Wansteadium

Redbridge has told residents it wants to make all Wanstead streets 20mph zones, in line with many other London boroughs.

The proposal has an inevitability about it – the case made for reducing accidents is a strong one, however much motorists might get frustrated by the limits.

While most of the roads in the new zone are residential streets, the limit will be felt more on more major roads like New Wanstead, Hermon Hill/Chigwell Road and the High Street.

But some Hermon Hill residents will be among those cheering the proposal most loudly – we have documented a number of serious prangs in the past few years where cars have gone off the road, most recently this.

Hermon Hill traffic plea renewed

The proposal includes speed humps on Hollybush Hill, Spratt Hall Road, Nutter Lane, Rutland Road, Grove Park, and Elmcroft Avenue, and speed cushions on Chigwell Road, Hermon Hill and New Wanstead.

Wansteadium’s only thoughts are – whether this is a real consultation at all, and whether the decision has actually been made. And secondly, well even if it has, it’s nice to be asked. We’re not always extended that courtesy. The consultation is online here.

There’s been a pretty hard pruning of one of Wanstead’s magnificent cedar trees, on the junction of New Wanstead with Hollybush Hill. Cedar trees CAN recover from prunings like this, we’re told by a friendly tree surgeon, but it will be years before it has anything like its former shape. It puts Wansteadium in mind of Aslan on the stone table.

Anyone in other parts of the country who believes this message from the Nationwide Building Society should take it with a pinch of salt. It was following a very similar promise that the society decided to close the Wanstead branch, five years ago. Want a recap?

Retrospective planning permission for the illuminated signs on Wanstead High Street at the Wanstead Coffee Shop (formerly Caesar’s Palace) might not seem like a big deal, but it’s a real test of whether Redbridge officials have any fight left in them to preserve the Wanstead Conservation area.

Longtime readers will know that shops are not permitted to have “internally illuminated signs”, ie no plastic with lights coming through. Any lights need to be shining on to the sign rather than coming from inside it. It’s a small thing but the effect it makes on a high street is noticeable.

However, planners were thwarted in their objections to the digital advertising boards on the high street on these grounds, overruled by the Planning Inspectorate.

So this retrospective application (the sign have been up for months) is one of the first real tests of their resolve. Their decision will be instructive – if they give way on it, the last vestige of the conservation area would seem to vanish. On the other hand, is this a strong enough reason to put a cost on a local business?

Each year in a ritual as celebrated as the last conker of autumn or the first loft conversion of the New Year, we mark the season’s first frost. It was today. Happy Frost Day to readers old and new.

2025 – 18 November
2024 – 11 October
2023 – 16 October
2022 – 6 December
2021 – 2 November
2020 – 4 November
2019 – 4 November
2018 – 25 September
2017 – 30 October
2016 – 2 November
2015 – 23 November
2014 – 6 November
2013 – 13 November
2012 – 6 November
2011 – 25 November
2010 – 21 October

Anyone who has experienced the work of Wanstead composer Simone Spagnolo will not want to miss his new play, Mr Baldocci, which has two performances at the Wanstead Curtain next weekend.

Spagnolo is, in our humble opinion, a proper genius. His 2024 walking opera around St Mary’s graveyard, All Rest, was a deeply moving experience which gave listeners an unforgettable experience of place and history.

At this year’s Fringe he was responsible for bringing an experimental audio experience which merged live music with headphone-based storytelling which left its audience in a trance-like state, not quite knowing what was real or where it was coming from.

Mr Baldocci is a more conventional theatrical experience, but it’s not like anything you will have seen before. It’s set in one man’s living room whose life gradually unravels as he receives a succession of answering machine messages. Wansteadium music critic Austin Allegro, who saw a performance earlier in the year, said: “Spagnolo’s composition, performed by celebrated pianist Gabriele Baldocci, is a jaw-dropping whirl of dozens of composers all mashed together into one compelling narrative. Without having to speak a word, Baldocci’s character communicates his downward spiral through his piano, culminating in at least two unexpected turns.”

You can get tickets from the Wanstead Fringe website below:

Friday

Mr Baldocci

Saturday

Mr Baldocci