Tower Hamlets

Location data
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Location Tower Hamlets, London
Coordinates 51° 30' 29.23" N, 0° 4' 34.40" W

The aim of this page is to recognise, celebrate and encourage the self-empowerment of community agency networks (CANs) and community groups' activism for climate, environment and many other sustainability topics across Tower Hamlets.

News

London
UK
Europe
Earth
  • News London’s low-traffic zones ‘cut deaths and injuries by more than a third’, theguardian.com (Jul 07, 2025) — “LTNs have led to considerable reductions in road traffic injuries inside their boundaries for all road users – from pedestrians and cyclists to drivers. At the same time, concerns about nearby main roads becoming more dangerous aren’t supported by the evidence.” Dr Jamie Furlong
  • News Stampede in Soho: puppet animals on an epic trek bring wonder and warning to London streets, theguardian.com (Jun 28, 2025)
  • News How a community-focused vision for net zero can revive local economies, theconversation.com (May 06, 2025)
  • News ‘Robot’ buses could bring more environmental benefits than public transport with drivers, theconversation.com (Nov 20, 2025)
  • News How heat from old coal mines became a source of local pride in this northern English town – new study, theconversation.com (Nov 20, 2025)
  • News Beth Mead: ‘If we don’t adapt to climate change, football becomes a privilege, not a right‘, theguardian.com (Nov 19, 2025)
  • News Sharing soil, sweat and tears, ffcc.co.uk (Oct 30, 2025) — Are farm partnerships the future? We talk to the team behind Abunda to find out
  • News Renewable energy investment should come from defence budgets, say retired military leaders, theguardian.com (Oct 23, 2025) — Former European officers say spending on low-carbon power would make nations more resilient to threats from potential aggressors
  • News Green to Grey, How Europe is squandering the little nature it has left, greentogrey.eu (Oct 01, 2025)
  • News Bees, Community, and Shared Futures, grassecon.substack.com (Nov 20, 2025)
  • News ‘Robot’ buses could bring more environmental benefits than public transport with drivers, theconversation.com (Nov 20, 2025)
  • News The Cambodian women rising up to protect their communal land, positive.news (Nov 20, 2025)

UK and international events

UK events

  • Event Nov 10 - 16, 2025 (Mon - Sun) — Living Wage Week, livingwage.org.uk
  • Event Nov 13, 2025 (Thu) — Kindness Day UK, Nov 13 annually, aiming to increase the value of kindness in society as well as increase the amount of kind acts that take place, making kindness a greater part in our daily life, kindnessuk.com
  • Event Nov 16 - 22, 2025 (Sun - Sat) — Road Safety Week, brake.org.uk
  • Event Nov 22 - 30, 2025 (Sat - Sun) — National Tree Week, The Tree Council's annual tree celebration. People across the country planting thousands of trees to mark the start of the winter tree planting season. "Trees and hedgerows are some of the most powerful tools we have in the fight against climate change.", treecouncil.org.uk

UK community action events

Global or international events

  • Event Nov 05, 2025 (Wed) — Media Liberation Day, Change the Media, Change the Future, mediarevolution.org
  • Event Nov 06, 2025 (Thu) — Outdoor Classroom Day, celebrating and inspiring outdoor learning and play, outdoorclassroomday.com
  • Event Nov 13, 2025 (Thu) — World Kindness Day, Nov 13, annually, highlighting good deeds in the community focusing on the positive power and the common thread of kindness for good which binds us, randomactsofkindness.org
  • Event Nov 16, 2025 (Sun) — International Day for Tolerance, Nov 16 each year, fostering respect, acceptance and appreciation of the rich diversity of our world's cultures, our forms of expression and ways of being human, unesco.org
  • Event Nov 19, 2025 (Wed)International Men's Day, Nov 19, annually
  • Event Nov 28 & 29, 2025 — Buy Nothing Day, en.wikipedia.org

2021-2030, UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration, International community action events

Tower Hamlets video

Community involvement

Since 2014, the council has embraced a policy of decentralisation by establishing neighbourhood forums. In 2014, the East Shoreditch Neighbourhood Planning Forum was set up which was followed in 2016 with the designation of a Limehouse Community Forum, an Isle of Dogs Neighbourhood Planning Forum, and a Spitalfields Neighbourhood Planning Forum.

Community and voluntary action

Volunteer Centre Tower Hamlets helps residents find volunteering work and provides support to organisations involving students volunteers.

Food activism

Mudchute Park and Farm is a large urban park and farm in Cubitt Town on the Isle of Dogs in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets. It is a Local Nature Reserve and a Site of Metropolitan Importance for Nature Conservation.

Stepney City Farm is a city farm in Stepney, London, England. It is situated on Stepney Way with its entrance on the roundabout leading onto Stepney High Street and Belgrave Street towards Limehouse. The land is owned by Tower Hamlets Council through a trust, "The King George's Fields Trust" which is chaired by the Mayor of Tower Hamlets.

