Stella,
I have been asked to provide a response in relation to the recent email correspondence between yourself, Brian and Claire regarding Leyton Jubilee Park.
There seem to be some fundamental questions being asked to which I hope I can provide some assurance.
Firstly the Council does not have the intention to create a through road in the park. Our main aim is to improve the park to ensure that more people are able to benefit from it. A critical element of that is making the access routes as visible and inclusive as possible.
During the installation of the new bridge the access via Marsh Lane will be closed for a period of time, the details of which will be shared when known – the contract has only just been awarded and there still needs to be agreement on the programme of works.
I have been advised that there is no increased risk of flooding to nearby properties. The only material that will have to be excavated out to compensate for loss of flood storage is to balance out the material placed in the ramp within the park. This impact will be minimal and nowhere near 100 tonnes. The works should not involve any felling of trees, should not disturb any contaminated materials and any disturbance to the wildlife corridor would be limited to the bridge site.
I haven’t been able to confirm the reason why Manor Lodge and Marsh Lane Cottage did not receive the planning application notification and so can only apologise for that at this stage.
Regards,
Jon
Jon Widdows
Olympic Legacy Programme Manager
Housing and Development
Sycamore House
Waltham Forest Council
Walthamstow
London E17 4JF
Tel: 020 8496 4109
Mob: 07971 107324
E Mail: jon.widdows@walthamforest.gov.
Alternative contact: Leon Welford, 020 8496 4103, leon.welford@walthamforest.
I have checked the constituency boundaries, and have seen that Marsh Lane forms the boundary between your constituency (Leyton/Leytonstone) and Stella's (Walthamstow). I have already been in correspondence about this with Stella as I am a resident of Lea Bridge ward (sadly now subsumed into Walthamstow!) I have also copied the Save Lea Marshes group into the exchanges, including this one - I imagine you might already know of this group (please seewww.saveleytonmarsh.wordpress.
In planning decision 2013/0085, the Council has given itself approval to demolish the existing road bridge and pedestrian bridge at Marsh Lane and replace them with a single bridge, at a cost of c £250k. There is no structural reason for these bridges to be demolished and replaced, in fact they are both relatively new. The justification by the Council is that more people need to be attracted to use the Leyton Jubilee Park, and that having a clearer view of it and a more inclusive crossing of the brook will achieve this. This is an extraordinarily weak justification for spending a quarter of a million, since the Fields are perfectly visible right from the top of Marsh Lane at Church Road, and there is no restriction to anyone using the bridges, in fact access arrangements were improved when the pedestrian bridge was built (for the pathway to Lammas School).
According to documents available on the Council planning website the specifications for the new bridge are that it will be wider and stronger, and also capable of taking heavier vehicles. Local people objected strongly to this during the planning consultation, as there is already an access point for large vehicles in the Orient Way entrance to the Fields - again this is something that has been built in recent years. The fears about the building of a stronger and wider bridge are threefold: the obvious one being that large vehicular traffic is not desirable and that a wider-looking bridge will enable or encourage more of it.
But the second fear is the realisation that the new bridge will enable the length of Marsh Lane to become a through route from Church Road to Orient Way, with only a few flexible bollards in the way. The Council states that it has no intention to create such a through route, but the fact is this will physically exist, and the usage of it whether for premanent or temporary traffic routing would only require regulatory actions to implement.
The third fear is about the design of the bridge and construction methods that arise as a result of the effect on the Lea Floodplain - in which the Dagenham Brook is a key flood storage channel. The new bridge will be on a raised level in order to accommodate the flood prevention requirements, and its construction is going to involve the excavating of the banks of the brook, thus disturbing the natural habitats there.
I have been trying to find out whether there is in fact a predisposing requirement for a new bridge or any new bridge at Dagenham Brook as part of general flood prevention requirements. This would slightly mitigate what the Council are doing I think, but I'm not getting very far with this search.
When we spoke you said that you had recently had a meeting with the Waltham Forest Chief Executive. I'm surprised that he didn't unveil the lavish and costly bridge replacement plans to you, as part of the Leyton Jubilee Park hullabaloo. It's really strange that this very expensive and unnecessary bridge replacement is being done on the quiet, and I'm a bit curious as to what else could be at the back of it all. You may know that there was a plan some years ago to make Marsh Lane a traffic route from Church Road to Orient Way, but it was shelved.
Lastly the Council is red-faced at the moment because the planning procedure for this project has been prone to errors. Not least is that the location of the bridge has been written in throughout as Leyton E11 3PE - which is nonsense as you will know. It seems that the replacement of this bridge might have got mixed up in the Council's bureaucracy with the coinciding plans for replacing the five Overground railway bridges that stride across your constituency, all of them with an E11 3P postcode.
The demolition of the present good bridges at Marsh Lane has not yet started, and a number of local people feel that it should never happen. I would be really grateful if you could look into this, and would be willing to meet you there with others to take a look. I hope that, since the Ward and Constituency boundaries follow the centre of Marsh Lane and (presumably) the bridge, you can accept this request from me, a Lea Bridge resident. If not, I will ask friends in Leyton Ward if they will take up the enquiry with you.
I hope that you will see the need to challenge the Council on the aspects of the expense, the environmental concerns - natural habitats and flood prevention - and the longer term implications of creating a latent new strategic traffic route across Leyton Marsh.
Many thanks
Claire Weiss
E10 7AR
077 539 32043
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