Why not get off a bus at the nearby stop in Selborne Road and stroll along this clean, well-maintained residential street to Walthamstow High Street? Or if you are cycling, this superbly situated cycle stand is carefully protected against damage by cardboard packaging.
Buckingham Road E10, looking towards Oliver Road from the junction with Brisbane Road. The proposal is to build an eight storey block, with the loss of the road and both pavements. The development will extend from all the buildings shown above, as far as the hedge on the left (and perhaps beyond, into the local park).
Wake up, people! Having flogged off numerous council buildings and handed over public land to property development, this Council is now proposing to hand over half of Buckingham Road for an 8 storey block. If I have understood the plans correctly, this development will also grab a slice of the local park. This proposal is without precedent.
Check out the details in the ‘public notices’ section of the Council's free propaganda newspaper wfm, April 7 issue, page 12. (Strangely, the Notice is not advertised in the Waltham Forest Guardian.) This concerns the permanent stopping up of this section of the road and pavements on Buckingham Road.
The legal announcement in wfm states that copies of the Draft Order and Plan ‘may be obtain (sic) free of charge, quoting reference number LE/MAK/55925’ from the Town Hall.
You have until Monday 5 May to register an objection. Apart from being of interest to the residents who live in what will be left of Buckingham Road, this development ought to excite the interest of all local environmental groups.
Buckingham Road runs between High Road Leyton and Oliver Road. How important it is as a route for cyclists and pedestrians is not known because the Council naturally hasn’t bothered to measure its use by either group. If this land isn't needed than the road could have been closed to motor vehicles, the park extended, cycle parking for the football stadium provided, and a cycle lane provided that would link up with the Ruckholt Road commuter cycling route. But that of course would only benefit walkers, cyclists and the environment, not a property developer.
Football fans who pour out of the west stand will now have to find a different route to the High Road. And an 8 storey block is plainly going to ruin the ambiance of the local park which it will run alongside.
Curiously, work on the development appears to have started before the period for objections has expired, and before any possible objections have been considered. The developers have also already stopped up the footway and part of the carriageway before the legal process has run its course.
I hope this isn’t illegal. If you think it might be you can always make representations to the planning authority – an impartial body famous for its high standards, known as ‘the London Borough of Waltham Forest’ - which is, of course, the body promoting the development.
(Above.) The pavement on the stadium side of Buckingham Road has already been stopped up, prior to the public consultation process about a proposed stopping up.
The proposed development site seen from Oliver Road. It will grab all the road, both pavements and (apparently) part of the park on the right.
The Council has thoughtfully turned the Walthamstow High Street 'Pedestrian Zone' sign round and lowered it for the benefit of people of restricted height approaching this litter bin on foot from the direction of Cleveland Park Avenue.
The positive side of Ken Livingstone (addressing RoadPeace). The statistics (if accurate) are impressive.
The negative side (from the Ken-hating Evening Standard)
BUS FARES
Claim: "Average real bus fares [ie allowing for inflation] are now lower than when I took office in 2000" (Mayoral press release, 30.10.07).
Reality: Average London bus fares rose by 29.1 per cent between 2000 and 2007 (Department for Transport, Transport Statistics Great Britain, 1.11.07, table 6.15). This was 12.1 per cent above inflation over the same period.
ROUTEMASTER BUS
Claim: In a speech on 2 December 2003, Mr Livingstone pledged: "I will save the Routemaster." In 2001, he said: "Only some ghastly, dehumanised moron would want to get rid of the Routemaster."
Reality: Mr Livingstone got rid of the Routemaster from normal service in December 2005.
GROWTH IN CYCLING
Claim: "Cycling levels have raised by 83 per cent compared to 2000." (Mayoral press release, 11.2.08.)
Reality: This turns out to relate to the number of cyclists passing just 29 sampling points along a few main roads. According to TfL's Achievements Report, January 2007, p43, the actual rise in cycling across London is 50 per cent, from 300,000 to 450,000 trips a day - in line with the growth in use of other modes, such as the buses, Tube and suburban rail.
EXPANSION OF LONDON'S AIRPORTS
Claim: In March 2007, Mr Livingstone's "climate change action plan" said the Mayor would "challenge the need for further runway expansion at UK airports". He has repeatedly reiterated this on the campaign trail.
Reality: The London Plan, the definitive statement of the Mayor's policy, opposes expansion at Heathrow but says: "The Mayor ... recognises that further runway capacity [elsewhere] in the South-East will be required to meet London's needs." (London Plan as amended, policy 3c, page 131.)
General Motors still commandeers the American Dream - it even uses a line from the Declaration of Independence in its ads, in which gravelly, heroic voices evoke wide highways of freedom and the shiny beasts that must naturally cruise them. It is a story, although peppered with the words “future” and “efficiency”, that wants the 4x4 SUV world to stay just as it is.
Leo Lewis takes a critical look at Detroit and Toyota, the leading car cities of the USA and Japan.
Eight people were injured in a crash during heavy hail storms on the A30 in Cornwall. All eight were travelling in a Toyota Hi-Lux pick-up truck which crashed in Bodmin on Tuesday afternoon. A 10-year-old boy from Bridgwater in Somerset suffered serious head injuries. He is being treated at the Royal Cornwall Hospital at Treliske. Land and air ambulances were called to the scene. A helicopter made two landings on the eastbound lane. All eight were taken to hospital.
