The council hopes to create “an urban buzz” in Blackhorse Lane to attract new residents for up to 3,700 planned homes
By Victoria Munro

Hackney Brewery (credit: Blackhorse Beer Mile)

Waltham Forest Council spent more than £600,000 on a makeover for the Blackhorse Beer Mile as part of its ongoing project to gentrify Blackhorse Lane.

Last week, Architects Journal reported on the result of a project to improve the Lockwood Way industrial estate, aimed at “transforming the area into a social hub for the taprooms”.

The work, which was fully funded by the council, began on-site in November last year and was completed in July. The Beer Mile officially “launched” on 1st May, although its Twitter account was created in March of last year.

The Beer Mile is made up of six taprooms – Truman’s Social Club, Signature Brew, Beerblefish Brewing, Exale Brewing, Wild Card Brewery and Hackney Brewery – all within ten minutes’ walk of each other, although only Wild Card and Hackney are based on the estate itself.

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The project is part of the council’s ongoing investment in Blackhorse Lane, set out in a “masterplan” earlier this year, which it hopes will create “an urban buzz” to attract new residents for up to 3,700 planned new homes.

If granted planning permission, half of these new homes will be provided in one mammoth development proposed on Uplands Business Park, which is home to three of the six taprooms on the Beer Mile.

The £606,000 project paid for “new glazed frontages, signage and façades”; widening and resurfacing footpaths; adding street furniture, “playful road markings” and charging points; and creating a “communal canopy structure” to provide covered space for events.

The council and We Made That previously collaborated on regenerating Blackhorse Lane in 2014, when they used a much smaller budget to “address issues of poor perception and functional operation of the existing industrial estates”.

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