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.
We reported a couple of weeks ago on a planning application for illuminated advert screens on Wanstead High Street – an area where shopkeepers are not permitted to have illuminated signs.
Well, we didn’t read the application carefully enough. It’s actually for THREE advert screens on the high street. One outside the Light House fish and chip shop, one outside Boots, and one on the other side of the road, outside the Pura beauticians opposite the Bull.
We thought you would like to know. Comments on the applications, numbers 3950/22, 3954/22, 3957/22, 3962/22 and 3963/22 at the Redbridge Planning site need to be made by TODAY (Thursday).
That’s if you can find your way through the Redbridge Planning site, something which could do with a good dose of planning itself.
Hundreds of saplings have been planted by volunteers in the Roding Valley Park, just next to the M11 in the area at the end of Elmcroft Avenue.
The tree planting was a project last weekend by Redbridge and the Trees for Cities organisation. It’s near a community orchard which was planted in 2016 and now has dozens of apple trees which are nearly mature.
Gold stars all round.
It never rains but it pours. Suddenly ANOTHER Wanstead profile has come on the scene. And that tells a different story to the happy tale published in MyLondon earlier in the week. Wanstead is apparently being ruined by snobs.
Noel McMahon, well known from his years as landlord at the Nightingale, told the paper: “It’s changed. It has lost its village status for what it used to be. It’s still a great community – but the attitude of some of the new arrivals has changed. They don’t have the same community feel.”
The most damning quotes though come from someone the Sun bravely doesn’t name, who EXCLUSIVELY tells the paper that people are “moving from central out here to get more for their money…. They’re up their own f***ing a***s.”
So it’s quite a controversial read. You can find it here. It’s in the Sun, which according to someone who would rather not be named, is ***** ******** ****, we can exclusively reveal.
We have a long history of picking apart articles written in the news about Wanstead, and the latest example to attract people’s attention was this profile in MyLondon.
It’s rare nowadays for news providers to send reporters out of the office (or away from their dining room table) to actually visit the places they are reporting on, so this is a welcome article, even though it was written by their “SEO Reporter” (ie the person who writes things to attract the attention of Google).
So some key quotes, wilfully taken out of context:
If you buy here, you stay here.
I mean, look at Gail’s, it’s packed the entire time.
The best thing about the area is that is has two stations
In the evening, it’s a ghost town.
But, surprise surprise, people in Wanstead love Wanstead though are anxious about the cost of living, rents, property prices and inequality.
One thing we did learn – the newsagents now known as Krishanco has been there for more than 100 years, well before gentrification. Long may it continue.
H/T Gaynor, and Ray
