Wansteadium

It’s day one of the 20-week roadworks taking place on Blake Hall Road – though a collapsed water pipe on the road on Saturday led to the road being closed prematurely (and thus to much traffic chaos throughout Wanstead).

Work is due to start today on the replacement of the gas mains. Details from National Grid are below, and the Twitter account @blakehellroad will be doing its best to keep spirits, civility and accountability high in the coming weeks.

Share your pictures and updates with it, and we’ll feature some of them here – also from today you can see a dedicated Twitter box featuring all tweets with the #blakehellroad hashtag.

National Grid provided this summary of the work:

• Essential work to maintain safe and reliable gas supplies due to resume on Monday 20 June 2016 for 20 weeks

• Project programme carefully designed to delivered with as smoothly as possible

• Traffic management will be required but local businesses and shops will remain open as normal throughout work

National Grid is preparing to resume work to replace ageing gas mains in Blake Hall Road, Wanstead with tough new pipes.

The work, which also involves replacing service pipes to some properties, is scheduled to start on Monday 20 June and is planned to be completed in approximately 20 weeks.

The project will help ensure local people continue to enjoy safe and reliable gas supplies for cooking and heating.

Traffic management including the road closures outlined below, will be needed to ensure engineers can carry out the work safely and efficiently. However access to properties will be maintained and shops and businesses will remain open for business as normal.

• Overton Road will be closed at the junction of Blake Hall Road for approximately eight weeks from the beginning of August. Width restrictions will be removed to ensure access is maintained to properties.
• Tennyson Road will be closed for approximately three weeks in October.
• Felstead Road will be closed for approximately three weeks from late October.

Project Engineer Paul Illingworth said: “This essential project will help make sure the local community continue to enjoy safe and reliable gas supplies for cooking and heating.

“We’ve planned the work in close discussion with Redbridge Council and others including TfL and the police to ensure it’s delivered as smoothly as possible.”

He added: “To minimise be traffic disruption we’ll be inserting the new pipes into the old mains wherever possible which reduces the need for digging.

“We’ve also planned our work at the busy Overton Road junction for the school summer holidays when roads are generally quieter.”

All engineers working for National Grid carry official identification and people should ask to see this before letting them into their property. To verify the identity of an engineer or for more information about the work call 0800 096 5678.

More information can also be found at www.bettergaspipes.co.uk

After the e-mail from a squatter which we published on Wansteadium last week, we received this from Jamshed, who lives in the flat above the former Barclays Bank which is being occupied by reportedly up to 20 squatters.

My name is Jamshed and I and my family live in the flat above of the old Barclays building. I am the guy who is wearing grey tracksuit with crutches on the left of the photo. Some of you could see me and recognise me in a British Red Cross uniform as I often volunteer for them, or have seen me every morning on the bus stop with my and my neighbours’ kids when I take them to school.

First of all I would like to thank everyone here who has left supportive comments and raised concerns about us, those who have been affected most. Your support came in the right moment to us as all authorities have failed to protect us – police, council, landlord, Sainsbury’s. We left feeling vulnerable and unsafe. It is your support that is giving us some comfort and hope that this will end someday hopefully soon. I am a regular reader.

It is a fact that they had been in our private residential area. They have admitted that themselves. They have left one of their notices on our internal side door – so it is an evidence that they were there. My son saw them early in the morning when he went to take his shoes. When we realised that it left us feeling very insecure. I had to cancel my work shift and come back to stay with my wife and one-year-old daughter as my wife was scared and didn’t want to stay alone.

I am a regular reader here. I have only decided to write this when I read an article about the email from one the squatters. For me it looked like their attempt to paint to you an image of their goodness. Many of us are aware that squatting to non-residential property is not illegal. But THEY know it much more than of all of us. Look here: www.squatter.org.uk. I did go through the website and tried to get an answer for what is the purpose, aim, goals, calls of the squatting and squatters and found nothing but information of how to squat without having a problems for someone who want to squat.

Here is definition of the squatting: “Squatting is when someone deliberately enters property without permission and lives there, or intends to live there. This is sometimes known as ‘adverse possession’.” And here is definition of what is non residential property: “A non-residential property is any building or land that isn’t designed to be lived in.”

The key for me here is “without permission” and “not designed to live”. As you all know the building was under renovation. All utilities, such as water, gas and electricity were shut and off. Unauthorised use of them is potentially hazardous of fire, flood and explosion. Now you might not be aware but even they themselves are claiming that there are about 20 squatters, may be even more. Imagine and guess how and where they are performing their daily hygienic needs.

