Lots has happened to the now former police station in Lower Clapton Road since last January when I asked if anybody cared that it might close (they didn't). Firstly, it did close as a result of Boris Johnson's review of the Metropolitan Police Service's considerable property estate. Then it was sold for a hefty £7.6m to the government's Education Funding Agency and allocated to an Islamic free school, the Olive primary based for now in Cazenove Road.
One month later, in April of this year, it became occupied by around 20 squatters who told the Gazette that they were long term Hackney residents who had no choice but move in to the ex-cop shop because they lacked access to affordable housing. In June, the Evening Standard reported complaints from other Hackney residents who, judging by their ages, were substantially longer-term, that the squatters had been removing anything made of metal from the building, peering at neighbours through binoculars and keeping dogs which they riled up using a bullwhip. Enough to make you want to summon a policeman.
If anyone's still living there I didn't notice them this morning when I took the photgraph above. The school plans to move in to its permanent home next September. Its mission statement says it will "promote a culture of educational excellence from within a caring and secure Islamic enivronment" and produce learners to contribute to the "Big Society". Another phase in the history of the building, another chapter in the story of Hackney's schools.
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