that there are around 800 families in the borough who will now find that their level of benefit will not cover the cost of their current rent. If their landlords will not agree to lower the rent levels, these families will be forced out of their homes.

Legal Aid - Hackney faced the second highest cuts of legal aid services, which are essential to those being denied services. The cuts led to cuts of £950,845.20 to the legal aid budget. The Citizens Advice Bureau said Housing issues are on the rise for people Under 25. The Charity said that young people account for 1 in 4 of all homelessness enquiries. This follows a previous cut to local legal services in 2001 following the failed privatisation of the benefits system administered by private company ITNET behalf of the Council. This scheme cost Hackney £36 million and directly led to closures as a result of failures by ITNET. The company itself made a profit of £12.6 million that same year.

Policing - Stop and search - An Equalities and Human Rights Commission report titled 'Stop and Think' published in 2010 reveals, that police stop and searches continue to disproportionately target black people across the country with the exception of Durham. 'High excess' stops and searches (i.e. often black people are not given a reason for the search and the search is speculative rather than on the basis of a reasonable suspicion explained) of black people in Hackney totalled 7,556 in contrast to 577 Asians (this group was still disproportionately targeted compared to the white population.

The riots in Hackney which started around 4pm were reported to have been caused by a stop and search situation escalating into a confrontation with police.

Cuts, inequality and crime

It’s about inequality -

Following the Hackney riots, Green Party MP Caroline Lucas asked David Cameron, “Can the Prime Minister reassure the House that comprehensive impact assessments will be undertaken before his government introduce any more policies that increase inequality?”

Or is it?

The Prime Minister responded by saying: “Everyone wants to see a fairer and more equal country but I have to say to the honourable lady that young people smashing down windows and stealing televisions is not about inequality.”

According to the police

A Crime and Disorder audit report by the police in 2001 says: “the levels of crime [in Hackney] continue to be high and are linked to the poverty and deprivation experienced within the Borough." And despite this clear indication between crime and poverty, the council cut youth services from the budget from £4 million to £1 million from 1989 until 2002. The Audit showed that a fifth of all known offenders in the borough were under 18 years of age with significant rises in the 15 to 18 age range. That figure increased to nearly a third of all recorded crime being committed by under 18’s in 2001.

Finding a solution

Efforts to tackle the problems of youth crime were recognised in a report titled 'Hackney Youth Crime Reduction' strategy commissioned by Hackney council about youth crime in 2008. This policy aimed to join up youth provision in order to help youth achieve their potential and avoid or leave crime and gang related activities. The scheme drew upon national evidence examining the causes of offending and changing negative outcomes. The main premise was that every child matters. Data from Hackney showed a disproportionate number of black or black British young people within the criminal justice system (29% of offender with 53% in Hackney. 57% of all offences are committed by re-offenders and nearly 42% of victims are female."

Then abandoning it

This successful integrated youth crime prevention scheme was not only abandoned but further cuts were made to youth schemes in 2010. These included a new youth structure called 'Young Hackney' which had merged Youth Services, the Youth Support Team and Youth Offending Team. The Hackney Citizen reported Campaign group committee member of 'Youth Fight for Jobs’ Suzanne Beishon as saying; ‘this will give more weight to youth workers with experience of youth offending, changing Youth Services’ focus from a support network to a more punitive body.’

Warning shot

"The young people in Hackney are being seriously neglected". This warning shot came from Hackney resident, former Hackney councillor and Conservative Mayoral candidate Andrew Boff in April 2010. During this time, Mr Boff along with youth workers called on the Council to invest not cut youth services. Annual statistics in 2010 showed a 29 per cent increase in gun crime in the borough but Andrew Boff considered the real figure to be much higher, as a lot goes unrecorded.

Conflict of inequality

The new City Fringe

Hackney lies within an easy commutable distance to the financial City. For years it was an ideal location, geographically suitable for commuters, low property prices, an ideal area for expansion of housing development. However, high crime and poor housing meant nobody cared or dared to take advantage of these benefits. That all changed over a decade ago, when a power struggle between the financial centres of Frankfurt, Canary Wharf, and the City of London took place, leading to an aggressive expansion of new housing built predominantly for City employees on the fringes of the poor and marginalised Hackney and Tower Hamlets. This area was now described as the 'new' "City Fringe" linking it directly to an expansion of the City of London and its business environs. These schemes are euphemistically described as 'regeneration' when it is essentially modern day land grab for profit.

