Maya Sall

Aug 15, 2024 | hackneycitizen.co.uk | Maya Sall

Hackney Council is to be taken to court as campaigners battle to save two children’s centres from closure. Parents and campaigners have brought a case against the council on the grounds that the consultation process surrounding the proposed closure of Stoke Newington’s Fernbank and Haggerston’s Sebright children’s centre was, they argue, “unfair” and “unlawful”, and therefore there are not sufficient legal grounds to close the centres.

Aug 14, 2024 | hackneycitizen.co.uk | Maya Sall

A homeless man has been left psychologically “wounded” after his “tent and everything in it” was taken when the council took action at a pro-Palestinian divestment camp last month. Daemeon, 38, told the Citizen that he has been unable to retrieve any of his belongings and has had to start again “from the ground up”. He has been sleeping rough for eight months, and had been staying at the protest camp outside Hackney Town Hall for seven weeks – almost the entire time it was in place.

Aug 13, 2024 | hackneygazette.co.uk | Maya Sall

Hackney Council has been found to have “serious failings” by the social housing watchdog. And an opposition councillor called for the cabinet member responsible to resign, saying new leadership is needed. The Regulator of Social Housing revealed that over two thirds of the council’s 21,500 homes are without a current electrical safety certificate. “There was also no evidence of smoke detectors being fitted in almost 9,000 homes, or carbon monoxide detectors in over 400 homes”, the RSH said.

Aug 12, 2024 | hackneycitizen.co.uk | Maya Sall

Hackney councillors have voiced concern over the police’s potential use of live facial recognition (LFR) in the borough, despite local police saying it is “needed”. “Live facial recognition is a reversal of the presumption of innocence – the democratic principle that you shouldn’t be spied on unless police suspect you of wrongdoing”, Dalston councillor and London Assembly Member Zoë Garbett told the Citizen. “Live facial recognition subjects us all to spying”.

Aug 11, 2024 | hackneycitizen.co.uk | Maya Sall

Thousands of council homes in Hackney have not had gas and electrical safety inspections, according to a new report. The Regulator of Social Housing has said Hackney Council’s housing department is guilty of “serious failings” and needs to make “significant improvements”. The information provided by Hackney Council to the regulator showed that it is failing to meet health and safety legal requirements .