earth and village underground

Back in 2018 the owners of hugely respected Shoreditch live venue and club space Village Underground proposed a new venue in an old art deco cinema in Dalston, Hackney. The venue, EartH - Evolutionary Arts Hackney was to be 2.500 capacity venue in 3 spaces providing everything from comedy, talks, workshops, live music, yoga, craft fairs to electronic music nights and a restaurant based on locally sourced food. The challenge faced by both the council and the operators was that it was within Hackney’s own Dalston Special Policy Area. MAKE was asked to undertake an objective assessment of the venue’s likely impact on crime and disorder, nuisance and safety and author a report to be considered by the Licensing Committee.

EartH was subsequently awarded a licence until 2am. We wanted to know if our assessment that, subject to the conditions we recommended, the venue would not have any negative impacts on the area had transpired. (Indeed, we predicted that it could help bring a new older and arts loving demographic to Dalston which had become a problematic late-night alcohol (and illegal drug) led destination).

We asked the operators and Hackney Council’s licensing team about the venue’s performance. It sounds like it has been a huge success by any measure. Initial teething troubles with noise breakout from a roof space and stage crew moving gear outside of contracted times had been corrected by immediately by the operators (demonstrating best practice venue management). And, as we predicted, there were no issues of crime, disorder or nuisance related to EartH’s customers.

We are pleased that the venue has been such a huge success and helped begin the process of change in Dalston, moving it away from an alcohol-dominated neighbourhood night-time economy to one where its largest venue is now art, music, culture and food-based.

For more information on undertaking an independent cumulative impact assessment click the button below…