political

Picture from January 2015

Make way: make way

The developers say

As their wrecking balls

Crash down the walls.

Condemned as unfit

The buildings are split

Ridding them of trouble

Turning all to rubble

For once it’s all razed

There’s money to be made

Erecting posh offices

Or executive pads.

Never mind how we feel

The development’s a steal

For those with power

Over the poor.

And I ask

“Have you an inkling

Of the grief we are thinking

When you split our community apart?”

In the East End of London, Spitalfields, many homes and buildings have been demolished and replaced with high cost housing or expensive office blocks. This has tended to price the local people out of the area, break up communities and bring in new residents who have no close ties to the community. Often buildings could have been improved but there is more money in doing them up for a different market or other things. On the positive side, the Street Artists have moved in and taken advantage of bare walls and fencing to display their work. One of my favourites was the madonna-like figure on the end wall behind the hoarding in my photograph above. The area around Brick Lane is a mecca for restaurants and tourists. But for local people who want to stay, it is impossible – it can be over a million pounds for a 2 bedroom apartment! There have been protests against the ‘gentrification’ of the area but money always wins.