Hackney Citizen

Young people, teachers and Council representatives celebrating their results at The Excelsior Academy in Hackney.

Mayor of Haifa Yona Yahav. Photograph: Elad Malka / Creative Commons Speaking of Hackney Council’s proposal to de-twin from his city, the mayor of Haifa has written that arguments and differences of opinion should be addressed not by severing ties or singling out entire cities and communities, but “through dialogue, familiarity and working together”. Since 3 August, the Citizen has put a number of questions to him about the politics of his city. He has not answered any of them.

Town hall planners said the designs for the STOREX facility’s roof were “excessive”. Image: Fusi Allan / EQT Real Estate Plans for a new self-storage warehouse in Hackney have been shot down by council planners who claimed it was a poor fit for the local area. The crumbling Anvil House on Matthias Road – once a builder’s merchant – lies empty and is in need of redevelopment as cracks threaten to bring down the entire structure.

A row of colorful children’s bicycles and scooters parked against a white brick wall and a blue metal rack. Photograph: Hackney Council Hackney’s Green-led council has launched a borough-wide call for evidence on childcare, urging parents to set out the costs, gaps and scheduling problems they face so the Town Hall can lobby central government for a national overhaul.

The entrance to the City and Hackney Centre for Mental Health in Homerton. Copyright: East London NHS Foundation Trust An east London hospital trust’s mental health services have been downgraded by the Care Quality Commission (CQC) after an inspection exposed multiple failures around staffing, training and safety.

Hina Bokhari AM sits on a bench dedicated to her late father. Photograph: Kumail Jaffer/LDRS Hackney is one of three London boroughs with no burial space left, and City Hall has been warned the shortage will spread across the capital within 15 years unless the London mayor, Sir Sadiq Khan, intervenes. A City Hall audit found that 17 local authorities will no longer have burial space by 2040, while three inner-London boroughs — Camden, Hackney and Tower Hamlets — have none as things stand.

■ Titbits has always suspected that the true test of a politician’s cosmopolitan credentials is whether they can gaze admiringly across the Channel and say the words “be more French” with a straight face. Step forward Caroline Russell, Green leader on the London Assembly, who this week has done precisely that. The occasion is ozone – a subject that has, Titbits concedes, been criminally underserved by the borough’s dinner-party chatter.

Alastair Duncan says playgrounds signal to children “that this is a space for them too” Alastair Duncan and his family. Credit: Alastair Duncan The pub with a playground is one of parenthood’s small mercies: somewhere adults can finish a conversation — and a pint — while the children entertain themselves. Now a Dalston father of two has built an app to help families find one.

Mossbourne Victoria Park Academy. Photograph: Google The removal of shouting from a school completely, the chair of the Mossbourne Federation told Hackney councillors last month, would be “a very, very big ask”. Two documents, fifteen years apart, indicate the scale of the ask. The evidence suggests the practice was neither incidental nor recent — and that, at the founding school, it was deliberately kept down while visitors were in the building.

The Clapton Tram depot site on Upper Clapton Road in August 2025. Image: Google A historic tram site in Hackney could be given a new lease of life under fresh planning proposals for business units and a food-and-drink space. Plans to refurbish the Victorian-era Clapton Tram Depot building were submitted to Hackney Council last month after years of stalled developments.