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Strongroom launch petition against proposed tower block build that could put them out of business
By Chris Cooke | Published on Thursday 5 July 2018
Shoreditch-based recording studios Strongroom have called on the music community to sign a petition against proposals to build a new six storey building alongside its complex in Curtain Road. Owners of the East London studios reckon that the eighteen months of disruption the construction of that building would cause could put them out of business, plus the new block would cast a permanent shadow over the studio complex’s courtyard.
In a statement on its Facebook page yesterday, the studio outfit wrote: “Some of you may have heard the news that we received word of a planning application submitted to Hackney Council, proposing the construction of a giant six-storey block along our joining wall at 118 Curtain Road”.
It went on: “The proposed demolition and construction is estimated to take eighteen months. Eighteen months of dust, debris, endless drilling and of course loud noise and low frequency vibration. This level of disturbance would almost certainly put our studios out of business, displace the many wonderful producers and companies we have based here, and the finished construction would cast our beautiful courtyard in a constant shadow”.
Strongroom have had a base in Shoreditch since 1984, long before the London district became the place to be for creative, tech and entrepreneurial types. Referencing that fact, the statement goes on: “Having aided the regeneration of Shoreditch in fierce support of independent businesses, we remain strong and defiant, protective of our wonderful community and thankfully busier than ever. Does Shoreditch really need another ugly office block to benefit a Guernsey-based corporation? We ask you to stand with us and save culture over big business. Save communities and support creativity”.
Management at Strongroom are hoping that their campaign can be as successful as that staged to save its sister studio complex – North London’s Air Studios – which likewise saw its business threatened by proposals that would have involved extensive building works at a neighboring property. Planning applications for those proposals were withdrawn late last year.
