Ward Forum - Tackling Inequality in Hackney

The De Beauvoir ward forum is taking place on Tuesday, 13 January 2015, at 7pm and we would like to invite all residents of De Beauvoir ward (which stretches from the Regent's canal in the south, north to Balls Pond Road and from its eastern edge on Kingsland Road, west to Southgate Road).

We, as Labour councillors, want to hear your views about how we can ensure that everyone in Hackney benefits from the ever-growing prosperity in the borough.

In 2015, your Council is launching "Hackney: A Place for Everyone", a wide-ranging community engagement programme to hear residents’ views on inequality, cohesion, and the way Hackney is changing.

This follows an announcement, by Hackney's mayor, Jules Pipe, when he told the Council in October 2014:

"There can be no doubt that Hackney is a far better place than it was 10 or 15 years ago – cleaner, safer, and more prosperous. It is a better place to live, to work and to raise a family. But that success has brought with it a whole new set of challenges centred on the widening gap between those at either end of our borough’s social spectrum.

We want to create space for people to share their feelings about the way the borough is changing and to tell us how the change is affecting them, in both positive and negative terms.  

We want people to give us their ideas about how we can promote community cohesion, and protect what is best about Hackney."  

The De Beauvoir ward forum on the 13 January, at 7pm, is part of that process, and we hope very much that local residents will be able to join us at the Rose Lipman Centre (on the corner of De Beauvoir Road and Downham Road).

We will be joined by representatives of the Council's Ways into Work job agency, as well as Council officers from the Hackney 100 apprenticeship scheme, as examples of ways in which the Labour-run Council is trying to improve life for the most socially and economically marginalised in Hackney.  But these are just examples of what your Council can do to make Hackney work for everyone in this borough but we want your views and ideas about what else we can do.


An earlier, borough-wide discussion was arranged at Hackney Town Hall in November 2014, with invited expert speakers.  You can see videos from that well-attended event and download the presentations at this site.