Residents to lose out again!

The Council has set up a new department – ‘Residents First‘.

It’s first move was to axe all the local Community Councils. They replaced them with Ward Forums, which appear to be merely an extension of councillor surgeries.

Now they are considering closing the Waltham Forest Direct (WFD) shops  across the borough. The WFD shops, popular with local residents, are where they can get information, advice, visitor parking permits, and get their housing and council tax benefits sorted out without going to Walthamstow.

Maybe they should have called the department ‘Residents Last’!

Hainault Road/junction Leyton High Road

  

Architects drawing looking from Leyton High Road towards Bakers Arms

Liberal Democrat Group Leader Councillor Bob Sullivan has drawn attention to this planning application:  

The proposal is to build part 5, part 4 and part 2 storey buildings comprising ground floor commercial/retail space and 24 residential units.  The residential units will comprise 7 x 1 bed, 11 x 2 bed, 2 x 3 bed flats and 4 x 3 bed houses.  There will be no parking spaces except for 3 disability parking bays.  

Looking from Hainault Road towards the High Road

Bob says: “It seems that the only developments in Leyton are for more and more flats, when the real need for the area is family houses.  The flats that have been built have little or no parking spaces.  Parking in our streets has become virtually impossible.”  

Below is an objection sent in by a local resident which highlights the reasons why this development should not go ahead.      

The building would be out of place and character with the surrounding area and much greater in scale than the surrounding buildings.The materials in the area are relating to mixed conventions, Georgian, Edwardian and Post War. The proposed use of materials in this development with one part completely mottled red brick finish and the other part a completely buff brick finish does not strike me as an intelligent employment of said materials.   

The proximity and height of the building will reduce the light filter through from the front windows of properties opposite the proposal.   

The Juliette balconies would greatly overlook existing properties opposite.   

Strict controls would have to be adopted in terms of the retail space as hours of business and type of business is not known and has been ticked as such that any type of business and hours could be adopted.   

A major concern would be that an alcohol related business would establish causing Hainault Road area to become a natural congregation area and thus increasing levels of anti social behaviour and crime.   

Hainault Road and indeed all of the surrounding streets are not in a controlled parking zone. There is no residents parking scheme in place. Hainault Road and the surrounding roads are already under severe pressure in terms of parking space as they already take the overflow parking from the social services building located on Leyton High Road and the new police custody suite.The Proposal has 24 residential units with the provision for three disabled parking spaces. I would think this will again increase parking pressure on Hainault Road and the surrounding streets.The proposal has also unspecified ground floor retail which without a doubt will place more pressure on parking in the area    

The proposal is located at a very busy junction and I feel it will have the impact of increasing traffic and congestion, leading to more pollution and making the area less safe for pedestrians.   

I do not believe there is adequate provision for parking.   

The proposal does not meet the appropriate provision for off street parking in accordance with the Waltham Forest Council car parking standards. The area is not within a controlled parking zone.   

There is not much provision for larger families in this development and of the 24 units 18 are to be one and two bed units.There is already an oversupply of this type of housing in the area, and I feel a lot would go directly onto the rental market thus encouraging a more transient population.   

I would direct your attention to the quite similar Tesco development in South Woodford where there was great difficulty in finding business to take up the retail space.   

 

Planning News – Glyn Hopkin site in Ruckholt Road

Good news – The Planning Committee rejected the plan to re-develop the Glyn Hopkin Nissan showrooms on the corner of Ruckholt Road and Oliver Road was refused by the committee.

Residents in the area will be delighted that the plans to build up to six stories of flats with little parking was thrown out.  This is the second time the plans have not been accepted. 

Ward Councillor Bob Sullivan said: “I hope that the developers will go back to the drawing board and come back with plans for family houses with parking spaces and not loads of one and two bed flats.”

Labour’s Attack on Sports!

Despite all their proud boasts that Waltham Forest is an Olympic Borough, and with hire charges overall increasing by 3 to 5%, hire of sports facilities is set to soar:

  • School hire of football and cricket pitches – up 12%
  • Saturday pitch hire – up 23%
  • Leyton cricket ground – up 25%
  • Running a school sports day – up 25%

This is on top of selling off Drapers Field to the Olympic Authority for nearly two years. This is a direct attack by Labour councillors on sport in direct contrast to their claim of ‘more investment’ in sports.

Leytonstone Fire Station – update

Architects impression of the new fire station 

FOCUS reported plans to redevelop the Fire Station in High Road Leytonstone.

An online report by the Waltham Forest Guardian confirms that funding has been approved. This will see the existing buildings demolished, and replaced by a modern facility as part of a £60 million scheme to rebuild fire stations under a private finance initiative. The scheme is due to start late next year, with Leytonstone being part of the second phase.

The fire engines and staff will be relocated to other local stations while the work takes place. A London Fire Brigade spokesperson is reported to have said, “Temporarily transferring fire engines to different stations during construction will not lead to a reduction in our service and allow us to maintain good attendance times.”

Leytonstone High Road to get a ‘facelift’

As you may have heard, after having been left out of the first round of pre-Olympic ‘sprucing up’ funding, High Road Leytonstone has now been allocated £2 million.  