These regeneration schemes have directly impacted on the youth particularly their sense of ownership in their communities and the areas in which they live. A regeneration website called ‘Invest in Hackney’ said: “Businesses looking for the optimum location from which to serve the City are now considering areas such as Kingsland Road, Dalston and Mare Street, (Hackney) as very real alternatives."

These were riot affected areas.

Shoreditch

The expansionist regeneration schemes were first started in the Hackney area of Shoreditch which became the first recipient of money in a Government scheme called ‘New Deal for Communities’ (NDC). The scheme was originally set up to provide finance to the poorest areas in the country in an attempt to attack “the core problems of deprived areas.” Shoreditch received £57.4 million and initially residents sat on a board to decide where the money needed to be spent. The board made up of local residents decided the money needed to be spent on the existing dilapidated council housing stock. This prompted then housing minister Lord Falconer (New Labour) to withhold £20 million of the allocated money saying this idea was unsustainable. Alongside the new gated communities, the regeneration of the area resulted in a vast increase in wine bars, clubs, businesses, houses for City workers and a spiralling crime rate. The properties in this area are no longer affordable to local residents.

Crime hotspot

The Crime and Disorder audit report of 2001 recognised Shoreditch as one of the crime hotspots within the borough stating; “This is a developing area and has seen an increase in the number of commercial premises and entertainment venues…High crime categories in this area include violent crime, robbery, vehicle crime and business crime, particularly non-residential burglary.” The last two crimes in this list reflect the crimes during the riots.

Selling the community

The priorities of the council were focused entirely on sorting out their debt at the time of the expansion, and set about reducing their stock by embarking on a "Property Disposal Programme". The purpose was to raise £70 million over the financial year of 2001/2. The result; a cascade of property disposals leading to the closure of scores of community resources from nurseries to ethnic community centres, legal advice centres to libraries. The Property ‘fire-sale’, failed to reach its target by £70 million and led to further debt after the council suffered a £20million shortfall as properties were sold at a fraction of their value. The response from Central government was to lend Hackney £20 million pound as an ‘Unsupported Credit Approval’, effectively putting Hackney in more debt.

Property developers versus Social housing

Hackney Council sold nine buildings in the now much sought after area of Broadway Market as a package to property development company Stirling & Investments Ltd for a total of just £250,000 despite the need to show "best value". In addition, Stirling & Investments also received regeneration money to renovate the buildings which were sold at a profit. The bid by Stirling & Investments was preferred over housing association Notting Hill Trust despite the desperate need for social housing amongst youth.

One-bedroomed flats in Broadway market now sell for £410,000.

House price rises

Today Hackney is a mix of housing that sees dilapidated estates, set next to gated-communities. The policies of Hackney Council have directly impacted on Hackney families and contributed to social deprivation and inequality, through community asset stripping and public service cuts. Investment in the borough has been mainly focused on a wealthier resident, and house prices have boomed, alongside crime rates. Since the year 2000, house prices in the borough have increased by 197%. The new Hackney may well suit the recent incomers, but for the poor, the separation between the haves and have nots increases, both nationally, but even more so locally within Hackney.

Conclusion

Most politicians claim that the riots had nothing to do with inequality but represent a moral decline in our society. In fact it was only Caroline Lucas who raised the question of inequality in the House of Commons debate soon after the riots. Cameron’s response that “smashing down windows and stealing televisions is not about inequality” is perhaps likely to fall on deaf ears as the disaffected youth note that Cameron is a millionaire; same too for the coalition cabinet who have 23 out of their 29 members as millionaires. The rioters were wrecking their own community, but whose community is it? Hasn’t their community been sold off to the highest bidder? Why should the disaffected people on the streets of Hackney care about their community, when all their efforts for improving it are rejected by both central and local government, policies to help them have been abandoned, and the rising cost of living is actually make their lives harder. Their community is up for sale, they cannot afford it, and what was once theirs is now gone.

Flogging Hackney - Lightning strikes twice

The year is 2001 – Hackney council is in disarray - Waste is piling up on the streets, exposing the tip of a financial iceberg in meltdown. Central government stepped in with an unprecedented directive to balance the books. Management were disposed, replaced with accountant consultants who found a hole in the coffers the size of £21 million - a sum that was to later balloon to a massive £70 million. What followed left the social fabric of one of the poorest areas in Britain in tatters and a council in debt and vulnerable to outside forces with an agenda. The government.

