Newham in the ’70s and ’80s was a working class area and the poorest borough in London, if not the country.There was a huge amount of wasteland called The Whips, The Butts and Stratford back then was a maze of overgrown canals and scary industrial estates. There was gas and glue sniffing going on and a lot of friends died from that plus a lot of gang flights and general pecking order violence at school.

There were factories all over Stratford even 15 years ago and all that vanished. The pubs vanished. There was a lot of music venues like The Brunel Arms and Ruskin in Manor Park, where Iron Maiden first played and as a kid I could see gangs of Mods and Rockers from the venues meet and fight on a weekend. The 2 Pigeons on the Romford Road was an indie disco in the ’90s then an amazing African club with great African bands playing. That’s now a Tesco Metro.

The whole area had a lot of different communities with odd little clubs and late night, sometimes illegal bars but now it’s fast becoming full of bearded hipsters who just love vinyl and coffee but lack substance as humans compared to the Cockneys that used to reside here. Dalston was a no-go area when I was young as it was pretty dangerous, as was Stratford but now it’s a place you want to avoid because it is so gentrified and so full of wealthy kids from elsewhere thinking they are in an authentic East London scene, when really it’s a sad place where many locals get turfed out as they can’t afford £500,000 flats and don’t understand what these new hipsters or yuppies are.

Newham now has so many 20-30 floor glass tower blocks that it’s become a gentrified forest. Since the Games there has been a land grab. Developers are out of control and prices are up 22%. Locals on benefits get moved to cheaper cities and that social cleansing – getting rid of the local poor to make way for wealthier outsiders – is criminal and not what elected councils should do.

The council has since before the Games had this demented slogan ‘Newham: A place people will want to Live, Work and Play’ on signs around the borough, not comprehending that this was previously a place that people did already want to live, work and play in but now can’t afford it.

Recently there has been this heavy sell of arts coming to Newham but that actually means council buildings going free to outside groups while local groups or even the local homeless are ignored. That’s not a local arts scene and from what I’ve seen, the gentrification of Newham has meant the loss of a wonderful, funny and vivacious working class community. (George, Newham resident since 1971)