Anyone interested in Hackney’s built environment will already be familiar with OPEN Dalston. OPEN is “the trading name for Organisation for Promotion of Environmental Needs Limited” and, in Dalston, its deepest concerns are centred on the work that is being done to build a new “Overground” station (not, as is often claimed, a tube station) and to “regenerate” the area. As work has progressed, fine Georgian buildings have been demolished, Victorian cottages have been bought and boarded up, and a vast part of Dalston’s built heritage has been lost to make way for flats (of which only a small number will be “affordable“).

This month, OPEN Shoreditch appeared on the web. It is concerned about the proposed Bishop’s Palace development, which will see the destruction of The Light, now refurbished as a bar, which generated the first electric light for Liverpool Street Station and the Great Eastern Hotel. The high-rise buildings that will be built on the site will have a brutish impact on the area and will, in effect, strip that part of Shoreditch of much of its character in the name of making it a closer adjunct of the City.

Read more about OPEN Shoreditch here and, if its campaign strikes a chord with you, consider signing the petition at savethelight.co.uk.