London Borough of Tower Hamlets Islamic centres, including the East London Mosque, Britain's biggest mosque. Brick Lane's restaurants, neighbouring street market and shops provide the largest range of Bengali cuisine, woodwork, carpets and clothes in Europe. A 2017 study by Trust for London and the New Policy Institute found that Tower Hamlets has the highest rate of poverty, child poverty, unemployment, and pay inequality of any London borough. It also found that it has the lowest GCSE attainment gap though, meaning that the gap in performance between disadvantaged and non-disadvantaged pupils is lower than in any other London Borough. The local authority is Tower Hamlets
Brick Lane (2007 film) of opposition from some of the local community, police advised her to change locations after demonstrations were threatened. The novel and film provoked criticism by some in the Bangladeshi community in London, who thought that Chanu and the Bangladeshis from Sylheti generally, were portrayed in a negative way. Some traders organized against having the film company doing any production in the neighborhood; on 31 July 2006, about 120 British Bangladeshis held a protest in Brick Lane. Others wrote letters to the editor in "The Guardian" and spoke in support of the film production, including the British chapter of PEN and