Interesting article regarding Olympic money handed to Waltham Forest Council for improvement to South Leytonstone. Strangely none targeted at the High Road though, which is certainly in desperate need of some attention. Maybe the council are hoping to get some separate funding for that? It’s pretty poor that we have to rely on Olympic money to actually do something about the state of some parts of Leytonstone. However, the council can’t be held solely to blame. If all landlords, home and shop owners took good care of their property, we wouldn’t have a problem.
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.
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:
Yes, five-a-side and basketball please. 29% (7 votes)
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!
Yes, five-a-side and basketball please.29% (7 votes)
Came across this print of Knotts Green House, Leytonstone residence of Joseph Gurney Barclay, noted astronomer and head of Barclays Bank (yes, that Barclays Bank)…
Knotts Green House - Residence of Joseph Gurney Barclay
The drawing is taken from the Illustrated London News, July 15th 1865. The caption reads “Entertainment Given by Mr Gurney Barclay, at Leytonstone, to the Agents of the London City Mission”. Unfortunately, like most of the great old houses in Leytonstone, Knotts Green (which was situated around the Matlock Road area) eventually fell into disrepair and was knocked down in the 1960s to make way for Livingstone College and subsequently the tower blocks of the Livingstone Estate, also later demolished.
If you haven’t visited the Westfield Stratford City website, its well worth a look. After stagnating for a long time, its recently been re-designed, sporting a flashy new look with some nice slideshows featuring cgi impressions of the finished article and some pics of how the work is progressing.
A mural featuring Leytonstone’s most famous son, Alfred Hitchcock, sporting a studded leather jacket has been painted outside 491 Gallery’s “Vertigo” building on Grove Green Road, Leytonstone…
Vertigo Mural: Alfred Hitchcock
Seems to have met with a mixed reaction. I quite like it, certainly brightens up the outside of the building – I’m sure Hitch would be amused. Further info on the 491 Gallery project can be found at www.491gallery.com.
It’s quite amazing going through Stratford every day on the train and witnessing what amounts to a whole town rise up from nothing. Work on Stratford City seems to be progressing apace with much of the steelwork for the major buildings now in place. One of the many conundrums facing the planners was how to link in “Old Stratford” (i.e. Stratford Centre and the bus station), given that numerous railway lines will lie between it and the the new development. The solution is a bridge, a big bridge, spanning all of the existing railway platforms and leading directly into the heart of the new shopping area.
Recent Comments