Author: Wansteadium

Wanstead Youth Centre should remain open for the next 12 months while alternative sources of funding for its future could be explored, campaigners have said.

At a packed public meeting with council officers at the Elmcroft Avenue centre, the speed of the closure process was strongly criticised.

Jon Gritten, who spoke for the Save Wanstead Youth Centre campaign, said: “Three months from the start of the consultation to the proposed date of closure is just appalling.”

Redbridge Vision is planning to close the centre on April 30, having announced its plan at the end of January. The final decision will have to be taken by the council cabinet.

The plan is based on a report which says £2.4m of improvements are needed at the site, and that an £86,000 annual subsidy is needed from other Vision activities – such as leisure centres – to cover running its costs.

Mark Baigent, Redbridge’s corporate director of regeneration and culture, said that if the council decided to borrow the necessary funding, it would cost the council £160,000 per year for 40 years to pay the loan off. And even if the investment were to be made, the centre would still need to be closed temporarily while the work was done.

“There isn’t an option where we just keep the building open and not do the work,” he said, though he did confirm that the building was currently safe.

The centre is currently used by a wide range of sporting activities for children and young people, and also has community facilities for disabled people and other groups. Campaigners say 1,200 people use the centre each week.

Many campaigners spoke of the impact closure would have on users’ wellbeing.

Eileen Flinter of the Wanstead Society said children deserved a place where they could be safe. “Our community and our children deserve better than the underpass,” she said, referring to the nearby M11/A406.

One centre user, Ellie, 15, asked: “Is the mental health of the young people who use the centre being taken into account?” She said warnings were constantly being given to her generation about the dangers of county line gangs, exploitation and poor mental health. “This is one of the few places that holds our society together,” she said.

Mark Baigent said notes of the meeting would be included in the report which would be considered by the council cabinet. But Jon Gritten said there had been no proper consultation by the council, and that the meeting had only taken place because campaigners had organised it. Redbridge and Vision had not even conducted a cost benefit analysis of the proposal. “It’s false economies,” he said.

He said the council should call a 12-month moratorium on the plan while the true cost could be assessed, and while users of the centre could be engaged in finding ways to improve its financial standing.

Keith Prince, Greater London Assembly member for Havering and Redbridge, said if there was any question about how valued the centre was by the community, the number of people attending the meeting showed the answer. He called on the council to engage with the campaigners and said the cost of a child “going off the rails” was going to be a lot more than £100,000.

To accusations that the council stood to make money by selling the centre for development, Mr Baigent said no valuation of the site had been conducted. He also said that the council was prepared to consider looking for grant funding to renovate the centre, but that in the council’s experience there would not be sufficient funding available. He also said that in his experience the consultation period was “ample”.

The decline in funding for the council meant it “had to make some very difficult decisions,” he said.

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One of Wanstead’s most prominent trees is no longer – it had to be chopped down because of storm damage which made it unsafe.

The enormous cedar at the Shrubbery on Grosvenor Road was at least 15m high and was a familiar landmark across a lot of central Wanstead. Planning officers gave permission for it to be removed because of the risk of branches falling. They did however specify that a replacement tree be planted in its place.

There was a crack in the main stem of the tree, caused by a storm, which meant the weight of the crown could not be supported by the trunk, the council decided. 

The Shrubbery is a Grade II listed site. The National Heritage List for England has this verdict on it:

SUMMARY OF IMPORTANCE: The Shrubbery is an attractive group of three apartment blocks of circa 1935 by Cockett, Henderson & Gillow Ltd for the North-East London Property Company Ltd. The exteriors and interior spaces draw on Art Deco style and Moderne streamlining in their design and are thoughtfully conceived. Although some flats have been subject to alteration, the plan-form is largely intact and there are surviving examples of high quality interiors with notable detailing. The Shrubbery is of special interest as an impressive and thoughtful example of an inter-war apartment block development in a modern style.

There is one remaining Cedar on Grosvenor Road, below, which makes one wonder about how old these trees are/were – they can live for hundreds of years. It also raises the somewhat intriguing thought that perhaps Charles Dickens (who owned a property slightly further down the road) might even have seen these young trees.

A meeting is to be held on Tuesday (7 March) at 7.30pm to discuss the the proposed closure of the Wanstead Youth Centre on Elmcroft Avenue. More details about the plan are in this post.

The decision about the future of Wanstead Youth Centre on Elmcroft Avenue poses a few difficult issues.

Overwhelmingly it seems that a proposal from Redbridge council to close the centre is about money – it will need, apparently, £2.4m to bring it up to scratch, at a time when public finances are under more stress than normal and when a multi-million pound investment is being made in the new Wanstead Leisure Centre.

But losing a public asset like the centre, which includes sports halls, a theatre and function rooms, will be a real loss for the community. Anti-closure campaigners say 1,200 people use the centre each week.

The building itself dates from the mid-1940s and originally formed part of the Nightingale High School site. This school closed in 1987 and was mostly demolished, though the Nightingale Primary School which took over the site could eventually have used many of the classrooms. It had to install prefab classrooms for many years.

It feels that there is an inevitability that, should Redbridge proceed with its plan to close the site, more houses will be built, even though that spot where Elmcroft meets Deynecourt now feels quite dense.

The council says: “The Council is considering alternatives to renovating the building, including redevelopment. We would expect any redevelopment of the site to include community space as a precondition of planning permission being granted.”

Local sports groups which use the premises are among those calling on the council not to close the site. Demolition would undoubtedly mean the loss of a community asset, just as losing the old high school buildings did.

What’s really needed is a benefactor who would take on the site, renovate some or all of the facilities, and preserve the centre for Wanstead’s future. If that’s not going to be Redbridge, then who will it be?

There is a consultation on the proposal at this page, which explains some of the reasoning behind the proposal.

There is also an e-petition against the closure, which is available on the Redbridge site, but (just like the planning site) it is not possible to give exact web addresses. Anyone looking for it will need to go to this page, and click on the word “e-petitions” in the first paragraph, then click on Wanstead Youth Centre. User-friendly this is not but don’t let that stop you having your say.

An exhibition capturing Wanstead people’s thoughts during lockdown is being staged by photographer Russell Boyce who last year published a collection of shopkeepers’ stories.

The new display is currently being shown on the railings around the Temple in Wanstead Park, where Russell took the pictures and interviewed the people involved. It will run until March 26.

Here are some reactions to the photographs.

An application to put a 20-meter 5G phone mast on a grass verge near to St Mary’s Church has been rejected by council planners.

The mast would have been taller than the mature trees on St Mary’s Avenue, and would have required a concrete platform to have been built on the grass verge.

Redbridge Council rejected the plan, which was submitted just before Christmas.

St Mary’s is the only Grade 1 listed building in Redbridge.