This was not meant to happen again.

Forward wind ten years and Communities Secretary Eric Pickles announces to the country the biggest cuts to council budgets in recent times. Once more, Hackney council must slash their budget, and more so than nearly all councils, and with remarkable coincidence, to the tune of £70 million. Andrew Robertson investigates the devastating effects of the cuts a decade ago to present a warning of what lies ahead for the people of Hackney.

When Hackney Council announced in 2001 they were in financial chaos, residents raised weary eyes to the heavens. Another year, another crisis.

England's fourth poorest borough has a past littered with accounts of fraud, corruption and mal-administration. However, despite the welfare needs of its residents, the council's crippling debt was used as an excuse to strip the borough of voluntary sector premises and prepare public services for the private sector. The result; a cascade of property disposals leading to the closure of scores of community resources from nurseries to ethnic community centres, legal advice centres to libraries.

Hackney’s debt is historical

During the late 1960s and early 1970s, local authorities borrowed money from central government to finance housing projects. Around thirty such blocks were built in Hackney but investment in their upkeep was not maintained. Many subsequently became uninhabitable, and many were knocked down or placed in line for demolition. This left Hackney in debt, with fewer rent streams to service that debt. In a scenario familiar to third world governments, the interest on the debt grew larger than the money available for repayment.

A December 2000 policy and finance committee report, said: "In total, the council pays around £68 million in interest on capital debt. The majority of this interest is related to housing debt."

Based on this figure and multiplied by the average interest rate in 2001/02 of 8.6 per cent, the amount owed by the Council would have weighed in at a hefty £584.8 million. A sum which led groups within the borough such as UNITE and HackneyNot4Sale to campaign for the government to "Dump the Debt"; a localised equivalent to the global "Drop the Debt" lobby. However, like the World Bank and IMF, the government had no intention of dropping the debt, preferring instead to provide assistance only if the recipient followed a strict privatisation agenda.

As one community activist put it: "Hackney can't turn down money from government because this puts control back at the centre. The council succumbs to whatever government policy is."

When Tony Elliston became chief executive of Hackney Council in 1995 the Labour group had divided into two camps and the following elections delivered a hung council. Elliston presided over £30 million worth of cuts in public services, which saw the closure of the school bus service, several nurseries and half the borough's fourteen libraries.

He then resigned his position in 1999 just prior to a damning OFSTED report with claims that central government were politically interfering with council affairs.

"They had a number of education authorities they could have gone for, all equally bad," Elliston told me. "They could have done Islington or Tower Hamlets. That's not to say Hackney's education system was not bad. But it was not worse than the others. It was singled out because of political reasons. The official Labour group had been ousted and a breakaway group had taken over. Political knee-capping, that's what it was."

One departmental head after another followed Elliston. "Every single one had left within a year," he recalls. "The [government] inspectors started coming in, it was like a kind of dying animal and everyone was keen to get in and sink their teeth into it."

Various inspections took place, initially by a government body called the Improvement and Development Agency, which reported a "most grave and serious situation". This led the central government to impose section 114 of the Local Government Finance Act 1988, which prevents "any potentially unlawful expenditure ... likely to exceed resources available." This draconian measure again left the council in paralysis. Dustcarts sat idle in the depot awaiting repair, maintenance on people's homes were put on hold and all staff on temporary contracts were laid off.

Next came the Audit Commission, who conducted three inspections within nine months, concluding the council would need "significant support", and recommending that government should intervene. "We have decided that it is now appropriate that the secretary of state consider(s) exercising his function under Section 15 of the Local Government Act 1999 to give a direction to the Council". It was the first time Section 15 had been invoked.

Under government directions the local authority began recruiting senior staff, starting with Max Caller as managing director in June 2000. Despite gross financial problems at the council, Caller's starting salary was £150,000.

Furthermore central government paid over £3.5 million in consultancy fees associated with Hackney's restructuring. A sizeable portion of this sum went to consultants Deloitte & Touche, who recruited seven temporary financial managers into each directorate. According to invoices I obtained, some of these consultants were taking home at least £2,420 a week. Their job, according to a government press release, was to "provide solid financial expertise and help tackle the borough's financial crisis."

