Ship Aground heritage vandalism update

It was back in June, concerns were first raised about the heritage vandalismthat had taken place on the former Ship Aground pub on Lea Bridge road. 

In October, we did a post (heritage-vandalism-update) saying that we'd been advised by Hackney enforcement officers that, following the failure of the owners of the building to meet a series of extended deadlines for submitting a new planning application, Hackney’s enforcement team opened a formal Section 215 case to pursue the essential works that are required. 

However, since then, the owners of the building were set another following a further series of deadlines they have ignored and there’s been no improvement in the state of the building. It still isn't even weather proof and no Section 215 has been issued. 

Leabridge Councillor, Linda Kelly (who has championed the saving of this heritage asset within a conservation area) has now advised us that both a full planning application and an application for Conservation Area Consent has been received by the Planning Service on 31 January. However, the application was  deemed invalid so council officers have written to the applicants requesting additional information. Effectively this buys the applicants a further month to submit the information needed to make the application valid. If they don’t meet this deadline, the Council Officers will issue a Section 215. Well, that’s what we’ve been told….

The applicants have refused to engage with local residents to discuss the details of the application, but we understand they will be applying to extend the building at the back and to put another storey on top of the building. But we guess we’ll need to wait to see.