please empty your brain below
I wonder why the floor numbers aren’t sequential, and what hides on the unlisted floors?

dg writes: access to flats is only floors which are a multiple of 3. See cross-section.

NLW | 15.03.25 - 8:17 a.m. | #

What on earth is a masturbatory view? Is it a view from such a height that it spontaneously produces a nerve-tingling reaction of satisfaction? I find heights limply frightening so wouldn't use that adjective. Or do you suggest the height to yield observation of performative self stimulation? Rich wankers live here maybe.

Poor people tend to live in places where there is no money to replace wear and tear depredations and vandalism so a spiral of decline sets in.

Brightside | 15.03.25 - 8:25 a.m. | #

The poor no longer deserve nice things if they ever did. That's how it feels these days anyway.

E | 15.03.25 - 8:30 a.m. | #

Well at those prices you would want 'sophisticated primary hues' in the library wouldn't you? None of that unsophisticated primary hue rubbish you get elsewhere.

Trevor S | 15.03.25 - 8:40 a.m. | #

Being a north west Londoner I'm afraid I have "no comment"

SimonP | 15.03.25 - 8:46 a.m. | #

I consider myself left wing, but I get the thinking behind the Balfron redevelopment: the ideal living environment for families is probably in houses or low-rise flats. A better sense of community clustered around parks and play areas - which feels like the kind of housing that surrounds the Balfron. The 'streets in the sky' idea didn't really work out.

High-rise living feels much better suited to people with no kids. Given its location, prob makes more sense to flog the flats to the highest bidders (maybe those that work in Canary Wharf), so long as - and I would absolutely insist on this - Poplar HARCA are reinvesting the profit into improving lives/housing provision for poorer local people. I'm not giving HARCA a 10/10 for how they went about it all, and hope they learnt lessons from it.

Muldoon | Homepage | 15.03.25 - 8:48 a.m. | #

Were any of the flats sold in the end? I thought it became a (not-affordable) rent-only block after Liz Truss crashed the economy.

Goldfinger’s Carradale House next door, which was refurbished around 15 years ago and remained as social housing under Poplar Harca, features signs that mention the Greater London Council. The signs are inside the bin chute rooms.

spongefingers | 15.03.25 - 8:55 a.m. | #

Money ALWAYS talks. What surprises me is that those with money want to live here as it overlooks the always busy A102. Or perhaps they don't live here as it's just an investment or somewhere to rent out.

Scientist | 15.03.25 - 8:59 a.m. | #

One has to wonder what percentage of the flat owners actually live in their flats and what percentage actually live in somewhere far flung like Malaysia, say.

TheLupineOne | 15.03.25 - 9:00 a.m. | #

Robin Hood Gardens were demolished, despite being architecturally treasured (so I'm told), because no-one wanted to privately refurbish them. Better this tower exists than suffer the same fate.

toby | 15.03.25 - 9:22 a.m. | #

What,exactly,is a 'masturbatory view'?

Roehamster | 15.03.25 - 9:25 a.m. | #

A very crude description of a view. This debases your usual high standard of descriptive writing.

Petras409 | 15.03.25 - 9:28 a.m. | #

I use my local dry cleaners and have done for years. Hopefully, he will continue in business for many more years. A few local shops have closed, replaced by Turkish Barbers.

Barry Coppock | 15.03.25 - 9:43 a.m. | #

High-Rise springs inexorably to mind. And looking back at the preceding entries, they also tend to the Ballardian. In particular, the Bow A102M sign has echoes of Concrete Island. (If you ever get the chance, the BBC's adaptation - with Andrew Scott as the protagonist - cannot be unheard.)

jpmac | 15.03.25 - 10:12 a.m. | #

It's soulless inside; all the character of the flats completely destroyed.
And spongefingers is right - they couldn't sell a single flat (you can take Poplar out of the building, but you can't take the building out of Poplar!), so they've had to try and let them out instead.

Isambard | 15.03.25 - 10:59 a.m. | #

I wonder if those using the gym get there via the lift or stairs! I

Nick | 15.03.25 - 11:11 a.m. | #

Does this imply that all the flats have three storeys? I've heard of two-storey flats in the past, but not a tower building of entirely three-storey flats. I agree it's more than sad considering its roots in a way that a tower block designed ab initio this way wouldn't be, and I wouldn't want there to be many of these, but it's also kind of badass.

Chris | 15.03.25 - 11:30 a.m. | #

Nah. For most of the flats you enter your front door then go either up or down a staircase to enter the main bulk of your flat

Muldoon | Homepage | 15.03.25 - 11:36 a.m. | #

Balfron Tower was the subject of much debate and campaigning by the local ‘Balfron Social Club’ about ‘art washing’ and the role of artists, who were temporarily accommodated in the building, and other areas undergoing ‘change’, as fifth columnists for eventual gentrification. Then once the building or area is transformed, the artists are thrown out, as happened at Balfron.

I recall that Poplar Harca, who’d taken over Tower Hamlet’s social housing, saying they were faced with such repair costs across the borough that they had to sell off the Balfron flats to fund work elsewhere. As others have mentioned, they failed to sell as planned and are being offered as luxury rentals - while the original tenants were scattered far and wide.

ActonMan | 15.03.25 - 11:47 a.m. | #

Living 1000ft up. Standard 2 floor house though. Does that count?

Putters | 15.03.25 - 12:07 p.m. | #

I've never lived in a tower block. I'm not keen on heights (or dogs or cars).

David | 15.03.25 - 2:51 p.m. | #

We have lost the shoe and leather repair man from our local shops. I refuse to buy new shoes and belts simply because my leather cannot be repaired.

The dry cleaning part of the shop is still going but each item now costs what three items used to cost :(

Hels | Homepage | 16.03.25 - 4:47 a.m. | #











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