Hackney is a powerhouse of creativity and community culture 

From Dalston’s Peace Mural to Stamford Hill’s Purim celebrations. From Stoke Newington Book Fest to the V&A East Storehouse in Hackney Wick. From football on the Marshes to Day-Mer’s Turkish/Kurdish celebrations in Clissold Park. From Hackney Pride365 to Hackney Black Carnival. From libraries to markets, clubs, parks and eateries. 

Local government infrastructure is essential to sustain Hackney’s cultural life — whether through funding, partnerships, coordination, or unlocking access to space.

The positive impact of creative and sporting activities on mental and physical health for people of all ages is well-documented. We’ll provided every Hackney resident with opportunities to take up free, creative activities – through our Community Hubs, libraries, schools, colleges, sports facilities, and parks.

Culture and creativity are collective

Hackney is a wonderful mix of making, painting, dancing, acting, story-telling, exercising and jamming together. And that togetherness is the magic ingredient – socialist principles of support, cooperation and sharing mean fun is in Hackney’s DNA.

We want our schools and colleges to offer a varied curriculum, sensitive to the different needs and strengths of all students. 

We want a thriving and diverse night-time economy where everyone feels safe and welcome, including venues that cater for LGBTQIA+ people.

We want well-maintained green spaces where bio-diversity is enhanced. 

We’re protecting and building on what we have

We have to protect what we have, whether from funding squeezes, encroaching gentrification, or large corporations flattening culture to extract maximum profit. Hackney’s Independent Socialist councillors have opposed voluntary-sector grant cuts, fought proposed reductions in library opening times, and lobbied for affordable studio space. 

Hackney’s voluntary sector is often dedicated to improving well-being, through the arts and creativity. We’ll put money into volunteering opportunities and signpost other funding sources. And while cash is important, so is a civic ‘can-do’ attitude. We’re all about the council working with schools, creative sector businesses, venues and charities.

What we’ll do if we run the council with the Greens after May

We will return Hackney Carnival to our streets and develop a year-round Carnival & Masquerade Arts Hub. This is our key cultural commitment, and will be a home for training, production, storage, exhibitions, performances, events, and cultural learning. 

It will be run by a community-led trust, involving carnival arts groups, industry professionals, educators, elders and youth representatives. The Council will maintain involvement, so the local authority doesn’t side-step its civic responsibilities and can showcase this centrepiece of Hackney life. 

Hackney Carnival is not just a parade but a cultural ecosystem. The aims of the Carnival Hub connect with our Community Wealth Building proposals. They include:

• Having a permanent space celebrating the traditions of Hackney’s Caribbean, African, Latin, Vietnamese, Asian and global majority communities. DO PEOPLE KNOW WHAT GLOBAL MAJORITY MEANS?
• Developing a Carnival Arts economy embedding green practice, to support local talent and enterprise with training, incubation space, advocacy, events and exhibitions.
• Offering education pathways with college and university partners, leading to employment routes across the creative industries including in costume design, dance, music, production, technical, marketing and entrepreneurship.
• Championing the achievements of our older generations, to promote community pride, social cohesion and an intergenerational legacy.
• Offering low-cost access to embed wellbeing through self-expression, self-confidence and reduced isolation.

As with our initiative on Carnival, across the whole of Hackney’s culture and creativity, we’ll be making the most of what we already have. Hackney Council should assist its artists, artisans, athletes, venues and related businesses. Here’s how that could happen:

• Our pubs, clubs, theatres and venues are both places to relax and have a good time, and incubators for talent GIVE EXAMPLES. We’ll have sympathetic licensing policies which keep everyone safe and support viability.
• We will support moves by the Mayor of London to shift drugs strategy from ‘zero tolerance’ to ‘harm reduction’. CHECK THIS: https://www.london.gov.uk/who-we-are/what-london-assembly-does/questions-mayor/find-an-answer/legalising-drugs-london
• Hackney Marshes hosts the world’s largest concentration of amateur football pitches, yet Hackney Wick FC is forced to play outside the borough. The lack of a local stadium hits the pockets of local supporters and robs our women’s and men’s teams of a home.  We will work with sporting bodies to secure a stadium that strengthens Hackney’s football heritage and keeps our clubs local, where they belong.
• We pledge to maintain our green spaces to high standards, ensuring biodiversity isn’t jeopardised by heavy-handed commercial activity. 
• Our markets are as diverse as our residents: we will champion them and their traders.

Three years ago Hackney Council passed a motion on the Right to Food. Ridley Road is our iconic food market, selling low-cost goods from across the globe on which many  residents on low incomes rely. We see the long-term future of Ridley Road as part of that Right to Food pledge. To deliver on food security, we will expand lunch clubs in Community Hubs, work to reinstate meals-on-wheels, provide school holiday meals for vulnerable communities, and lobby central government for universal free school meals.

Food culture and shopping are important aspects of how we mix and socialise. We already know Hackney residents want a large supermarket kept in our town centres: Dalston and Hackney Central. And we’ll promote cooking fresh, healthy food and do more to assist residents to grow it themselves, increasing organic food growing, eliminating food packaging, supporting our planet.