The financial controllers took up their positions just prior to demands from government for the council to produce a three-year budget strategy. In its first year alone projected savings of £13 million meant another round of cuts and closures of vital services. More nurseries closed, surviving libraries were again under threat, Home Help support was reduced to visits of half an hour, grant money cut by 38 per cent, clothing awards for children reduced, play group funding slashed and the criteria for cheap bus passes tightened.

Workers who maintain services were also targeted. In October 2001, the council imposed a 90-day rule on all sections of the workforce except those in education. This gave workers 90 days to sign a new contract stipulating poorer pay and conditions, or face dismissal.

Members of Unison initially refused to sign and some were sacked before being offered their same jobs back with reduced workplace conditions. At this point most signed up to the new regime but sent in letters along with their contracts stating they were signing under duress. This led to a series of successful employment tribunals for unfair dismissal.

Residents and workers alike were hoping for support from central government to prevent a continuing decimation of services. When then local government minister, Nick Raynsford, announced a £25 million support package in January, it seemed the government had answered their prayers. A spokesperson for the former Department of Transport, Local Government and the Regions, which has now been broken up, said the money was to "protect local government services for the people of Hackney". However this financing came attached with nine conditions, one of which stated that it could not be used to "offset failure to achieve savings". Crucially this stipulation meant the money could not be used to prevent cuts in services.

A further condition attached to the financial carrot required the council to "establish the new body for education services in the borough". Subsequent to OFSTED's condemnatory report on Hackney's education service, central government ordered the council to privatise two key areas of the service. Former Schools minister, Estelle Morris, announced the decision: "The secretary of state will now direct Hackney to sign a contract. This is the first time we have been able to take decisive action, thanks to the new powers we took in the School Standards and Framework Act 1998."

Nord Anglia Education plc were awarded contracts to run the School Improvement and Ethnic Minority Achievement services. However, in a further OFSTED report written over one year after Nord Anglia took over, it listed school improvement as "functions, which are still unsatisfactory". Furthermore the Labour councillor, Ian Peacock, told a Select Committee on Employment and Education, that Nord Anglia "has not made any difference in terms of day to day accountability."

As privatisation was unable to bring the desired results, the OFSTED report recommended "radical change". A joint team put together by the department of education and skills decided that a non-profit organisation should run education services in the borough, so the Hackney Education Trust was formed.

Parallel to that period of decision-making was an appraisal of how the financial services in the new trust should be run. For this analysis, the government selected PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) who concluded that long-term financial ownership, along with pensions, insurance and treasury management, should be carried out by Public Private Partnership (PPP). A spokesperson for the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister denied that by hiring PwC, government were forcing privatisation on the council: "Decisions on outsourcing are rightly the responsibility of local authorities."

However, backdoor expansion of private involvement in the new education trust could prove risky, as was noted by the joint team in their report:" The Audit Commission has signalled weaknesses in the capacity of the council to manage adequately contracts for outsourced services."

Certainly, the failure of past privatisation has left its mark. Much of the 2001 crisis could have been avoided had the outsourcing of social security benefits to a company called ITNET not taken place at all. The contract began in 1997 and by the time it was brought back in house four years later, it had cost the people of Hackney £36 million. Elderly people were left paying their rent out of their winter fuel money in fear of eviction, as benefit claims remained unprocessed. The Benefit Fraud Inspectorate stated in a report on ITNET that an estimated 64,112 outstanding items relating to 33,347 claims were left undone.

Distraught residents desperately turned to the Hackney Law Centre and Citizens Advice Bureau (CAB) for help. According to the director of Hackney CAB, Sola Ayobade, both organisations felt the impact of ITNET's failure: "You can't even think about how it was. It was the evictions. Then the landlords would come in and say look we're about to lose our properties because we can't get our rent on the tenants we've got in. So we had all parties coming in, it was quite horrendous." In the cruellest irony, funding for both Hackney Law Centre and the CAB were cut because of the debt created by ITNET's failure.

The CAB, who had already closed one of its two Bureaus in the borough to new clients, now faced further financial pressure after being threatened with a further 30 per cent cut in their grant. Meanwhile ITNET survived the ordeal, announcing a year later pre-tax profits of £12.6 million. In 2004 ITNET were taken over by the government’s favoured public sector services contractor Serco. Further unfortunate irony came after the collapse of Railtrack. Hackney Council had invested part of its pension fund in 60,000 Railtrack shares and lost £100,000 when the rail company collapsed.