I have issues with these squatters group in particular:
* Their identities are not known to any authorities, nor does anyone know their exact quantity. I would like to point here out that they don’t have to provide their IDs to me or any other public members. But if they claim that they are some sort of activists, and don’t have anything to hide, that they are law abiding and peaceful people, why not let at least some of the authorities to know about who are they are. So we, public, will have some peace in mind. No trust – no love.
* Hazards from living in completely in unlivable place, which could bring danger to me and my family and my neighbours. No trust – no love. Otherwise, had they come with clearer intentions, with true full stories and lawful actions I would have been probably one of the first ones here, in Wanstead, to offer you some sort of support. And it is not just a words in the current circumstances – I am a long standing active volunteer and offer my needed help for vulnerable people on regular basis.

Yes they can claim that they don’t have a shelter and that government doesn’t provide one to them. But this should not justify or give them a right to come to private property and occupy it, be it owned by an individual, housing association, or corporation. No one should resolve their problems at the expense of others.

If they claim that they want to bring an attention to the housing crisis and empty buildings, than they have to do the extensive research, find empty properties which belong to authorities who are in charge of this housing crisis and occupy them if you know if it’s lawful. But they should not go to every single empty-looking building and stay there as it will be pointless for their aims. I would like to remind you that even that many people didn’t like an idea of Sainsbury’s coming to the High Street and it’s taking too long now, still they were working under this project, therefore this building cannot be count as abandoned.

I cannot express here whole levels of distress it have caused to me and my family. And I know that some people will still try to sympathise and support them. And I don’t have any issues with that. But for now I thought I should share with you the other side of the story, the side of directly affected people.

My regards to all of you,
Jamshed

One of the squatters in the former Barclays Bank on Wanstead High Street writes:

Hey guys, one of the squatters here. We are a peaceful bunch, we mean no harm. We found a way in through an open fire door at the side of the building. Maybe the CCTV can pick up on how we entered the bank? We did not enter the resident’s property to gain access to the property.
Sid

The new sign outside the former Fat Biscuit/ Mario’s Shake Shack. 

Squatters have moved into the former Barclays bank on Wanstead High Street. The police have been, as have representatives of Sainsbury’s. But the squatters do not – yet – have to move out. Why?

Sainsbury’s now owns the site and is considering its options for opening a shop there. It has instructed its lawyers to try to get the property empty as soon as it can, but these things can take time.

Traditionally squatting is not a crime. It has often in the past been regarded as a part of political protest, sometimes against landlords who allow property to stand empty. After WWII, many servicemen and their families squatted in empty houses simply because they did not have anywhere else to live. If people live in properties for up to 12 years, even as squatters, they can then claim that the property should become theirs. Owners would need to obtain court orders to have squatters evicted – defying a court order is a crime.

In the 1970s, legal protection was introduced for people who were squatting in properties. It became a criminal offence to use force against them or even to enter a property where they were living. This was in part to stop intimidation and violence by rogue landlords. The notice that the new occupants of the former Barclays have put on the door (pictured above) is what’s known as a “Section 6 warning” and serves as a reminder that the law protects squatters as well as landlords.

In 2012 the law was changed again to make a distinction between residential and non-residential property – to squat in someone’s house or flat now is a crime, but not an empty office space. The government issues this advice:

A non-residential property is any building or land that isn’t designed to be lived in.

Simply being on another person’s non-residential property without their permission isn’t usually a crime. The police can take action if squatters commit other crimes when entering or staying in a property.

Crimes include:
* causing damage when entering the property
* causing damage while in the property
* not leaving when they’re told to by a court
* stealing from the property
* using utilities like electricity or gas without permission
*fly-tipping
*not obeying a noise abatement notice

One of the squatters told the Wanstead Guardian that the 20 occupants of the building met during the Occupy protest at St Paul’s in 2011 and have since squatted at several properties in East London. She said:

“We are just a bunch of young creative people looking to make a political statement about the right to occupy unused buildings… There is a massive housing crisis with more and more people being made homeless all the time, so it seems a bit hypocritical to say 20 people can’t find a home in an empty building.”

The tenant of a flat above the premises, identified as Jamshed, told the paper that he was concerned for the safety of his family. “Some of them seem friendly, but they refuse to say who they are so we can’t trust they have good intentions,” he told the paper.

A spokesman for Sainsbury’s told Wansteadium that the firm had instructed its lawyers to apply for a court order so that the squatters could be evicted as soon as possible.

UPDATED: The former Barclays bank on Wanstead High Street appears to have acquired squatters. Sainsbury’s, which now owns the building, has told Wansteadium it is sending bailiffs to the site as soon possible.

An upstairs window at the building is open but it’s not clear how the building was entered. Police attended the scene, and according to one eye-witness, debated with the people inside and shook hands with them. One eye-witness said: “The police have been called twice and there is nothing they can do. The squatters are in now – got dropped off in a van with all their goods. They are all hanging outside the bank as they don’t have a garden.”

Squatting in non-residential property in England is not normally a crime in itself, though causing damage or using electricity in the building could lead to police action.

The former bank has been empty since July 2014, and is currently waiting for Sainsbury’s to decide what it is going to do with the site. The supermarket is reviewing its plans “and looking at a number of options for a store on the site”, a spokesman confirmed today.