Value in the meantime: the social enterprise transforming London’s empty buildings

There are 80,000 empty buildings in London, and I’m in one of them.  

Perched across the road from the vast Tate & Lyle sugar refinery in Silvertown – a part of east London that gentrification forgot – the Tate Institute is a memory of Victorian corporate philanthropy. Built to provide its workers with education and enlightenment, it fell into dereliction as such paternalism fell out of favour and into the hands of Newham Council, who struggled to find a suitable use – and funds – with which to revive it.   

Then came the squatters, leaving their graffiti on the walls, but doing little to stop the decay: holes in the roof, floors collapsing … It’s an all-too familiar tale. 

But this one comes with a twist. The building today is buzzing with people at work, renovating and restoring. They’re a mix of staff and volunteers at ReSpace Projects: a social enterprise that is transforming derelict or at-risk sites across the capital and beyond.  

Essentially, as ReSpace director Fleur Disney tells me, perched on an old sofa over a cup of tea in the ‘Tate’s’ kitchen, they take buildings that are lying empty, sometimes for years (so-called ‘meanwhile spaces’), and, with the agreement of the landlords and local authorities, turn them into places for community use – such as workshops, arts venues and startup hubs.  

It’s a win-win for all involved, including crucially the landlords, who save money and gain security by having the building inhabited and cared for. It does so in a way that also earns them brownie points with the local authority upon whose planning decisions their business goals often depend. And it’s preferable to the ‘property guardians’ model, where security is provided by a series of short-term, usually poorly paid, occupants who have no incentive to look after the space. 

If ReSpace sounds like a sort of benign squatter invasion, that’s not surprising, as founder Gee Sinha explains. “I became homeless in 2010 and ended up living in a squat.” He got involved in squatters’ rights campaigns, just as the residential version was made a criminal offence – a ban which, he acknowledges, “made sense in its own way”. That still left hordes of commercial properties in a ‘meanwhile’ state, often for years on end, and they became the focus for Sinha and his fellow campaigners, fighting to legalise occupation of such empty buildings and make them available for community use. That made the activists something of a thorn in the side for local authorities.  

Then in 2014, “I got a message from someone I knew in Hackney Council, which basically said: ‘If we give you a building, would you stop squatting?’” The building in question was an empty three-storey office block in Dalston – fast emerging as London’s latest hipsterville. Its owner was Michael Gerrard, a developer who was keen to stay on-side with the council. And so an alliance was formed between these two least likely of collaborators: squatter and landlord. 

With an initial investment of just £250, enough to pay for public liability insurance and, as Disney puts it “a couple of fire extinguishers”, the ReSpace crew – as it was to become – set about transforming the building. It became The Hive: a buzz of community activities from music and poetry to wellness and healing days, along with a cafe and a hub for local startups.  

An alliance was formed between these two least likely of collaborators: squatter and landlord

It provided short-term housing for homeless people too, who in return for helping with the renovation benefited from training and work opportunities. By the time the arrangement ended, ReSpace had a model for transforming similar meanwhile spaces – and funding from the Tudor Trust to take their work forward. 

They’ve since become adept at everything from negotiating short-term leases and usage agreements with landlords and local authorities, to sourcing and repurposing a vast array of waste materials. They use these, which would otherwise go to landfill, to renovate their next project. They’ve now transformed around 10 properties themselves, including everything from a disused garden centre in north London to an arts venue in Southend, and advised “on hundreds more”, says Disney. 

Working in just a few of those 80,000 empty buildings that blight Britain’s capital, ReSpace has shown convincingly how a problem can be turned into an asset for all concerned. It’s an inspiration – and a challenge – for others to follow.

Martin Wright is a director of Positive News 

Main image: L-R: Gee Sinha; Nadiya Taylor, Fleur Disney, Iggy Smith, Brandon Nemon and Hayley Squires inside the Tate Institute,

All photography: Sam Bush