Oppose the developers: London is fighting to protect its LGBTQ+ clubs

“I came in like a wrecking ball …” In 2013 you might have bellowed along to Miley Cyrus at Hackney’s queer pub The Joiners Arms. You might have been dancing next to Rufus Wainwright (or at least someone who looked him). It might have been a Thursday. It was probably the wrong side of midnight.

Less than six months later the same song would be more suitable as a soundtrack to the bulldozers being revved up by property developers as they contemplated replacing Hackney’s brilliantly dishevelled queer pub with flats.

This is typical of recent late night tales for LGBTQ+ venues in the capital. Due to external pressures from large-scale developments, rising business rents and a lack of safeguarding measures in London’s existing planning system, these venues have been dropping like flies: 58 per cent lost since 2006, UCL research claims. The Joiners was one, alongside other high profile closures such as Camden’s The Black Cap and The Queen’s Head in Chelsea.

But over the summer, largely thanks to the work of campaign group The Friends of the Joiners Arms, the pub has had a stay of execution. Its doors may remain closed for the time being (its been shut since January 2015) but developers Regal Homes have had their plans rejected after proposals for a replacement queer club were deemed as not going far enough to guarantee its viability to operate.

Co-chair Jon Ward remembers the campaign coming into focus in late December 2015, weeks before the pub was due to shut.

“Seeing another example of investors making money out of the disentitlement of the queer community and the continuation of queer spaces disappearing in London led to our group forming. We were born out of a sense of anger, frustration and dismay and decided that we needed to be active in opposing the developers,” he says.

Jon believes venues like the Joiners are now needed more than ever and the fight with developers will continue until an agreement that reflects the needs of the LGBTQ+ community agreed.

“There are still shocking levels of misogyny, transphobia and homophobia,” he explains. “And those who are most directly impacted by these are also those who are the least powerful within society. The LGBTQ+ community are most disempowered by austerity and bigotry.”

While the Joiners battle rumbles on, the queer clubs and venues in London still operating are striving to cause a scene, as they need to fight for their right to party more than ever.

On Kingsland Road, the main artery connecting the glassy mega bucks and suits of the city and the wilder, artsy environs of the east, lies Dalston Superstore. The three-way lovechild of Dan Beaumont, Matt Tucker and Dan Pope has been in business since the turn of the decade and has neatly defied the challenges of encroaching development such as stricter licensing regulations or sound restrictions.

Emma Kroeger from the club believes its success lies in its community but greater protection for the cultural contribution of such spaces needs to be recognised.

“LGBTQ+ nightclubs provide safe havens for free expression, as well as producing some of the most exciting and challenging art, music and cabaret in the country, and they need to be recognised for doing so,” she says.

The club hosts great LGBTQ+ nights such as Discosodoma, Homodrop, Femmme Fraiche and Bum.P. and is setting the benchmark for quality in queer clubbing alongside neighbours such as The Glory, VFD and The Queen Adelaide. Then there’s self-styled gay rave Chapter 10 and Pussy Palace further east at The Yard in Hackney Wick.

“Events like our International Transgender Day of Visibility and The Glory’s Lipsync1000 are a celebration of our vibrant and diverse communities, and to lose these kinds of things would do unspeakable damage to the queer community. These events are our lifeblood, they breed a pride and a sense of community that is beyond words,” says Kroeger.

Knickerbocker is a club night run by Alex Lawless, producer of Charlie Sloth on BBC Radio 1Xtra and Radio 1, and Aaron Wright, Artistic Director of Fierce Festival, Birmingham's international festival of performance.

Set up as a “party where you could go on a Saturday night wearing a plain t-shirt, get wrecked, pull and go home at 4am”, it’s doing great things in the community. The pair are optimistic about the new precedents being drawn up for how we all, regardless of whether we’re L, G, B, T or indeed anything, live our lives after dark.

“Look at the way 'straight' venues like The Bakery and The Nines in Peckham are starting their own gay nights. Look at Chapter 10 - London's best gay rave. Perhaps as sexuality becomes more fluid, our co-option of space needs to become less binary too,” they say.

“Ultimately this is not a story of gay bars closing, but of cool places to go out being ruined by people who want to go to sleep in silence at 10.30pm on a Tuesday.”

So where does this leave us? After the appointment of Night Czar Amy Lame, who has helped launch the LGBT+ Venues Charter, the recent victory for the Joiners campaigners and hopefully the return of The Black Cap, at a fairly optimistic point.

But Jon still believes more needs to be done in a world where profit rules.

“Local councils need to prioritise community needs when looking at planning applications, and to listen to those who speak for local communities. It would also be useful for the whole process to be more transparent and accessible. It’s this that will help us save our spaces, particularly those like the Joiners that gave us the opportunity to laugh, love, and have a ridiculously fabulous time.”

Jim Ottewill is a freelance journalist

Lawrence Abbott is an artist and freelance creative designer. Follow him on Twitter