Wansteadium

Voting for Redbridge Council takes place on Thursday 7 May from 7am to 10pm – in our new five party system it’s become a hotly contested battle. Canvassing and high street stalls have become the order of the day, as have the infamous bar charts which ‘prove’ that one or more parties ‘cannot win here’.

These are the candidates:

Wanstead Village Ward

Md Kabir Ali	Green Party
Jo Blackman	Labour Party
William John Collins	Reform UK
Corbyn Leon D’Alanno	Conservative and Unionist Party
David Davies	Reform UK
Mark Gitsham	Liberal Democrats
Sharmon Lewis	Reform UK
Daniel Huw Morgan-Thomas	Labour Party
Humza Sair	Liberal Democrats
Mark Evan Scannell	Conservative and Unionist Party
David Smith	Conservative and Unionist Party
Rabiya Tehseen	Green Party
Mohammed Ohid Uddin	Liberal Democrats
Neal Krishan Vithlani	Labour Party
Sue Whitehead	Green Party

Wanstead Park Ward

Milli Richards Clack	Green Party
Nadir Iqbal Gilani	Green Party
Neil Hepworth	Liberal Democrats
Andrew Malcolm Joyce	Reform UK
Simon John Miller	Labour Party
Yit Chan Phoenix	Reform UK
Emma Selina Shepherd-Mallinson	Labour Party
Paul Anton Smith	Conservative and Unionist Party
David Alexander Thom	Conservative and Unionist Party
Alan Howard Thomas	Liberal Democrats

Details of where you should vote are on your polling card (if you can’t find it but are on the electoral register, YOU CAN STILL VOTE). You can find out where you should vote based on your postcode at this excellent site, wheredoivote.co.uk. Redbridge has information here.

If you don’t know WHO to vote for, that sounds like a you problem. But you will be able to hear from the candidates at a hustings event on Tuesday evening at Wanstead Library.

This website has been on a bit of a work-induced hiatus over the past few months. In that time lots of things have happened which would otherwise have been full-blown posts here… things like Must Wine becoming Can’t Wine. More Italy becoming Zafiro. Hermon Hill being closed for weeks and temporary traffic lights sprouting up everywhere. A TV advert apparently being filmed in someone’s front garden. Rumours that Idris Elba is moving to Wanstead. TV’s Andi Oliver saying in the Guardian that “she loves [Wanstead] so much” because it’s “almost like a little village”. The cafe formerly known as Caesar’s getting another rebranding (actually we might come back to that one). An election candidate for Wanstead Village – yes, Wanstead Village – being exposed in the Times for saying multiple racist things documented here by Hope Not Hate. The second anniversary of Snaresbrook car park standing empty. The Bull getting a serious bit of Ground Force on its front garden. A mysterious green railing being installed on top of Wanstead’s favourite factory. 100 other things besides.

But we’re back now, with a reminder that you can always tell us about things that are going on – just email us at info@wansteadium.com to let us know. You won’t find us on Facebook or Twitter because they are awful companies who do disastrous things to society. But we are on Bluesky, along with some other Wanstead folk. If you have an event you want listed, you can do so here. And if you just want to keep in touch, sign up for our newsletter here.

The excellent folk at Compassionate Funerals have organised a showing of dark comic romcom Harold & Maude as part of the Dying Matters Awareness week.

The showing will be at the Wanstead Curtain on Hermon Hill on Tuesday 5 May. Tickets and more information are available here.

From the Observer

The idea of setting funeral arrangements free to float away on Eagle Pond might be superficially appealing…. but the number of plastic bits and bobs and strange things which go along with the arrangements, and the presence of curious hungry wildlife, means it is not going to be a welcome habit…

Wanstead seriously needs to get a grip on the wave of street chocolating that’s going on. As if this wasn’t bad enough.