The plans, extending from the Green Man through to the Thatched House, can be viewed on the Council’s website at: www.walthamforest.gov.uk/traffic-schemes  

Local campaigner John Howard was pleased to see, at last, there is a proposal to demolish the disused public toilets in Kirkdale Road  

CHURCH LANE – he queried the removal of the turning circle and the apparent disappearance of the public car park, while a proposal still remains for a ‘play area’.  

The Council has advised that this plan is to be redrawn to show continued access to the car park.  

The Plaza showing the distance between the sculpture and the flowerbed   

THE PLAZA – John questioned the suggestion to reroute the road to run between the sculpture and the flowerbed. Regular users of this area will know that there are aften more than one bus at each bus stop, and the W16 drivers have a break before returning to Chingford. Additionally, the vehicle access routes to the car park and the LT building were not shown. 

He has now been advised that London Buses supported concerns about the reduced road layout on The Plaza, and a site meeting was being convened to resolve the problem.  

The FOCUS Team is watching developments.

Drapers Field – UPDATE Labour council plan ‘secret’ meeting

Drapers Field – MEETING MONDAY SEPTEMBER 13th 6pm till 8pm

The Olympic Authority and the Council are going to hold a drop in meeting at Drapers Field on Monday 13th September 6.00pm to 8.00pm.  It will be held in the Sport England pavilion next to the astro turf pitch. 

Apparently the Olympic Authority/Council will explain what they intend to do with Drapers Field when they close it down from September 2011 to December 2012.

Secret meeting–  This initial meeting has only been notified to the residents around Drapers Field.  They obviously believe that only local residents are concerned about the loss of the only sports and leisure facility in the area.  We have only found out by local residents telephoning us.

MAKE YOUR VIEWS KNOWN – If you are concerned about what is being planned for Drapers Field then please go to the meeting and make your views known.

 Other Draper’s field news : – Bob Sullivan and John Howard had a useful meeting with two representatives from Sport England on Friday morning.

Sport England has poured hundreds of thousands of pounds into local sport facilities, including Drapers Field and Score. Sport England is concerned to make sure its investment is protected and that the conditions attached to its grants are not broken. It also has a statutory duty to protect playing fields. The representatives told us that their starting position is to oppose any loss of playing fields unless the facilities are re-provided.Both Sport England and the FA believe there is a demand for playing pitches in the area.The local Liberal Democrats will continue to campaign to protect local sports facilities, not just at Drapers Field but also when the future of other sites such as the Pool and Track in Walthamstow is considered. We already know that the Pool and Track appears on Labour’s ‘hit list’ of possible property disposals.

Underground ticket offices – broken promises

During the Mayoral election campaign Boris Johnson campaigned to keep permanently staffed ticket offices at every station. The promise was in his manifesto and he even signed a petition in 2008 against Ken Livingstone’s plans to shut ticket offices. However the Mayor has now announced that from February 2011 nine out of ten London Underground stations will have their ticket office opening hours reduced, including all four tube stations in Waltham Forest.The reductions in hours were strongly opposed by local Liberal Democrats when the idea was first proposed in March.At the time TfL said that ticket office staff would move out from behind their glass screens to help passengers. But now the Mayor has confirmed that the jobs will be axed instead. Consultation on the proposals has been poor with the information hidden away on TfL’s website.Any reduction in ticket office opening hours is likely to hit those most vulnerable such as the elderly, disabled and tourists the hardest. Across London, Liberal Democrats are stepping up the campaign to protect ticket office opening hours.

Draper’s Field – Update

Drapers Field

As you may have read the Labour Cabinet has agreed in principle to close Drapers Field for 16 months from September 2011. The Guardian archives show that over £1.5 million was spent installing the all-weather pitch (the only one in the borough), and upgrading the other sports facilities.
The Council Leader is reported to have said: “We would be able, through the compensation package, to completely refurbish Draper’s Field … we could turn it into a very special park.”
Leyton and Wanstead Liberal Democrats  believes that we should not be closing a valued sports facility, which is used by 100,000 people a year, including Norlington School, which uses it 4 days a week.
If you believe that, as an Olympic borough, we should be cherishing our sporting facilities. Please sign our on-line petition at:
http://ourcampaign.org.uk/DrapersField

Lib Dems Push the Government to build new schools in Waltham Forest

Leytonstone School

Liberal Democrat councillors are pressing the Government to provide the money for new school buildings for our local children.

 “Anyone who has visited schools such as Leytonstone, Norlington, Connaught and George Mitchell knows how much new buildings are needed. We owe it to the children of our borough to do all we can to provide them with the high quality education they deserve. This includes making sure that they can learn in decent surroundings,” said Liberal Democrat and  Forest Ward Councillor Farooq Qureshi.

The Liberal Democrat group is hugely disappointed that the cancellation of the Building Schools for the Future (BSF) programme has hit local schools so badly. It is an enormous shame, but if Labour had made faster progress with the BSF schemes since 2003 we would not now be in the situation where more Waltham Forest schools have been stopped compared with other boroughs.  However Lib Dem councillors believe the most important thing is what happens next. 

Local campaigner Samina Safdar says: “BSF was a cumbersome, bureaucratic and expensive way of funding school buildings which funnelled money into the pockets of consultants and private contractors. The government has pledged to continue to invest in school buildings and the Liberal Democrats will be at the forefront of the campaign to make sure that Waltham Forest schools get their fair share of this spending.”