Guest Post – Save The Canal Club  

The Canal Club Community is a resident-led cultural and environmental sanctuary that preserves a unique piece of modernist social history while providing active support and green space for the local East London community.

So we’ve got a fighting chance. We’ve been drafting the new petition:

Save Our Space E2 – Save The Canal Club  

We call on the Mayor and Councillors of Tower Hamlets Council to remove The Canal Club Community Centre, the community garden, our ball cage and playground from the Mayor’s Accelerated Housing Scheme and halt any plans for demolition.

The Canal Club was built for residents of the Wellington Estate. The site was previously identified for demolition and redevelopment by the former Labour council administration, but those plans were withdrawn. Since then, the centre has been run by the Wellington Estate TRA and delivers a comprehensive programme of community-led activities including: Toddler Storytelling; Wiggles and Giggles baby dance classes; Tai Chi; knitting and sewing sessions; breakdancing for young people; line dancing and karaoke social evenings; a science homework club; Pop up Pantry (food banks); Refugee Summer Activities; traditional Bangladeshi singing; arts and crafts for all ages; Alcoholics Anonymous and Narcotics Anonymous meetings; and events throughout the year.

Alongside this, the award-winning community garden, run by the E2 Collective, brings residents together, supports biodiversity and provides a shared green space opening onto the Regent’s Canal.

The ballpark and children’s playground are well used and valued by local people. If Tower Hamlets is serious about being child-friendly, established youth spaces must be a priority. The Canal Club site is exactly the kind of resident-led infrastructure that builds inclusion in practice, not just policy, and makes safe and healthy neighbourhoods. 

The building was designed, alongside Wellington Estate residents, by renowned, award winning architect, Julian Sofaer at the beginning of the 1980s and is a well loved building. This is not an empty site. It should never have been identified as a site for demolition. 

We understand that it was included in the Pipeline Housing Programme under former Labour Mayor John Biggs, despite disagreement from council officers about the apparent misrepresentation of bringing the site forward or proposing it as a site for development. 

We believe this decision must now be reconsidered.

If included in the scheme, the site risks being lost –  potentially to private housing. Once this public space has gone, it cannot be replaced. The Canal Club, alongside the community garden and play-space, should be considered as constituting a vital community asset and a resource of social value.

Review the decision and remove the Canal Club site from the Accelerated Housing Scheme. Protect it as a permanent community asset.

Save Our Space E2. Save The Canal Club.

Canal Club Community Garden
Address: Belmont Wharf, Waterloo Gardens, London, E2 9HP

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