SLM News February

Save Lea Marshes

This is the February issue of the Save Lea Marshes newsletter. Our key stories this month concern land use and consultation.

Ice Centre update

SLM and other community representatives are attending regular meetings with representatives from the Lee Valley Regional Park Authority (LVRPA) to monitor work and make suggestions in order to try and minimise the damage to Leyton Marsh. The last meeting was on 5 February. One item raised was the lack of visible information for the general public on the site about the forthcoming Ice Centre plans. You would think that, if the LVRPA is so proud of its upcoming development, they would be making the most of this opportunity. Anyhow, a poster has now finally gone up in the old Ice Rink building.

Other issues covered were

• firstly, the removal of shrubs and other planting from the front and car park side of the old rink. Much of this was planted during the Olympic year 2012, and
• secondly, how the new Ice Centre is going to produce both a Net Gain in Biodiversity and an increase in Urban Greening Factor (UGF). The LVRPA reckon that the former will increase by 35% and the latter by 0.6. What does all this mean? Well, Biodiversity is calculated according to a DEFRA metric, which uses data on habitats, taking into account habitat type, area and conditions, using current actual values and predicted future values (after the development). The UGF is a formula that evaluates and quantifies the amount of urban greening that a scheme provides to inform decisions about applying levels of greening in new developments. Each area of the site is assigned a Green Infrastructure Factor according to its type, between 0 (for built areas including concrete and tarmac) and 1 (for open land including water). Thus an overall score for the whole site can be calculated as the weighted average of the GIFs of all the individual areas. I hope I have explained that correctly but basically we are talking data versus what nature will actually do!

Waterworks Centre

SLM have been trying hard to hold a dialogue with the LVRPA to improve consultation with both it and the wider public. Last year we tried to suggest ways in which the Waterworks building could be used both more profitably and with community and wildlife provision at its heart, in such a way as to maintain and improve the surrounding green areas for wildlife. However, our hopes have been somewhat deflated by the LVRPA seemingly going back to "default position", with plans for the Centre at least in the near future being more or less the same as usual, with the building used as a base for the ranger staff and possibly an educational service for young people. The most worrying factor concerns the surrounding land, with the LVRPA doggedly sticking to their ideas of raising money through large events and even considering making physical changes to allow larger vehicles in. We ask how they can justify this, in the light of one of the biggest negative responses ever received by Waltham Forest Licensing Committee when it considered the application for the proposed music festival. Furthermore, we were under the impression that the LVRPA had given an undertaking to defer any decisions on the future of the site until the completion of the biodiversity surveys that SLM has commissioned in the area.

Landscape issues ...

Two issues -

1. The LVRPA's Landscape Works Document, presented to its Executive Committee on Thursday 25 February, which lists and prioritises landscape works throughout the Lee Valley Park.
2. Opening up the park by works which would enable a greater access and flow through the park.

SLM had speakers on both these issues at the meeting, raising concerns about the imbalance of projects between the north and south of the park. Arguably the north has areas of more scenic value but the south definitely has higher and increasingly higher footfall due to population density. The document favours works in the north of the park and has backtracked on one of the plans we have been campaigning for: restoring water to the Middlesex Filter Beds (the pumps previously installed kept on getting stolen). We had been told that delays had been caused by tendering difficulties and lack of staff available due to Covid 19. We wonder whether getting a new Ice Centre in the south was seen as "our lot", despite the fact that many people don't want it. The Executive Committee said that the document was not set in stone but was a work in progress - we shall see. One of our members gave a detailed presentation on areas of the park that could have obstacles removed and new paths laid out so as to enable pedestrians and cyclists to move about more easily. There were some positive noises about some of these proposals, notably the area between the Waterworks and Hackney Marshes.

East London Waterworks Park fundraiser ...

There has been a huge increase in interest in the park idea recently. We've had new people joining us to help move the project forward. We are now a Limited Company (with the aim of becoming a registered charity when the time is right). We have also launched a crowdfunding campaign through the Mayor of London's Spacehive scheme to allow us to get Phase 1 of the project underway: a valuation of the site, market research, a designer to create the ELWP "brand", and an engineer to carry out a technical evaluation. We will then be able to make our approach to the Education Department, who own the land; our bid needs to be as credible as possible for us to be able to buy it from them. There is more detailed information and a blog on the ELWP website https://www.elwp.org.uk

Rainy days and sewage days..

Our friends at London Waterkeeper are doing an amazing job raising the profile of the importance of our rivers and the need to keep them clean and sewage free. There is a very active campaign for people to report and complain to Thames Water about their sewage overflow but London Waterkeeper's latest communication raises concern about the Environmental Agency's plans to end its public notifications for the most serious river pollution events in London - north of the Thames and Hertfordshire. This service started after public pressure when there was a large oil slick in the River Lea in 2018. At the time, coordination between the EA and other authorities was poor, and the notification system has been an improvement that has now been extended from the Lea to the North London operating area of the EA, This latest change appears to be a money-saving measure, and the London Waterkeeper group will be working to see the service continue beyond the end of March. They have also launched their "Rainy days sewer overflow map". This is an interactive portal that will enable sewage spotters to pinpoint and report to Thames Water where sewage overflows are seen during rainy days and to keep informing them throughout the period of rain. https://www.londonwaterkeeper.org.uk

London Mayor senses a plot..

During the on-line Mayor of London's "People's Question Time" on 11 February, it dawned on Mayor Khan that he was getting an unusual number of questions from people based in Waltham Forest and made his suspicions clear by dubbing the borough the "People's Republic of Walthamstow" - a similar moniker used to be applied to neighbouring Hackney in years gone by. The Save Our Square campaign (SOS) organised a brilliant campaign to ask the Mayor a number of questions spread over different subject areas - such as fire risk, housing and environment - to make their views heard on the revised Walthamstow town centre plans, which had been recently given the go-ahead at the Waltham Forest Planning Committee. The plans involve extending the shopping centre, two large tower blocks, unaffordable housing for local people, and the loss of public open space.

SLM meetings ...

If you have ever thought about coming to an SLM meeting but not managed to get to our usual venues, now might be the time to join us on Zoom. We meet on alternate Mondays from 7.30 and the next meeting is on 8 March. We always put dates of SLM meetings on our website. Once the Covid 19 emergencies are over, we will probably continue to have meetings online with occasional physical meet-ups, to make meetings as accessible as possible.