‘It’s heartbreaking, it’s frustrating,’ voluntary groups in Tower Hamlets are being squeezed out of their leases

Voluntary groups that provide Tower Hamlets with key services, some for over 100 years, are facing a hostile environment that could force the closure of dozens of much-loved community venues.

An adventure playground with free sports training, disability support services, childcare services, free language learning, a historic weightlifting club and a popular city farm. 

These are just a few of the non-profit Voluntary and Community Sector (VCS) organisations on Tower Hamlets Council property, of which there are at least 70. One by one, organisations are being edged out of their leases. What’s going on? 

For decades VCS groups across the borough have provided vital social services free of charge. In exchange, they are charged low or no rent by the Council. 

Many such groups have been running for decades. In some cases, such as The Bethnal Green Weightlifting Club (BGWLC), a rent-free arrangement dates back nearly a century. 

Over the past decade, and coming to a boil in the past couple of years, what was once a symbiotic relationship has been changing. Since this investigation began, the Slice has found that at least 15% of the organisations in the Council’s VCS portfolio of 70 are struggling to renew or retain their leases. 

In addition to those listed, several voluntary organisations with similar arrangements are not listed on the Council’s official VCS portfolio, making the true scale of the issue difficult to assess.

Some voluntary organisations, such as the Broad Street Amateur Boxing Club, have had their rents hiked to an unaffordable level. Others, such as the Boundary Estate Community Launderette, found themselves evicted overnight. 

Most commonly, organisations report that the Council has simply stopped meaningfully responding to them when asked to renew or review their lease terms.  In this case, the organisation ends up out of a long-term lease with no timeline for a more stable arrangement. 

Once out of a long-term lease, voluntary organisations no longer qualify for many kinds of funding. No lease leads to a struggle with long-term planning and threatens their ability to deliver their existing services. 

This has been the case for the Bethnal Green Weightlifting Club (BGWLC), which has been trying to establish a lease agreement with the Council for over a decade.

The club, a registered charity, has produced world champions who have represented Great Britain at the Paralympic Games and the Commonwealth Championships. It’s been in the current location, an unassuming open-plan gymnasium tucked off of Bethnal Green Road since 1926, nearly a century.

Open to all, the BGWLC is not the stereotype you might expect of a weightlifting club, with members from all walks of life. Professionals train there, such as Yana Lyntovska, one of the top powerlifters in Great Britain and a Ukrainian refugee, or British paralympic champion Ali Jawad. There are also newcomers – a 14-year-old girl prepping for her first competition, a new mother, Lyntovska’s seven-year-old son. 

Head Coach Martin Bass told the Slice that the club, which has never paid rent, has been trying to get a formal lease arrangement with the Council since at least 2012 with little progress. ‘We always got to the very end and there was a stumbling block,’ he said. 

On the 31st of January with no prior warning, the club was served a Section 25 eviction notice. Once they managed to get in touch with the Council, their spokesperson had no answers. ‘He didn’t know why or anything other than the fact that he was given the task of presenting this section 25.’ 

The BGWLC put in a Freedom of Information Request, which revealed the Council had no plans for the building. With legal help, they’ve secured a temporary three-month extension of the eviction deadline, but still haven’t been told why they are set to be evicted on April 30. ‘So you’re going to destroy an 100 year old institution for what? On a whim?’ Bass wonders. 

Is the BGWLC an outlier? Far from it. At the Attlee Centre, a free youth and community centre near Brick Lane, the story is eerily familiar. 

The Attlee Centre is mostly used for recreation, a valuable resource for children in one of London’s most built-up and deprived neighbourhoods. It is inclusive of special needs, hosts youth groups and runs a large adventure playground. Each year more than 2,200 children visit. The Centre has been paying the Council Peppercorn Rent of £10 a year since 1982. 

Next year, the Attlee Centre’s twenty-five-year lease expires. Despite trying to work out a lease agreement with the Council since 2023, they still have no new lease arranged. 

Since they are a free service the Centre relies on donors, who won’t provide the money needed for repairs without the guarantee of a long-term lease. ‘Our adventure playground is literally rotting inside out and we can’t replace it because we haven’t got a lease,’ a spokesperson told the Slice. 

The Attlee Centre presented the Council with a petition to secure a lease in October 2024. The Council agreed to respond within 28 days, but so far has still not responded. 

‘It’s heartbreaking, it’s frustrating, we just want to be able to have a chat about where we go, what we do,’ the spokesperson said. ‘If we can’t have that conversation, where does that leave the families that use us.’ 

Real, a non-profit disability support service operating from the Isle of Dogs for the past decade faces a similar predicament. Led and mostly staffed by disabled people, Real provides a wide range of free services to disabled people in Tower Hamlets, including an advice service, anti-hate crime advocacy, and campaigning. Because Real often advocates for people having issues with the Council, it would be a conflict of interest to be brought in-house. 

Four years ago, the Council told Real it would be moving to a different location, and that they’d start charging a service charge. Ellen Kennedy, Head of Programmes at Real told the Slice that at first, moving sounded good. ‘The fact that we are on the first floor is a real barrier to some of our staff members,’  Kennedy explained, ‘Obviously as a disabled organisation, we try to empower people, so it isn’t ideal.’

The announcement was followed up by prolonged radio silence. In the four years since they’d been told they’d be moving, Real has only been presented with one option from the Council: the fourth floor of a tall building. 

Real’s last formal meeting about a lease was in 2023 – instead of a member of staff, the Council sent someone from their consultancy group. ‘Since then, they don’t contact us unless we chase them,’ Kennedy said. 

Real is currently out of a lease, and unsure if or when they will be moving. ‘They don’t really think about the impact this has on us,’ Kennedy said, ‘We’re not an organisation where you can just expect the staff team to pitch in with packing things up.’  

Real, the Attlee Centre and the BGWLC are three examples of the many voluntary organisations facing similar situations across the borough. Without leases, organisations that provide vital social services free of charge struggle to secure funding. With many stretched thin already, they are forced to allocate staff and volunteer time to chase up queries with the Council.

The crisis facing voluntary and community organisations in the borough has been years in the making, spanning multiple administrations. As a result, responsibility cannot be placed solely on either Aspire or Labour.

However, with many organisations at breaking point, the decision over their future lies with the current administration and Mayor Luftur Rahman. The Mayor is already under scrutiny from the Central Government over concerns about transparency and community engagement.

The overbearing silence from the Council and the Mayor leaves room for speculation. Some organisation staff believe their venues are quietly being targeted for development, their value inflated by gentrification. Others believe the problems stem from simple negligence within the Council’s flawed administrative system. 

Post-pandemic financial pressures have forced many London boroughs to explore ways to maximise their assets. As one of the most deprived boroughs in the UK, our voluntary organisations provide vital community services where the Council falls short. Can this administration afford to let them disappear?

If you liked this read Was the Best Value Inspection of Tower Hamlets Council justified?