More Stables at Riding centre

Dear Mr. Harrison,

I have been made aware last week that a Planning Application 2013/0410 has been received and validated for YET MORE stables at the Lee Valley Regional Park Authority's "Lee Valley Riding Centre" on Lea Bridge Road, Leyton.

Before I had a chance to go and see the site notices or visit the Town Hall planning department, it was mentioned (at the Save Leyton Marshes campaign group's meeting) last night that the site notices - if you can find them! - near the Riding Centre have buried within them an application for permission for paddocking on the former Golf Course, which the Park are not now re-opening - with no warning, and people were turning up hoping to play last weekend.

It seems the Regional Park Authority now want to turn the well used golf-course into a pony-trekking centre, with hostel accommodation for users and paddocking for ponies - using mobile horse-boxes as stables, so as not to have to apply for planning permission, apparently.  This is despite assurances given to LBH Cllrs. Ian Rathbone and Barry Buitekant, at a meeting in person with Mr. Shaun Dawson (the Chief Executive of the LVRPA) last year, that absolutely no change of use was being contemplated, and that the Golf Course would be remediated and refurbished, and that it would re-open to the public by the 31st March this year.

I can assure you that there has been absolutely no consultation about this with users of the golf course nor of the wider Marshes; nor was any inkling of this intention ever whispered at meetings of the pointless so-called "Users Forum" that the Park Authority run, more to obfuscate than inform the public.

I gather that Hackney Councillor Barry Buitekant, who lives nearby, has now written to LBWF to say that he went to look around especially this morning, and found that there are no site notices visible actually at or around the Riding Centre itself.  He had earlier yesterday told me that he had seen just one site notice - on Lea Bridge Road at "Clive's Gate," the least used entrance into the Regional Park's land, at the southern end of the paddocks beside the flood relief channel.

I understand that it is the responsiblity of the LBWF to put the site notices up, not of the Applicant.  I am sure there must be some sort of guidelines to follow as to where and how site notices should be displayed - in fact, I remember you sending me a very long response to a formal complaint that I made a couple of years ago about the inadequate displaying of site notices, concerning the very same location.

Am I being paranoid in wondering whether there has been some deliberate collusion by our borough in this most recent attempt by the Park Authority to deceive and mislead the users of our ancient Lammas Lands?  Or have the LVRPA's agents been going around taking site notices down?  Or is it just sloppiness?

So I should like to know:

a)    Why are these site notices so badly sited, away from the Riding Centre?;

b)    And - most importantly - why do they not state clearly that it is an application that also affects the open land south of Lammas Road?

 

I look forward to receiving an explanation, as this is certainly not the first time that this sort of thing has happened.

Yours sincerely,

Katy Andrews.

 

0790 415 9398