From Waltham Forest Council…

We need your back-up

We are asking the whole community to support us in our call for a fair level of police resourcing in Waltham Forest.

Show your support by signing our online petition to help us secure 120 extra police officers for the borough.

An ambitious target has been set of 5,000 signatures to be collected for the back-up petition by November 2009.

As well as signing the online petition, residents can show their support by completing a postcard found at Council buildings and GP surgeries across the Borough, or at one of our roadshows.

The next roadshow taking place is at Leyton Mills on Friday 30 October from 10am – 3pm.

Sign the Waltham Forest is calling for back-up petition.

Waltham Forest Guardian reports that Waltham Forest councillors have agreed to take action to oppose the expansion of London City Airport…

At a full council meeting this evening, Liberal Democrat Farooq Qureshi put forward a motion acknowledging residents’ concern about the expansion of the airport and the increase in noise it will create for residents as well as the environmental impact.

The motion also pledges that on completion of the investigation, the council will take action by writing to the Mayor of Newham condemning its decision to allow expansion and to consider legal action in relation to the expansion or flight path changes.

All parties supported the motion and councillors voted unanimously in favour.

The full article can be found here.

Looks like Leytonstone’s councillors have finally joined the “Fight the Flights” party…

Councillors Demand Action on Aircraft Noise

Along with many local residents your Leytonstone Labour councillors Clyde Loakes, Jenny Gray and Marie Pye are very concerned about the increased aircraft noise over parts of Leytonstone.

At our request the council undertook an investigation to identify the main causes of this.

These appear to be:

• London City Airport recently changed the direction of some of their flights particularly from runway 28, and of course many of these flights are jets.
• Further changes were made to London City Airport as a result of planning application for extra flights submitted to the London Borough of Newham. This application was not referred to Waltham Forest Council.
• Air traffic control at Heathrow airport has been redirecting a very high number of planes due to weather conditions during the summer.

As local councillors we are determined that the voice of Leytonstone is heard loud and clear about these issues.

• We have ensured that the council will respond to the current BAA Heathrow consultation programme Noise Action Plan.
• The council’s noise level assessment team will be prioritising checks to see whether residents are eligible for the London City Airport (LCA) Sound Insulation Grant Scheme.
• Waltham Forest Council will also be demanding a place round the table at the the London City Airport Consultation Committee which at the moment is only open to Barking & Dagenham, Bexley, Greenwich, and Tower Hamlets.
• As local councillors we will be contacting the London Borough of Newham to express our concern at their agreement to increased flights from City Airport.
• We will also be involved in an upcoming consultation by the National Air Traffic Service which will focus on flights coming over our area.

I do find the political posturing by all of the main parties quite amusing. At a flights meeting earlier this month the Lib Dem’s and Ed Northover (Conservative parliamentary candidate) made noises about working together and not trying to gain political mileage out of this issue. Haven’t seen any evidence of it yet!

A point was made at the recent Leytonstone Community Council Meeting regarding the state of Leytonstone High Road. The speaker had noted that 2 years ago the main uses for buildings on the High Road in South Leytonstone was…

1. Empty.
2. Fast Food.
3. Hairdressers.

He had spoken at a Community Council Meeting then about the state of the buildings there – badly run down with trees growing out of the roofs and had requested that the council do something about it.

Leytonstone High Road

So, since 2 years has passed what’s happened. Well, he’s done the same survey again and the new top uses for buldings on that part of the High Road are as follows…

1. Empty.
2. Fast Food.
3. Hairdressers.

Buildings are in a worse state than ever with even more trees growing out of their roofs.

Unfortunately when this point was raised the majority of councillors were out of the room deciding on Community Council Funding. However, Councillor John Macklin was present and spoke about the assumption made by the council that the Olympic Delivery Authority will be stumping up some cash to allow fund regeneration work on the High Road. Unfortunately it now seems that this money is not going to materialise and there’s no other money in the kitty. Hardly surprising given the current economic climate – Boris and the ODA are trying to cut back the main spend on the Olympics, never mind worrying about those of us on the periphery.

The tragic thing is that these are great Victorian buildings, letting them get into this state is absolutely criminal.

Driving down the High Road these days literally makes me cringe because its in such a sorry state. Surely something can be done – maybe the only way is to get up a ladder myself to chop those roof trees down!!!

As I sit on the committee of LARA, I attended the Leytonstone Community Council meeting on 12th October. We had applied for funding, which fortunately we got (hurrah!). There were many other benficiaries on the night, as each ward (Leytonstone, Cann Hall and Cathall) had a £10,000 pot to distribute amongst the various applicants, all voted for by the attendeed with a final decision made by the councillors. There was also a £5,000 pot for those applicants which didn’t fall into a particular ward. The majority of that went to the Leytonstone Festival (good news), though that initially looked like the Leytonstone Arts Trail would miss out. Fortunately Leytonstone Ward had a surplus, so that was given to them – great news as they did such a sterling job during this year’s festival.

With Clyde Loakes stepping down because he plans to run for MP in the next general election, our new council leader in Waltham Forest is Chis Robbins from Grove Green ward.