Barking and Dagenham Council plans to demolish Dagenham Trades Hall and build social housing on the site, reports Nick Clark, Local Democracy Reporter
The owner of Dagenham Trades Hall Social Club has called on neighbours to “come in and support the club” to help keep it open.
Barking and Dagenham Council, which owns the building, plans to knock it down and replace it with social housing. The club’s lease is set to run out in September.
Mark Brent, who runs the club, said it has struggled to keep going as fewer people come to drink there. Now, he’s calling on neighbours to visit more often in a bid to keep it open until it’s demolished.
He told the Local Democracy Reporting Service (LDRS): “It does boil down to people coming in and supporting the club.
“If people are not coming in and supporting the club, how do you expect me to keep the club going?”
Council leaders approved plans to build new family homes at the site, in Charlotte Road, at a cabinet committee meeting last Tuesday (16th).
The homes will be for people on the council’s housing register, who have to be UK nationals and to have lived in the borough for three years straight.
Mark said he accepted the club will eventually have to close – but he wants to agree a deal with the council to keep it open until the building is demolished.
He said: “This isn’t just a club – it’s been part of my life for 14 years.
“I took it over in 2012. The club was in severe debt back then. It was on the verge of closing in 2013.”
Mark said he managed to keep the club afloat – but declining footfall, made worse by the pandemic, made it “extremely hard to survive”.
He said: “The new generation isn’t coming through. Social clubs used to be where everyone could go to meet. Now we don’t even open Mondays or Wednesdays – we’re not busy at all.”
Now aged 37 with a wife and three children, Mark said the stress of running the club even led to him having a heart attack in 2020.
He sold the trades hall to the council in 2023, then leased it back on terms that allowed him “to keep the club going for a few more years”.
Mark said he “knew that one day we’d have to close the doors one way or another” but that he doesn’t want to see the building empty.
He said: “Good times do come to an end. It is sad, times have changed. But after 14 years in here, and everything I’ve done inside this club, to see it boarded up – that’s not an option.”
Senior Labour councillor Maureen Worby, responsible for housing at the council, told the cabinet the local authority wanted to keep “some form of operation” in the hall until it was ready to begin demolition.
She suggested the council could let Dagenham Trades Hall to the club for less than market rates “on a less formal basis and on the understanding – very clear understanding – that when we require the site for demolition we don’t get any arguments about them staying there”.
Cllr Worby told the LDRS the council “won’t be on site for potentially another year, or 18 months” and is “more than happy to go into a new agreement” with the club “until we need the site”.
Mark said he is still in talks with the council over the terms of a new lease. However, he said he needed more customers visiting the club to make sure he has enough income to keep it running.
He said: “It’s everything – business rates, electric, water rates have gone through the roof.
“It isn’t just the rent. If people are not coming in and supporting the club, how do you expect me to keep the club going?”
He added: “If people support the club, 110% we will extend the lease until the council is ready.”
