Tram Depot Threatened, Fights Back

By Hazel Last edited 170 months ago
Tram Depot Threatened, Fights Back

TramDepot.jpg Local residents and users of the Tram Depot in Clapton are fighting back against redevelopment plans that threaten to demolish the mix of small businesses and art galleries currently occupying the old tramshed originally used for horse-drawn trams. Furniture makers, fabric designers, a foam factory, car services and the only two art galleries in Clapton are based in the Tram Depot, some of them counting up to 20 years on the site.

The planning application for the site is a predictable mixed-use jumble of shiny, shallow looking flats - 92 in total - retail space and the slightly chillingly named ‘commercial re-provision’. We must assume that this means ‘space for the displaced businesses in the old Tram Depot’ but according to the online petition organised by the Tram Depot against the development, there is no guarantee any of the displaced businesses will be ‘re-provisioned’ in the shiny new utopia of Upper Clapton.

The proposal seems to include the tram depot in its plans and indeed, in the pictures, the shed is there. But crucially, the businesses are not and that’s the source of ire: keeping the bricks but not the businesses is what the petition is against. Read more about the Tram Depot and its campaign against redevelopment and see which side you want to take.

Last Updated 06 January 2010