MOTH Club: over 30,000 emails sent to Hackney Council to save venue

Hackney Council has received over 30,000 emails to help save MOTH Club after plans were proposed to build residential flats next door. 

Since development plans were first put forward in September last year, thousands of people have contacted the council in an effort to secure MOTH Club's future.

On Instagram in November last year, the venue, located on Valette Street, said: “One of the planned blocks will have balconies directly overlooking MOTH’s smoking area and back onto the stage wall [...] a move that would lead to conflicts, noise complaints, and a serious threat to the venue’s ability to operate.” 

MOTH Club has asked people to sign and share their petition, which currently has more than 30,000 signatures, to help protect the venue. 

Teaming up with Save Our Scene and Kickers, MOTH Club will host a free fundraising event on Thursday 18th December featuring performances from Kojey Radical and The Silhouttes Project. The night is part of the Stomping Grounds series, created in support of grassroots venues. Find out how to get your free ticket here.

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Keith Miller, programmer and founder of MOTH, said: "All we’re asking from Hackney Council is a fair and transparent process for MOTH Club, one of London’s most legendary grassroots venues.

"This is a 300-capacity space that has hosted everyone from Lady Gaga to Four Tet to Christine & The Queens, and where the next wave of emerging artists rely on rooms like ours to take their first steps.

"Yet throughout this planning process, we’ve been met with zero clarity, zero communication, and zero fairness. We deserve better, and so does every venue fighting to keep culture alive in this city. This isn’t just about Moth Club; it’s about protecting the future of live music in London and beyond.

"Huge names have already signed up to support us; from Green Day, Lewis Capaldi and Tame Impala to just about every venue, label and promoter in London. There’s a wider ecosystem at play here. It’s not just about the bricks and mortar, it’s about the people who make these spaces matter."

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In a statement shared on Instagram on 28th November 2025, Music Venue Trust highlighted the severity of the threat: "@mothclub is facing an existential threat because Hackney Council is considering approval of a residential development next door under delegated authority - denying the venue and its community a public planning hearing despite more than 25,000 objections.

“If Hackney side-steps national policy here, it sets a catastrophic precedent: any grassroots venue in the UK could be placed in the same position by developers who choose not to mitigate noise. This isn’t just a MOTH Club issue. It’s a test of whether planning protections for cultural spaces have any real weight”

MOTH Club was founded in 1972. Over the years, the East London venue has hosted local artists as well as big names in their early careers, including IDLES, Caroline Polachek, King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard, Wunderhorse, Amyl and the Sniffers, Jarvis Cocker, Dry Cleaning, Shame, Biig Piig, and more, plus comedy and clubbing events. 

​Sign the petition to help save MOTH Club here. 

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Header image credit: MOTH Club / Facebook.com