Passing Clouds made Dalston culturally rich, and now it’s being forced to close for property developers – welcome to London’s future

The aggressive drive of property development across London is becoming an increasingly urgent issue for the cultural heritage the capital is renowned for, and therefore Britain as a whole

Passing Clouds ((Pic: borisaustin.com))

Over the past ten years Passing Clouds has been at the heart of live music in Hackney, hosting nearly 10,000 cross-cultural music and community events, providing a platform for new and emerging artists as well as established performers including Lee Scratch Perry, Sun Ra Arkestra, Jazzie B and Dawn Penn. Not content with being just another nightclub, we have consistently driven our revenue back into the community by providing free rehearsal space, low-cost or pay-as-you-feel health and nutrition workshops and talks, and sought to bring artists and creatives from all over the world to our venue and enrich the local area. Now we have been forcibly driven out of the area that we helped to nourish by property developers seeking to cash in on the huge popularity of Dalston, which we ourselves were instrumental in helping to establish.

The aggressive drive of property development across London is becoming an increasingly urgent issue for the cultural heritage the capital is renowned for, and therefore Britain as a whole. Two years ago Passing Clouds risked closure in the face of noise complaints from neighbours in a newly developed block, and were offered no protection despite the length of our residency and undeniably positive impact we have had on local culture, economy, tourism and business. There are currently no regulations in place to limit what a property developer can do to impact our cultural heritage. Companies can just swoop in, buy the land from beneath the feet of those who built up the area and rip it to shreds with no consequences.

Over 100 people instantly lost their jobs and a further 1,600 people in the form of promoters, musicians, artists, suppliers and local businesses were severely economically disadvantaged when our building was seized from us, an action which came as a complete shock to us since we had been offered a 15 year lease just one week before. As yet no-one has been held to account or admitted liability for the damage caused to the lives of all these people and for the loss of a hugely important cultural platform for the local community. The live music industry and the creative industries in general bring billions of pounds of revenue into this country and the loss of venues including Passing Clouds is going to cause a major dent in that figure. We have contributed so much financially and culturally to London and the UK, and we deserve to be supported in our mission to continue to make this valuable contribution.

Without live music venues, the next generation of talent is going to be lost and swallowed up in a concrete jungle of luxury flats and grey, laminated offices. London attracts millions of visitors every single year precisely because of our vibrant and colourful cultural spaces. If developers are allowed to continue running through the capital unsupervised, there will be nothing left to visit.

Just as we have measures in place to protect areas of natural beauty, wildlife conservations areas, beautiful architecture and archeological sites, so we need strong regulations in place to stop property developers from destroying our culture, heritage and communities. Culture is what makes us human and it’s about time we actually started to place some value on it. That’s why this march is about more than Passing Clouds, more than that one building and they way we’ve been ejected from it. This is a matter of national concern. Our music and our culture is at risk and we need those with power and authority to step in and protect us from extinction.