5 thoughts on “Wanstead quote of the week”

  1. I hate the attitude of many Wanstead Residents, “This is MY Road and I don’t want and I don’t want other people to drive down it or park in it’ but are more than happy to park and drive in other residential roads. If parking by your home is so important, why didn’t you purchase a home with a garage or drive.

    Commuters and families bring business to Wanstead. Our High Street is hardly thriving and many people will continue onto South Woodford where parking is free and there’s plenty of it. We need to be doing more to encourage people to shop in Wanstead.

    It makes me feel sick to think of Wanstead empty ‘like after a nuclear’. All those independent shops who are already struggling to survive will be forced to close and we’ll end up losing our unique High Street. People are losing money because of the road closures, people are losing their jobs but “it is lovely because I have an empty road’.

    No parking down 4 roads 24hrs a day for 12 months is not a trial. As a Dangan Road resident, seeing empty parking feels me with dread, I fear the Wanstead I know will be lost. The roads belong to everyone. Stop the Nimbyists and save the High Street, complain to Redbridge council.

  2. Hi, just thought I would clarify a glaring inaccuracy in the above comment. The parking restrictions are in place Mon-Fri from 8.30-6.30, not 24/7 as he describes above, and I would have thought Mr Viche would be fully aware of the timing given the various documentation that was delivered to all Dangan Road residents, given that he says he is one. I do think that the timing notices should be clearer as the timing is only at the Cambridge Park end of each street.

    The reason that the residents of these 4 roads requested the council to impose restrictions was because the roads became a dangerous car park for commuters during the week… Cars zoomed around residential streets seeking out spaces and would often park dangerously on corners, the turnings in the middle of addison/dangan road often saw near collisions as cars sped down in search of spaces in the morning… families with children could not park near their homes and I often saw people needing to block the road as they emptied cars of shopping etc leading to irate drivers of waiting cars. The support for the CPZ by residents in these roads was in the 60-70%+ mark which demonstrates the issue.

    I agree there is an impact on the High St, but I think that this is more due to the fact that for some reason the council has elected to make much of the single yellow lines along spratt hall road into residents bays – these were free for shoppers/park visitors etc after 10.30 – however the non-single yellow line spaces were all taken by commuters. I dont think the reallocation of the single yellow lines was necessary. However, what the empty spaces do demonstrate was the high number of commuters that took the spaces for all day parking – they do not benefit the high street as they arrive before shops are open and return after the shops are closed for the day.

    I think the next stage of this should be to see where parking for shoppers could be reclaimed – eg where there was once single yellow lines on spratt hall/ the cambridge park end of addison/dangan – perhapssome of these areas should be made into 2 or 3 hour free parking spaces – this will deter the all day parkers and make spaces available for the people who use the local shops and amenities, rather than use the area as a free car park (which has been advertised on a number of paid for sites such as freetopark.com – http://freetopark.co.uk/tag/parking-in-wanstead/ ). I would advocate this review of spaces taking place in the shorter term rather than at the end of the trial period.

    I, like all on this website, enjoy living in Wanstead and actively support the local shops, restaurants etc. I recognise parking is a contentious issue and I hope that there can be some tweaks around the rollout of this CPZ to help the High Street, however I think it is an incorrect sweeping statement to say that resident parking will ruin the high street as the vast vast majority of spaces in west Wanstead were already not available to shoppers as they were taken by residents/commuters – I think with some spaces reclaimed and the introduction of 2hr free parking areas it could help the high street and see a good churn of spaces. I do not advocate pay and display on the High Street, but what maybe needs to be clearer is the availability of the car park next to the Co-Op and beside the library.

  3. No one supports Wanstead and the High Street more than local residents such as ourselves. We’ve lived here for 17 years precisely BECAUSE of the lively High Street and the village atmosphere of Wanstead. The only people who are inconvenienced by residents’ parking in streets such as Dangan Road are the commuters who drive into Wanstead and dump their cars there at 8am to get the tube and pick them up again at 7pm.
    Of course there should be allowances made for local businesses and their parking needs. Again, few Wanstead residents would have a problem with that, and hopefully that will be done.
    God knows I’m no fan of the local churches, but I bet they are glad that local residents no longer fill up their car parks because they can’t get near their own homes due to commuters, who drive into Wanstead from outside the area to park and get the tube into town. Or rather, they used to.
    As CPZ Resident pointed out above, the impact of commuter parking on danger for children and families in the roads was considerable.
    Oh yes, and the reason I didn’t purchase a home “with a garage or a drive” is because I am not a millionaire.

  5. As a resident in the new parking zone it has made parking near our home so much easier and means you do not have to worry about ending up miles away from home with kids and shopping. However i do not understand why spratt hall road has been made residents only on both sides of the road when there are only houses on one side. Surely something could be changed there to allow for parking for paople to go to the park or high street?? Hopefully the council will review this in 6 months time at the end of the trial

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