Approximately six weeks ago, the artists with studios in Vittoria Wharf were given eviction notices by the London Legacy Development Corporation (LLDC). The reason for the eviction notice, leaving the residents until 5 September to vacate the Hackney Wick premises, is that LLDC intends to build a bridge which it claims is part of the planning condition for 1,500 home units which they are building in the Olympic Park. Currently, approximately 90 artists and businesses for cross-disciplinary arts are housed at Vittoria Wharf to include: set design, photography, film, music, plastic arts, poetry, writers, among many other artistic practices. Among its current or recent tenancy is a 2014 BAFTA nominee, artist Conrad Armstrong whose work will be shown in the Saatchi Gallery next month, musician Nico Casal who collaborated on the Oscar-winning short film, Stutterer (2015), designer Guna Dubrovska whose work will be exhibited at London Fashion Week, and renown ice sculptor, Anne Marie Taberdo.

Formed in April 2012, the LLDC replaced the Olympic Park Legacy Company (OPLC) which was established in May 2009 founded by the then Mayor of London, Boris Johnson, the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, Hazel Blears and the Secretary of State for the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, Andy Burnham. Originally this 560 acre block of land in east London’s Lower Lea Valley, composed of land parcels taken from the boroughs of Newham, Tower Hamlets, Hackney and Waltham Forest, was established to create the Olympic Park which is operated under the Greater London Authority. Initially set up to house the 2012 Olympic Games, the plan post-2012 was ostensibly to collaborate with “a wide range of partners from both the public and private sectors to ensure a successful legacy from the Games.” Although the LLDC operates in conjunction with the mayors from the four neighbouring boroughs and other GLA employees forming the LLDC’s board of 14 members, this park is run by a political body with powers that are usually ascribed to a council (ie. access to taxpayer and lottery funds, the right to compulsory purchase) but without the same external governance as councils maintain nor accountability to the voters.

The LLDC have stated that they purchased the site (approximately 40% of Vittoria Wharf) by CPO (compulsory purchase order) through the London Development Agency in 2009 and later acquired planning consent contending: “This new bridge will significantly improve connections around Fish Island, Hackney Wick and into Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park, helping the area properly benefit from the regeneration investment being made there.” However, the plan to build a bridge is troubling for the artists of Vittoria Wharf who point out an already existing pedestrian and cycle bridge one minute’s walk north and a second bridge one minute’s walk south of the proposed site for a third bridge. Additionally, the Corporation’s own feasibility study conducted in 2014 states that the proposed bridge “fails to provide any meaningful public realm that could take advantage of new pedestrian flows to help create a sense of vitality and vibrancy in the immediate area and does not fit into the street network of Hackney Wick and Fish Island.”

I met with Nima Teranchi, a musician and one of the tenants proposing an alternative model to LLDC, and he points out that in 2013 Vittoria Wharf was listed as an Asset of Community Value (ACV), a fact which has largely been elided by the Corporation. Teranchi also maintains that before July LLDC did not sufficiently make clear to the tenants that plans for the bridge were going forward, much less the inevitability of their eviction before July. However, the LLDC wrote me that there were consultations undertaken on the Local Plan from 2012 to 2015 which was then adopted in July 2015, “following extensive public consultation, including drop in sessions, mail outs to local residents and notices in local papers. Draft copies were available online and in community spaces.” I have requested documents from the LLDC which demonstrate the correspondence and tenancy agreements that highlight the notification to the tenants of Vittoria Wharf as well as information regarding the dates and attendance of these public consultations. Thus far I have received no confirmation of any of these communications nor results of the public consultations.

Additionally, at a recent public meeting, it became evident to the tenants, that the use of the word “consultation” has been ambiguous at best, as in most cases LLDC were only consulting about the details of the design, not the fact of it. During a particularly tense episode with the local community which attempted to seek clarification on LLDC’s use of the word “consultation”, LLDC representatives confirmed an audience member’s description: that by “consultation” they meant to indicate a discussion about the colour of the bridge, not whether the bridge should be there or not.

Most interesting is why these artists were taken by surprise with their recent eviction notification since the Corporation maintains that the artists were advised of this fact since 2012. However, in 2013, the artists proposed a model of community land ownership and management, for which LLDC via email in both 2013 and 2014 demonstrated full support. Then on on 20 June, 2014 the community submitted a CPO request to the Corporation which would allow the artists to buy Vittoria Wharf from LLDC in compliance with their right to bid on the site: On review of Appendix KA from the Circular 06/04: Compulsory Purchase and The Crichel Down Rules (p. 57), “community organisations may request an authority to acquire community assets that are in danger of being lost to the detriment of that community.” In this case the ACV listing of the Vittoria Wharf site demonstrates that its loss (including the owner’s proposed planning application) will be to the detriment of the community.

Although there is a legal obligation to respond to CPO requests formally, the Corporation only responded informally in a series of emails and verbally confirmed that they would carry out the CPO request and that the community and LLDC would together source the required capital. The LLDC even suggested that Hackney Council combine this CPO with the CPO of the land surrounding the Hackney Wick train station. Communications to the community also expressed interest in supporting their proposed project with LLDC representative, Victoria Knight, stating that of a £2m budget that the Corporation had put towards asset acquisition of the remaining 60% of the site, she would enquire within the higher ranks of LLDC if this budget could be used to put towards the development of the Vittoria Wharf site instead. In this way, many of the artists at Vittoria Wharf and its partnering organisation were led to believe by the Corporation itself that their a model to purchase the land with the support of private investors in order to establish a “creative hub and social enterprise of fully converted live-work studios” was the accepted blueprint for the area.

So while LLDC claims that public consultations and public drop-in sessions have been taking place regarding its development plans, these events seem to have taken place at Stour Space and Hub 67 only after the artists were served eviction notices (ie. sessions on 14 and 16 July). And for the first public meeting on 12 August, the Corporation attended with the private company Balfour Beatty as one entity. So what is couched as “regeneration” by LLDC seems to be a cover for gentrification.

This situation echoes the events of Glasgow in the build up to the Commonwealth Games there when communities were similarly torn apart, CPOs used to evict people from their homes, and where fake public consultations took place as the public complained about the process where their participation was ignored. Many felt the reports whitewashed everything that actually happened within these meetings as local businesses were moved out of the area, bigger companies moved in, and there was a general feeling amongst the public that the “public consultation” served more as a theatre for box-ticking rather than a serious engagement and negotiation despite the fact that authorities have a statutory duty to consult the public

In recent years, there has been growing concern that the public consultation process is a “sham.” There is a sense that these public forums function to render communities passive with sufficient evidence to show that records are not kept in the majority of these consultations. Many view the consult as “nothing more than a box-ticking exercise to ward off judicial review of the decision-making process.” Simply put, these practices allow for cherry-picking of these meetings such that there is no accountability by those in power towards the people, or in the case of Vittoria Wharf, this process seems to have seamlessly excluded the residents until after major and definitive decisions were already made.

While the public consultation process for the occupants of Vittoria Wharf might render this procedure legal, it does appear morally questionable.