LVRPA versus SLM

CORRESPONDENCE BETWEEN SLM AND LVRPA

Dear Shaun

Thank you for your email.

You state that 'any development in the area will somehow impact on LM even if it is adjacent to the area of open space.' This is exactly what I was expressing my concern about. Any impact on Leyton Marsh is, and will always continue to be, unacceptable to me and many, many other local people.

I believe it is the duty of the LVRPA to act as guardian of the open spaces under its control and, as such, should be working to re-wild them and manage them for the benefit of the flora and fauna that live and spend time on, in and around them. If this conflicts with a desire to expand your brand or to make money from leisure facilities, then I expect you to put conservation first. As such it is wholly inappropriate to consider rebuilding the ice rink at its present site. In fact, it will make it much harder to defend the surrounding land from development as Essex Wharf goes to show (as I am sure you know, the current ice rink was sited as one reason for granting planning permission).

Would it not be better to site a new ice rink somewhere with better transport links, which is already established as a leisure destination and near to a facility that could use the heat generated by the ice rink? Somewhere in the Olympic Park perhaps?

You say that 'effective communication with the local community is going to be paramount over the coming months'. That suggests to me that you have already made up your mind to develop the existing site, and are trying to find ways to make it as painless as possible. To prove that this is not the case, please can you provide details of the other sites being considered? Please could you also outline your methodology for listening to and responding to the wishes of the local community, so that I can be reassured that decisions about our land - Metropolitan Open Land - aren't made behind closed doors?

I look forward to hearing from you.

With best wishes

On 11 Jan 2013, at 09:39, Dawson, Shaun wrote:

Dear ...

Thank you for your letter. I am sorry to hear that the LVRPA’s current actions and messaging are causing you anxiety. Let me assure you that we are mindful of the feelings within the local community on the subject of Leyton Marsh.

I shall deal with the matter of the Ice Centre feasibility study as this is understandably the substantive issue. I will get back to you in the next couple of days on the matters you have raised around the list of projects and the 25^th Nov meeting.

We have never said or implied in statements that we are considering expanding the IC at its current site. Let me set out in a bit more detail what our position is. The highly successful and very popular IC is 28 years old and we need to consider options for the future. There are a wide range of options from invest in the current facility and carry on as is for another 5-10 years through to developing a new facility on another site in the Lee Valley. We are currently in the research stage, collating information and assessing the possible options. Naturally one of the many options is to develop a new IC on the existing site. Such an option does not presume developing beyond the current facility boundary. One of the factors we need to consider in the research stage is the importance of Leyton Marsh as an open space and amenity for the local community and assess any potential impact from a development on the existing IC site. The point I was trying to make in my letter to Cllr Rathbone (I accept I should have worded more clearly) was that any development in the area will somehow impact on LM even if it is adjacent to the area of open space. I didn’t mean to suggest that impact means an encroachment on to LM.

The research stage will continue for the next few months at the end of which we will have determined which option needs to be taken forward for a more detailed piece of feasibility work. If during the research stage ‘the redevelopment on the existing site’ is considered a serious option we will then engage with the local residents groups ie before any decision on which option/s are taken forward for more detailed work.

I hope that I have managed to reassure you on the process we are going through, though I quite understand that in light of recent events on LM there is an air of scepticism within the local community.

Effective communication with the local community is going to be paramount over the coming few months and I will ensure that via the Forum and through other means that this is the case.

If you require any further clarification or more information please let me know.

Yours sincerely

Shaun Dawson – Chief Executive

Direct Line: 01992 709856

Lee Valley Regional Park Authority

Myddelton House, Bulls Cross, Enfield, EN2 9HG

Telephone: 01992 717711 Fax: 01992 719937

visitleevalley.org.uk

Dear Cllrs Elisabeth Davies, Masood Ahmad, Afzal Akram,
A very happy new year to you all.
I am writing to you in your capacities as local Ward councillors for Lea Bridge Ward in Waltham Forest, and I have copied in Cllr Bob Sullivan in his Lee Valley Regional Park Authority Membership capacity, and Cllr Ian Rathbone of Lea Bridge Ward Hackney who received a letter from Shaun Dawson, Chief Executive of the LVRPA in response to correspondence about the reinstatement of Leyton Marsh. Please see that letter attached. It contains a huge shock on the last page

Cllr Ahmad you will be aware, as Chair, that at the autumn meeting of the Lea Bridge Ward Community Forum there was great disappointment amongst our residents with the lack of progress on restoring Leyton Marsh following the building and demolition work for the Olympics, and unanimous opposition to any idea of further building on Leyton Marsh land, and to that end you sent a strongly-worded letter from the Forum to Shaun Dawson (by the way has he replied yet?)

As is well known, the Save Leyton Marsh campaign (now 'Save Lea Marshes Incorporating Save Leyton Marsh') has also challenged the Lea Valley Park Authority in person and by letter to never again build on that land, for many reasons - ecological, environmental, social - just purely human reasons around the need to retain open green space in London. We believe the land is not for the LVRPA to give away to developers. It is Metropolitan Open Land - under the custodianship of the LVRPA who should be protecting it from the threat of encroachment. But what do we find in Shaun Dawson's letter? He describes how Leyton Marsh is under threat - not from external developers but from the Lee Valley Regional Park Authority itself!

In very recent discussions subsequent to this letter, the LVRPA on Twitter and Facebook has suggested that it is just usual practice to include any number of areas into consideration for development projects, and then 'engage with the community' after an individual area has been put into the frame for further feasibility studies. I totally disagree. The community should be involved from the start. But in any case, the communities around Leyton Marsh have already for the past twelve months expressed their views about Leyton Marsh, have seen it taken away from them, have witnessed the excavations of contaminated waste and the horrible damage done: they already know that they are opposed to any further building there. They have expressed this in two major petitions - one to the LBWF, one to the LVRPA. Leyton Marsh should be immediately struck off the list of likely sites for a new ice centre. Local people have one message to the LVRPA: Hands Off Leyton Marsh.

According to the attached letter the LVRPA has already launched research into where their new enlarged ice centre might be built. I know from examining previous LVRPA official papers that the existing ice centre on Lea Bridge Road, apparently having outlived its 'temporary' life of 25 years and being at the end of its techological life, is now assessed as lacking in economies of scale, and that LVRPA estimate they might need a new ice centre with two ice rinks, seating and car parking for thousands of spectators in order to balance the books. This assumption merits being challenged in its own right.

I am not writing to you just to complain. There is a solution, a very straightforward one. Given that the existing ice centre is itself an anachronism on the Lea Bridge Road and an eyesore, given that a low percentage of its patrons are local Clapton or Leyton folk, many people are suggesting that when it is demolished any new ice facility is located in the Queen Elizabeth ex-Olympic Park - where there is much better transport and there will be thousands of people filling the new homes. Just think of how beneficial that would be for Lea Bridge Road as a gateway to Leyton Marsh.

I'm confident that you will seriously consider opposing this new potential encroachment on Leyton Marsh - whether by the LVRPA or anyone else - and that you will support the idea of moving ice skating away from Lea Bridge Road, leaving at least one slice of Leyton Marsh to hold its own, sandwiched as it would be between the new flats on Essex Wharf and the riding centre.

Perhaps our Lea Bridge Ward Community Forum could request Cllr Sullivan to attend our next meeting in February for him listen to our views about this outrageous situation?

I hope to hear from you soon, and I will keep Save Lea Marshes informed. Thankyou for your kind attention,

Best wishes,