How does Tower Hamlets spend my council tax? I’ve been shovelling cash at them for 19 years so I strolled along to the new town hall to find out where the money goes. The new town hall cost a packet, clearly. Carved out of the Royal London Hospital, the spacious lobby looks cool, stylish and reassuringly anonymous, like a private bank in Zurich. Glass doors swish apart and I enter the debating chamber where the councillors sit at a curved mono-desk opposite the public gallery. Everything is slick and hyper-modern. The pristine floor glows beneath the recessed lights. I had expected an ordinary meeting but I seem to have stumbled on an important debate.

I’ve been shovelling cash at them for 19 years so I strolled along to the new town hall to find out where the money goes

I’ve been shovelling cash at them for 19 years so I strolled along to the new town hall to find out where the money goes

Developers are applying for permission to build three skyscrapers on a vacant lot on the Isle of Dogs. Zillions of pounds are at stake. Battle begins. Mr Developer shows us slides of the 180ft towers which are made of twinkly steel and glass, but they bear no trace of ornament, warmth or imaginative flair. Soulless boxes for robot citizens. Hives of chrome where human termites will lurk. Mr Developer promises homes for 918 students as well as larger apartments for families on the ‘affordable housing’ list. He doesn’t call the flats ‘flats’. He calls them........

© The Spectator