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Brick Lane Inquiry

A collection of 20 posts

Brick Lane, Rendered Legible to Capital

Brett Christophers

Brick Lane, Rendered Legible to Capital

A city is not an investment pipeline. It is a shared public life built over generations — and the right to live it cannot be priced as an “acceptable” loss.

Final Day — Brick Lane on the Scales: Class, Capital and the Financialised City

Brett Christophers

Final Day — Brick Lane on the Scales: Class, Capital and the Financialised City

31 October 2025, Tower Hamlets Town Hall. On the last afternoon of the Truman Brewery Inquiry, the microphones were the same, the bundles the same, the cast of characters mostly unchanged. What shifted was the frame. The closing submissions no longer pretended this was only a dispute about façades and

Day 9 (Afternoon) — Need, Weight, and the Test of “Good Growth”

Day 9 (Afternoon) — Need, Weight, and the Test of “Good Growth”

Tower Hamlets is, by the appellant’s own concession, “more acutely in need of housing than any other borough in London”

Day 9 – Light, Language and the Right to Remain

Day 9 – Light, Language and the Right to Remain

“This crisis, we all know, is the housing crisis… Kensington has zero data centres. Westminster has one. Why should the most densely populated borough in London be the one with over 30? Why must the most marginalized people in our city be forced out by speculation-based real estate?”

“A Line in the Sand”: Brick Lane Speaks After the Inquiry

“A Line in the Sand”: Brick Lane Speaks After the Inquiry

“We don’t need offices. We need homes.”

Day 8 – Afternoon Session: Planning as Alibi, Capital as Client

Day 8 – Afternoon Session: Planning as Alibi, Capital as Client

As the Inquiry nears its end, the data centre is no longer merely a structure. It is a valuation event.

Economies of Displacement: Inequality, Legitimacy, and the Truman Data Centre (Day 8 -Morning Session)

Economies of Displacement: Inequality, Legitimacy, and the Truman Data Centre (Day 8 -Morning Session)

"regeneration is not a neutral economic event but a redistribution of vulnerability"

Day 2 – Heritage and the Moral Script of Regeneration

Aylesham Community Action

Day 2 – Heritage and the Moral Script of Regeneration

“The character of Peckham is not merely architectural. It is a combination of tangible and intangible life — its traders, its global-majority communities, its creative scene.”

Day 7 — Afternoon Session: The Public Re-Enters the Frame

Brick Lane Inquiry

Day 7 — Afternoon Session: The Public Re-Enters the Frame

Public testimony itself became evidence: proof that planning is a living process, not a closed algorithm.

Day 7 — From Infrastructure to Inertia: The Question of Need

Day 7 — From Infrastructure to Inertia: The Question of Need

“a contest between democracy and development — between a community’s right to place and the market’s right to possession.”

From Heritage to Humanity - Day 6 at the Truman Brewery Inquiry

From Heritage to Humanity - Day 6 at the Truman Brewery Inquiry

“There’s no evidence here of what residents or community groups said,” she observed. Henley agreed: “That is obviously the case from what I can see.”

Day 5 (Afternoon) – Third-Party Submissions - The Wall Still Stands

Day 5 (Afternoon) – Third-Party Submissions - The Wall Still Stands

“Housing — especially social housing. Green and open spaces. Safe, walkable streets. Support for small businesses. More community and cultural facilities. GP surgeries and childcare. Sensible height and density — and the celebration of Bangladeshi heritage and stories.”

Day 6 - The Conversion of Place — Data, Value and the Truman Brewery Data Centre

Day 6 - The Conversion of Place — Data, Value and the Truman Brewery Data Centre

By excluding questions of ownership, profit, and displacement, the inquiry preserves its image of neutrality. In truth, neutrality is the mechanism of capture.

Day 5 — The Heritage That Matters: Cross-Examining Historic England’s Legacy

Day 5 — The Heritage That Matters: Cross-Examining Historic England’s Legacy

Who now decides what 'heritage that matters' means?

Truman Brewery Redevelopment: Independent Analysis Finds Scheme in Breach of London Planning Law

Brick Lane Inquiry

Truman Brewery Redevelopment: Independent Analysis Finds Scheme in Breach of London Planning Law

Our research brief finds the Truman Brewery redevelopment in breach of London’s planning law — and unfit for approval in whole or part.

The Truman Brewery Inquiry: When the London Plan Meets the Market Plan

The Truman Brewery Inquiry: When the London Plan Meets the Market Plan

This is not a story about appearances; it is a story about rules — who writes them, who abides by them, and who believes they are optional.

Day 4 Morning – The Architecture of Justification

Aditya Chakrabortty housing memo

Day 4 Morning – The Architecture of Justification

This was not evidence but reiteration: the legal language of compliance performed as fact.

Brick Lane Inquiry — Day Three (Afternoon): The Aesthetics of Adequacy

Brick Lane Inquiry

Brick Lane Inquiry — Day Three (Afternoon): The Aesthetics of Adequacy

“Once the means of decision become routine, the imagination collapses.”

Brick Lane Inquiry — Day Three (Morning): Landmarks and Blind Spots

Brick Lane Inquiry

Brick Lane Inquiry — Day Three (Morning): Landmarks and Blind Spots

Forshaw’s testimony turned planning jargon back into moral language. “The battle,” he said, “isn’t over style — it’s over stewardship.”

Brick Lane Public Inquiry — Day Two (Afternoon): Heritage as Commodity

Brick Lane Inquiry

Brick Lane Public Inquiry — Day Two (Afternoon): Heritage as Commodity