HISTORY |
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| The history of this project begins with the aerial bombardment suffered by this area in the last war. Whole areas were destroyed and that which remained was cleared as substandard. Redevelopment came late and in the early 1960’s Ronan Point and its 8 "sister" blocks were erected. Ronan point blew up and municipal high rise was over. The blocks were a social problem until their decanting and demolition by 1990. Canning Town had been a notoriously poor area since it was developed outside the Boundaries of the London County Council where new planning laws did not apply. A very large population was attracted there as dock and industrial workers. This whole world came crashing down with the closure of the docks in the mid 1970’s and the relocation of industry out of London. Institutions abandoned the area including the Church of England. Canning Town became a deep pocket of deprivation and low achievement. |
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At the time of the demolition of the tall blocks in 1990 local tenants groups combined (to form the TWA group after Taylor Woodrow Anglia who built the blocks) to insist that the land vacated by the blocks be put to good social use. An award winning "planning for real" exercise was undertaken and many novel ideas developed. Prince Charles’ vision of the urban village was taken up as it was felt that what this dormitory area lacked was social and commercial facilities. However, the property market hit rock bottom at the time, there was no room for planning gain and so the spaces were crammed with low cost housing. The tenants were put back by this and fought on with their ideas and were given two years money to attempt those objectives which had eluded them. With this money the tenants group established the Custom House and Canning Town Community Renewal Project in 1993. The group was established as a charity to serve Custom House and Canning Town only. It was established to focus on areas of dereliction with a view to converting them to socially useful purposes in contrast to SOCATASH, an earlier attempt at municipal decentralisation which had spent a lot of money making little progress. |
| Time was of the essence to the new group which had two years to make its mark. The group drew up 4 of 5 specific objectives and agreed to work on nothing else.
1. It decided it wanted real training relevant to local people and that idea gave rise to Pitstop, the Motor Mechanics Training project which was built with a borrowed structure on the site of some vandalised garages. 2. A urban wasteland became the site of the group's summer garden schemes (5 years running) to keep children off the street and this site remains in an upgraded form. 3. One of the demolished blocks had left a burnt out community centre next to it. The idea developed that this should be converted to nursery provision. 4. The largest derelict asset in the area was the old St. Luke’s Church. The group decided to try and acquire this much loved building and use it as a site for all the social facilities that were needed in the area. The charity started redeveloping the church in 1997 and opened to its first tenants end of 1999. In general the group has stuck to these objectives over several years and has made a success of each venture from the drawing board to the management of the new assets once built. By sticking to its guns the CH&CTCRP has become a reasonably successful social developer that is now self sustainable. |
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Custom House & Canning Town Community Renewal Project, St. Luke's Community Centre, 89 Tarling Road, London E16 1HN.
Tel: 0207 366 6400 Fax: 020 7366 6401 : Charity No. 1035200 : Co Ltd by Guarantee 2898308