The farm runs workshops in rural crafts through its resident artisans; blacksmith, woodworker and potter. In 2011, the farm created an 800 square metre community garden and added low-cost growing boxes for community use.

In May 2013 a cafe and shop selling farm-reared meat and eggs as well as vegetables grown on-site was opened. It is open to the public six days a week. There is a Farmers' Market every Saturday. It is the home of The Green Wood Guild, a green wood and traditional woodworking craft workshop run by Barn the Spoon.

Fairer, kinder

Social inclusion

The End Child Poverty coalition published that Tower Hamlets has the highest proportion of children in poverty of any local authority in the UK at 49% (and as high as 54.5% in the Bethnal Green South ward).

Community resources

St Margaret's House is a community centre in Bethnal Green in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets. It was established in October 1889 as the Bethnal Green Ladies' Committee, with Princess Mary Adelaide, Duchess of Teck, as president. It has since become a charity supporting creativity and wellbeing in Tower Hamlets, running a variety of community projects providing spaces for residents to eat, shop, learn, create and enjoy cultural programmes.

The Institute for Community Studies at The Young Foundation is a British non-profit research institute that works with communities, organisations, and policymakers to effect social change. It was founded in 1953 and is based in Toynbee Hall, East London. In 2005, it merged with the Mutual Aid Centre and was renamed The Young Foundation, in honour of its founder, the sociologist, social activist and politician Michael Young. In 2019, The Young Foundation relaunched the Institute under the auspices of chief executive officer Helen Goulden.

The Institute makes use of community-based participatory researchers to collect evidence.

Young served as the Institute's director until his death in 2002. In 2005, the Institute of Community Studies merged with the Mutual Aid Centre (another Young-founded organisation) and was renamed The Young Foundation. The Young Foundation then launched a re-conceived Institute for Community Studies as one of its constituent parts in 2019, with financial support from charitable trusts and private donors. The new Institute's stated mission includes "engag[ing] with people across the UK, with a focus on gathering public views and informing policy research."

The Institute for Community Studies at The Young Center inaugurated its relaunch with a study begun in 2019 and completed and published during the COVID-19 pandemic in the United Kingdom entitled "Safety in Numbers?"

Arts, sport and culture

The Good Gym, run for good

Reduce, reuse, repair and recycle

A-Z recycling guide, information from Tower Hamlets Council

Climate action

  • Zero Emissions Network, zeroemissionsnetwork.com, "multiple award-winning air quality business liaison initiative... helps businesses and more recently, residents in London's City Fringe area save money, reduce emissions and improve local air quality.", added 15:25, 11 March 2022 (UTC)

Sustainable transport activism

Tower Hamlets Borough Council operates a walking bus service for school pupils on agreed routes with some running every school day while and others once or twice a week depending on the number of adult volunteers involved.

The Regent's Canal enters the borough from Hackney to meet the River Thames at Limehouse Basin. A stretch of the Hertford Union Canal leads from the Regent's canal, at a basin in the north of Mile End to join the River Lea at Old Ford. A further canal, Limehouse Cut, London's oldest, leads from locks at Bromley-by-Bow to Limehouse Basin. Most of the canal tow-paths are open to both pedestrians and cyclists.

Lea Valley Walk

Cycling

National Cycle Route 1

Open spaces

There are over one hundred parks and open spaces in Tower Hamlets ranging from the large Victoria Park, to numerous small gardens and squares. The second largest, Mile End Park, separated from Victoria Park by a canal, includes The Green Bridge that carries the park across the busy Mile End Road. One of the smallest at 1.19 ha is the decorative Grove Hall Park off Fairfield Road, Bow, which was once the site of a lunatic asylum. Other parks include Altab Ali Park, Mudchute Park and Grove Hall Park.

The Green Bridge, information from Tower Hamlets Council

News archive

2010

  • Braham Street Park opens in Aldgate, a new breathing space close to the City, March 19, 2010...london.gov.uk

About Tower Hamlets

The London Borough of Tower Hamlets is a borough in London, England. Situated on the north bank of the River Thames and immediately east of the City of London, the borough spans much of the traditional East End of London and includes much of the regenerated London Docklands area. The 2019 mid-year population for the borough is estimated at 324,745.

The borough was formed in 1965 by merger of the former metropolitan boroughs of Stepney, Poplar, and Bethnal Green. 'Tower Hamlets' was originally an alternative name for the historic Tower Division; the area of south-east Middlesex, focused on (but not limited to) the area of the modern borough, which owed military service to the Tower of London. The Tower of London itself is located in the borough, adjacent to its western boundary with the City of London.

A 2017 study by Trust for London and New Policy Institute, found that Tower Hamlets has the highest rate of poverty, child poverty, unemployment, and pay inequality of any London borough. However, it has the lowest gap for educational outcomes at secondary level.

Page data
Authors Phil Green
License CC-BY-SA-3.0
Cite as Phil Green (2014–2025). "Community action/Tower Hamlets". Appropedia. Retrieved November 28, 2025.