 Before and After views of the Tyssen St changes On Friday 26 June 2026 Hackney Council launched a consultation on changes to Tyssen Street behind Hoxton Trust Community Garden. As a result of the investment the space will see many incremental improvements such as planting trees, adding benches, and widening a footpath. It will also result in the demolition of a play space to make room for the subsidised storage of dangerous, environmentally damaging private motor vehicles on public land. As we explained in our recent parking blogpost, providing convenient and available parking space increases car ownership and induces increased demand for driving. Hackney Council says the total number of parking bays in the general area remain the same after the changes because other parking bays were eliminated, so in essence the parking bays were not created, but “moved”. This is misleading. The Council is not excavating the existing parking bays and carrying them to their new location. The old parking bays are rightfully being transformed into a more valuable use for more people (greenery). At the same time, a community space (the play area) is being demolished to create brand new parking bays. Here's Marvin Street off Graham Road with parking, and now without. Which do you prefer? Cars are immensely space inefficient, so to transport the same number of people as could be transported by walking, cycling, or public transport vastly more road space is required. Cars spend most of their time unused, which then requires additional wasted land to store them while they are parked. If everyone in Hackney drove everywhere, most of our community spaces would need to be demolished to accommodate their cars, but thankfully only 8.5% of journeys in Hackney are made by car and in the area immediately around the improvements, 79% of households don't own a car. You’d never realise the percentage is so small looking at a typical street in Hackney though, since much of the public realm is still dominated by that small minority of journeys. As a result of this space inefficiency, the new usage for the play space (i.e. car parking) will only be available to a handful of people, and only for a few hours a day at most when they actually use their vehicles, unlike the play area that was available to everyone all day. The false premise behind the proposal is that in order for the community to acquire additional green space it must pay for it by sacrificing valuable space for the community elsewhere. We can have both.  Murrain "Play" Road, N4 How could the scheme better support a lower traffic Hackney? The existing play area is not in great shape and awkwardly disconnected from the green space, so improvements are welcome. Alternatively, it could be used for trees, greenery, a rain garden, seating, or any other creative purpose. If it is still destined for parking, a sensible tweak would be to make it cycle parking, where the same space provides transport for six people instead of one. Even better, the parking bays between the green space and play area could be converted to a more equitable use to connect the two. There are many right answers, but one clearly wrong answer is paving it over for car parking. We suggest a 50% net reduction of all-purpose bays comprising some complete removals and some conversion to disabled-only, loading, and electric charging only bays. Cars cause immense harm, and most of them are used, when they are used at all, for single occupancy journeys that could alternatively be made by walking, cycling or public transport. Still, there are journeys in Hackney that need to be made by car, so it would be understandable to keep some parking bays while ensuring a net reduction. However, unless the Council takes opportunities to lessen the priority given to driving and private car storage, truly transformative change remains out of reach. Every time the council spends money on a public realm scheme, it should ask itself: “How does this contribute to our manifesto aim of ‘a 30% reduction in miles driven on Hackney roads by 2030’?” If the answer is that it doesn’t, it needs further review. Low Traffic Hackney urges its readers to complete the Council’s consultation and request a net reduction of parking bays to unlock additional space for the whole community.
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