The country’s highest court of appeal has rejected a claim that the decision by the development committee of Tower Hamlets Council to approve plans to build offices and shops on a car park in Brick Lane’s Truman Brewery complex was invalid.
In a 26-page judgment, the Supreme Court has ruled that only councillors who were present when the Truman company’s application was first considered by the committee, several months earlier, were entitled to vote at a subsequent meeting when the decision was taken.
The key meeting, which took place on 14 September 2021, saw the application determined by three councillors by a margin of two to one. At the previous meeting of the committee, which was attended by five members, a decision had been deferred.
Supreme Court judges unanimously dismissed arguments on behalf of the Spitalfields Historic Building Trust that committee members who not been present when the application was first considered should have been allowed to vote on it at the September 2021 meeting, maintaining that had they been so the application might have been refused.
The Truman Brewery company’s plans were the subject of protesters who received extensive national media coverage of their assertions that the project would, in the words of one local conservationist, “drop a development bomb” and “destroy what’s left of Brick Lane” as well as harming the interests of nearby residents. However, the proposals were considered by council officers to be in line with council planning policies
The Spitalfields Trust, which is backed by a wider “Save Brick Lane” campaign, had already made their case without success to the High Court and the Court of Appeal.
Campaigners are also opposing subsequent, more extensive, Truman Brewery plans to build on other open areas of the site, to converting or augmenting some existing buildings and to add housing. Detailed in three separate applications, which, unlike, the car park scheme, are referable to Mayor of London Sir Sadiq Khan due to their size, these proposals have yet to be considered by councillors.
Brick Lane and Spitalfields as a whole form a historic heart of London’s East End, and for hundreds of years provided refuge and opportunities to successions of poor migrant communities. During the 1970s, its Bengali community, still numerous today, endured and resisted racist attacks at a time when the far-right National Front party had its headquarters nearby.
The Truman Brewery in its original form was a key local industry from the mid-17th Century and grew into one of the largest beer manufactures in the world before brewing ceased there in 1989. The entire site was bought by a company formed by members of the local Zeloof family, itself of overseas descent, and transformed into a hub for creative industries, entertainment and independent retailers.
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