Snaresbrook parking up 66%

Daily parking rates at Snaresbrook Tube are going up from £2.70 to £4.50 from Saturday, a poster at the station is informing drivers. Other car parks run by NCP for London Underground will also see price rises, and the company says it is to fund continued investment in the facilities, but a statement given to the Wanstead Guardian said that the decision followed research into the prices of surrounding car parks too.

Since there aren’t any other car parks near Snaresbrook station, it means the only competing option for many drivers will be on-street parking. Restrictions near the high street – including the cunning ban on parking between 9.30am and 10.30am – seem to make inevitable a degree of increased pressure on unrestricted streets further from the station.

Olympic volunteers start here

Wednesday morning is expected to mark the start of Olympic volunteering season, as the website which allows people to put their names forward is officially launched. It will remain open until 27 October, and there are as many as 70,000 places available. The site will be available here – but there does not appear to be much point in rushing to get your name down: it’s not first come first served.

A Redbridge-led recovery?

The BBC has today published a whole series of statistics about how vulnerable different areas of England are to public sector cuts. They have been calculated by the credit rating agency Experian, which has vast databases of the make-up of the country, and are based on a range of different factors such as the number of people employed in the public sector, life expectancy, benefits etc. The BBC News website has all sorts of whizzy maps to explore on the subject.

The overall picture for Redbridge is that it is almost exactly at the mid-point of vulnerability in England – 166th out of 324 areas. But beneath that are a number of interesting figures.

The borough scores highly for the number of self-employed people – 83rd – and is 50th where earnings are concerned. Crime is relatively high at 231, and considering the image many have of Redbridge it scores poorly – 273rd – for the amount of green space (though given the number of very rural districts in England, this is perhaps not so surprising).

Where Redbridge really stands out is on the number of business start-ups since 2008 – third out of the whole of England, behind neighbouring Barking and Dagenham in second place, and Newham in top spot. This is a fascinating picture of enterprise in east London, perhaps influenced by Olympic investment, and particularly important in difficult economic times when so much store is being set on a revival led by the private sector.

Wanstead news roundup, 8.9.10; Cars, blooming, bikes

• The 100mph car race on Aldersbrook Road in June last year, which ended up in the deaths of two men, has concluded in jail sentences for Lexus Sport driver Zubair Dawood of Forest Gate and BMW driver Nabeal Javeed of East Ham. Dawood was on the wrong side of the road avoiding a speed camera on the 30mph road, lost control and hit a tree by a Speed Kills sign. (It’s odd, but coverage of the case, – complete with Saab and Mercedes adverts – can be seen here at the Evening Standard, and with Toyota adverts here at the Daily Mirror.)

• More cheerful motor-related news: a stolen Morris Minor which had been lovingly restored in time to serve as a car enthusiast’s wedding car but which was stolen before the big day was tracked down on the streets of Wanstead. It is now back with its rightful owner, the Daily Express reported.

• There was a ‘mass picnic’, reportedly of several hundred people, on Wanstead Flats at the weekend in opposition to the Met’s plan to site an Olympic control centre there.

• Wanstead and Snaresbrook Safer Neighbourhood Teams will give the public a forum at Wanstead House, The Green, Wanstead, on 14 September at 7.30pm.

• The Nightingale Pub on Nightingale Lane won best pub in Redbridge in Bloom. Margaret Ludlow of Wanstead was second in the borough for her front garden.

• Wanstead’s Gabrielle Collard, currently cycling from Land’s End to John O’Groats, is having a hard time. Follow her blog here. Sounds even worse than a tube strike.