Malam Gardens in Poplar, the last street in east London still lit by gas lamps, could switch to electric lighting after its residents’ association applied to Tower Hamlets Council to replace the five gas lamps with seven LED lights.
The application, reference PA/26/01653/NC, was validated on 28 September and has a target decision date of 23 November, according to the council’s planning register. An earlier version, which also included new access gates, was refused in July.
“There are all sorts of eco reasons to keep them: dark skies, anti-light pollution, they’re very good for biodiversity, and very good for insects,” Luke Honey of The London Gasketeers, a group that campaigns to keep London’s gas lamps, told the North East Londoner on 3 November.
A street built to prove gas could do everything
The Commercial Gas Light and Coke Company bought the site in 1932 and built Malam Gardens as housing for its staff, with no electricity, to show that a home could run on gas alone. The estate was finished by the spring of 1936 and named after John Malam, who invented the first gas meter in 1820, ianVisits reported.
The road is a short U-bend a few hundred metres from Canary Wharf. It is a private road run by its residents’ association. A heritage report with the application says they are “a rare example, with few surviving parallels in the country”, and are kept going by lamplighters who wind their clock mechanisms every fortnight.
What would change
The new lights would have a colour temperature of 1800K to 2400K, close to the orange glow of gas, on replica heritage posts, as part of work to resurface the road and replace the paving. One of the five lamps no longer works after being hit by a vehicle, which has raised concerns about light levels, a Tower Hamlets Council spokesperson said.
“The application to replace the lamps will be determined on its merits and will consider the local and national policy regarding the preservation of heritage assets,” the spokesperson said.
Most of London’s surviving gas lamps are in Covent Garden and Westminster, where The London Gasketeers campaigned in 2022 against plans to convert them. “For gas lamps like that to survive in East End, particularly with all the damage caused by the Blitz and the way a lot of these gas lights were removed en masse in the 1950s and 1960s, it’s very rare,” Honey said.
East London has one other gas lamp, in a memorial garden next to the Bromley-by-Bow gasholders. Comments on the application can be made through the Tower Hamlets planning register.
The essentials
- Where: Malam Gardens, Poplar, London E14 0TR, a private road near Canary Wharf
- Proposal: replace five gas lamps with seven LED lights (1800K to 2400K) on replica heritage posts, with new bollards, road surface and paving
- Planning reference: PA/26/01653/NC, Tower Hamlets Council; target decision date 23 November 2026
- Earlier application: PA/26/00495/NC, refused July 2026