After 27 years as MP for Leyton / Leyton and Wanstead, Harry Cohen will be stepping down in 2010 following the wide-ranging parliamentary expenses scandal. But has Harry done a good job for his constituents over the course of his career? Please vote in our current poll (see the sidebar).
Interesting Leytonstone Area Residents’ Association meeting last night on Crime and Safety, particularly given the news today regarding CCTV in Leytonstone town centre. Good turnout with ward Councillors Clyde Loakes and Marie Pye speaking along with representatives from the Safer Neighbourhoods and Neighbourhood Watch schemes.
A fairly wide range of topics were covered, but one in particular struck me as worth mentioning. In response to my question regarding the state of the High Road and its effect on crime in the area, Councillors Loaked and Pye mentioned the difficulties they have actually persuading property owners on the High Road to maintain their buildings. For example, the Independent Buildings in Church Lane have various bits of graffitti on them. The clock set in the buildings facade has also been broken for a long time. Apparently though the owners won’t allow the council to clean the graffitti or fix the clock, both offered free of charge. Quite what the reasons were for this I’m not sure, but it does seem a bit odd.
I’ve mentioned the “roof tree” problem on the High Road before, and the general run-down state of many buildings, but apparently the council are powerless to do anything about this either. There are no by-laws that can be enforced to make landlords keep their buildings in a presentable state. This seems ridiculous, those buildings will just remain as they are until they’re either sold, they fall down or by some miracle the owners decide to give them a lick of paint. With no investment money on the horizon, it seems the state of the High Road isn’t likely to improve any time soon. Maybe we should have a “Fix Leytonstone High Road Day”, we can all go armed with ladders, pots of paint and brushes to tart the place up!
One more thing – estate agents. Apparently, many of the “to let” signs around Leytonstone are just put up to attract business. Estate agents give landlords management fee discounts if they leave a sign up on their property. So the transient appearance of the High Street and many other areas of Leytonstone may not actually be a true reflection of the real situation. Unfortunately all of those signs give a bad impression. In recent years, schools have been brought into the equation as well – estate agents put up signs in peoples gardens advertising an event at a local school, but the boards look like their regular signs with just a tiny strip on the bottom actually mentioning the event. Bit cheeky really.
A reminder about the sterling work the guys at the Leytonstone Film Club are doing. Given that there isn’t a single cinema in the whole of Waltham Forest, the film club is a much needed resource in our area. They tend to show the type of films that aren’t readily accessible in mainstream cinemas too, such as high quality foreign films or critically acclaimed films which may have only been given a limited release.
Screenings are held on the first Wednesday of every month. All screenings take place at Leytonstone Library, Church Lane, E11 1HG (just off Leytonstone Tube Station).
The film club will only survive if local people support it, so if you can, please go along.
Upcoming screenings:
Directed by Tomas Alfredson. Duration 1hr 54 mins, Rated 15.
Let The Right One In
Oskar is a 12-year-old outcast who is frequently picked on by his classmates. He dreams of getting his revenge, but he never stands up to the boys. With the arrival of his new next door neighbour, 12-year-old Eli, Oskar may finally have found a friend, ally, and first love. But Eli is no ordinary girl: she must keep her pale skin out of the sunlight, she can perform many inhuman physical feats, and she has a thirst for blood.
The council are looking at the possibility of installing a sports cage in Church Lane car park.
We ran a poll on the subject and the results were as follows:
I passed these results on to the Leytonstone Ward councillors. Marie Pye responded:
Thank you very much, that is really interesting. On our website we’ve not had anybody raise concerns about young people hanging around in the car park and if residents are concerned about that we need to build safeguards into any scheme, for example making sure that the entrance is not near the car park entrance so that people don’t feel threatened (even when they aren’t).
Thanks to everyone who responded!
Having visited a few Christmas markets in Vienna last year, I was kind of (unrealistically) expecting the outside of St. John’s Church to look something like this today…
Christmas Market
But not a stall in sight, seems it was all happening inside the church. So, as I was a bit short for time (and wheeling a toddler along), I missed out. Anyone venture inside? How was it?
Andy McQueen from Leyton, has been named Waltham Forest Photographer of the Year after scooping the top gong in the Love your borough photographic competition.
Andy’s picture was selected from nearly 200 received, and will receive £300 in vouchers as his prize.
I knew the re-opening of the Blackwall Tunnel ahead of schedule after Sunday’s fire was too good to be true, some loon has decided to park himself on the roof of the 491 Gallery in Leytonstone, prompting the police to close Grove Green Road and the northbound carriageway of the A12!!!
Quite why they needed to close the A12 is unclear – presumably they reckon he could leap onto the road from the roof. Unless he’s a combination of spiderman and Carl Lewis, it seems a bit unlikely. Better safe than sorry I guess 
491 Gallery from the A12
The independent report into Waltham Forest Council’s failure to deliver government funded projects has been published…
The report points to failures in the Council’s ability to procure and manage contracts and finds “systemic and cultural issues” have led to repeated failures in the way in which the Council procured and managed community projects.
Further details are on Waltham Forest Council’s website.
To be honest, I started losing the will to live on my first attempt to read it – couldn’t they publish a concise summary of the findings, maybe a couple of pages? Why the hell is it spread over numerous reports containing what just read like snippets from some hideous HR Management training manual.
Maybe its just me
If anyone has the will power to decipher the thing and work out what actually went on, please feel free to post a comment!
Quite a few searches that end up on this site are for “Bearman’s Leytonstone” and having searched for the same information myself in the past I know that there is suprisingly little out there on internet. So, what is, or was Bearman’s? you might ask. Well, try mentioning the name to some of our older residents and they’re liable to go all misty-eyed on you, recounting tales of Leytonstone’s “glory days”. Anyone who’s walked through Leytonstone tube station’s subway may have noticed an older poster on the wall near to the Church Lane entrance as well.
Bearman’s was in fact a department store, a proper “Are You Being Served” job, sadly no longer with us and seemingly almost wiped from memory given the aforementioned lack of information out there. Frank Bearman, the proprieter, a draper by profession also went on to buy a part-share in Allders Department Stores.
So, I’ve basically started this post to try to gather any stories, pictures, in fact anything at all that people may wish to share about Bearman’s in Leytonstone.
Now, to get the ball rolling, I’ve been nosing around the 1901 census information recently and thought I’d see if I could find Mr. Bearman. Luckily, there’s an entry in there for what appears to be the department store itself – possibly the Bearmans actually lived there at that time. The census information lists the address as “3 and 4, The Parade, Leytonstone”, which presumably was the name given at the time to that section of shops on the High Road. The occupants were…
So, looks like at this time the shop was still just a drapers, but it would evolve over the years into much more than that.
More to follow on this and as I mentioned, please add comments if you have any information to contribute.
The Star of India in Leytonstone has scooped the Waltham Forest Guardian People’s Choice Award for Best Indian Restaurant. Owner (and fellow LARA committee member), Shah Ahmed said…
We’re excited about winning and extremely grateful to our customers. We’re very happy to win such a local competition – it’s a seal of approval.
The Star of India, as well as being an excellent restaurant, is well known for supporting a variety of local good causes and of course for publishing free quarterly magazine “The Star”.
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