In order to balance the books, Hackney Council set up a "Property Disposal Programme" which was set a target of £70 million over the financial year of 2001/2, but only managed £50 million. Once again central government stepped in to provide an "Unsupported Credit Approval" loan to bridge the gap of £20 million. This effectively put the council into yet more debt.

When selling assets local councils are supposed to achieve "Best Value" on all properties sold. However, minutes of meetings not in the public domain but seen by myself, show that Hackney Council sold a package of nine buildings in Broadway Market, south Hackney, to a property development company called Stirling & Investments Ltd for a total of just £250,000.

At the time of purchase, the main shareholder of the newly formed company was Donald Beskine, an accountant working for the British government on a scheme to marketise eastern Europe. He was also principal advisor to the Bulgarian Economic Development Ministry and the Russian Federal Commission on the Securities Market. As managing director of the International Centre for Accounting Practices Beskine was employed by the European Union, USAID, World Bank and OECD to attract foreign investment into Russian enterprises. Sterling's bid was preferred over that of the Notting Hill Housing Trust, a London based housing association.

Despite a necessity for affordable social housing in the area, these one bedroom studios were being sold at £150,000 each. Stirling & Investments Ltd. also received regeneration money to renovate the buildings although Hackney Council claim to have no records of exactly how much.

Indeed Broadway Market became a battleground in a property war involving 3 main developers. We have already seen the bargains offered to Stirling & Investments Ltd. Now another place named Francesca’s café came under attention for a Roger Wratten. The café was sandwiched between a hairdressers and an old pub, called the Market house, both of which he owned. His intention was to buy the property and wed them together to build flats or a theatre. Unfortunately for Roger, a certain Sicilian named Tony Platia had run the place for over 30 years, earned a modest living, and had no intention of giving the property away. I spent many a day in his café researching the unfolding disaster of Hackney. Tony had paid his rent always on time and had become a popular member of the community. Having committed so much time to the place, losing it felt like a crime, but there was hope.

Tony had first refusal on the property and repeatedly tried to buy it. In 1999 he sought to buy the freehold, and came close to achieving this when his confidential arrangements were leaked to a certain property developer who owned both adjoining properties. We shan’t name names. From this point on all attempts to buy the property were obstructed. Despite this, in July 2001, a report was compiled to be put before the regeneration Sub committee which recommended the immediate sale of the property to Tony Platia. The committee never got to see the report and the Council has never located its whereabouts.

The case went to Shoreditch County Court and to the dismay of Tony was lost, and he was evicted. The property was sold in 2003 to Roger Wratten and Tony was evicted. It wasn’t quite over. Tony refused to leave, the local community squatted the café and it opened again for business. The story was all over the press, and Tony even received a visit from the Mayor of Sicily.

This however is Hackney, and following a year and a half of wrangling and failed communications, on the 21^st of February 2005 somebody cut the locks securing the shutters and threw in 3 fire bombs. Two weeks later, a team of bailiffs and 50 uniformed police ended the matter.1

Tony now runs a fruit juice stall on Market days outside his former café.

Residents and social groups across the borough argued vehemently that the Council was targeting asset sales on properties which were vital community resources. Atherden Nursery in Clapton was one such property. Whilst up for sale, the premises were squatted by parents of children attending the nursery in an effort to prevent closure. When the rest of the local community proved overtly supportive of the squatters stance, the council backed down and promised to reopen the nursery once vacant possession was secured. The parents moved out only for the council to renege on its promise and close it. Later in the year the property was sold for £420,000.

And there were plenty more closures to come. The three-year budget strategy at the time and agreed with central government involved £13 million of cuts in 2002, £18.2 million in 2003 and £22 million in 2004. As the Council desperately attempted to address its internal problems within the strict parameters set by central government, the future of public services and voluntary sector community projects in Hackney looked increasingly bleak. Certainly, promises that public services were to improve looked much like Atherden Nursery did after my final visit. Empty.

Stripped bare over decades of financial corruption, and failed policy and management, Hackney is battening down the hatches for another round of attacks on their services.

1. http://www.hackneygetsrippedoff.blogspot.com/ - local advocate Arthur Shuter