A planning application for a new block of flats on Morning Lane has been rejected
Independent venues under threat is becoming an all-too-familiar tale in the capital; the Mayor of London’s 2019 Cultural Infrastructure Plan reported that in the last decade, 35% of grassroots venues closed, and the Music Venue Trust has estimated that across the UK, an average of two venues a week shuttered in 2023. At the end of 2024 we reported that Hackney’s MOTH Club was the latest venue at risk thanks to new planning proposals for the development of flats on Morning Lane, which included residences backing on the area where MOTH’s stage is and balconies overlooking the smoking area.
The Night Time Industries Association and the Music Venue Trust lent MOTH Club its support, with the likes of Lewis Capaldi, Billie Joe Armstrong, Hot Chip and Rough Trade all giving the venue their backing. Now it appears that it’s all paid off as the venue announced on Instagram that “the planning application for the building directly next to us has been refused! This is a huge win. We couldn’t have done it without your support.”
However, as the team also wrote, “That said, the fight is not over. There’s still another planning application in progress, which could still put MOTH’s future at risk. We need to keep spreading the word and make sure our venue continues to be a home for live music, comedy and grassroots culture.”
The development plans that were submitted to Hackney Council were deliberately split into two parts so as to avoid the obligation to include social housing, and the second of the two applications remains in progress, so the venue isn’t out of the woods yet.
As well as running as an ex-serviceperson’s club since the 70s, over the last decade MOTH has become a hub for live music, comedy and club nights, weaving itself into the fabric of Hackney. The space has provided a platform for new acts and bands, like King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard, Dry Cleaning, Shame, Amyl and the Sniffers, Lapsley, Biig Piig, Caroline Polachek and IDLES (who have since gone onto headline Wide Awake, the festival founded by the same team that operates MOTH), to break into the mainstream, and it’s also hosted huge names like Lady Gaga and Jarvis Cocker.
MOTH’s programmer Keith Miller has always been in support of additional housing but as he said, “the reality is that flats and music venues should not be dovetailed together like this”, especially when there’s an expanse of shops, where luxury outlet Hackney Walk was just further up Morning Lane, lying empty. As Keith rightly points out, a big part of why Hackney has been regenerated is the arts, “it’s been rebuilt on nightlife and it would be a real shame for nightlife to take the brunt of the gentrification.”
Key Information
Address | Valette Street, London E9 6NU
For more information | @mothclub
