Evergreen Field: A huge victory for the Wanstead Society. Or, alternatively, nothing much

evergreen1The Wanstead Society has scored a historic victory in its long-running struggle to prevent development on the Evergreen Field on Wanstead High Street. Or, perhaps, they haven’t.

What they *have* achieved is to get council backing for their scheme to transform the field into a community resource including a “circular meadow surrounded by woodland, with new access points, improved edges to Christchurch Green and a opening through trees framing the church spire”. It also proposes that the meadow be used for public or private events – including

  • Maypole dancing
  • an outdoor harvest festival
  • a snowcrowd on 1 Jan
  • a temporary marquee for events like antiques fairs, wedding receptions or outdoor theatre

The plans (see full application here) would look something like this:

Councillors on the Redbridge regional planning committee approved the plan at a meeting at Wanstead Church School on Wednesday night, sparking several celebratory tweets.

So does that mean an end to the plans, recapped in full here in the first instalment of Tales from Evergreen Field, for flats, shops, mosques, vegetable patches, luxury apartments or starter homes? Err… no. Not necessarily, for one very obvious reason: the Wanstead Society doesn’t own the land.

So what exactly was the point of the meeting, and what does the decision really mean?

Redbridge councillor Paul Canal told Wansteadium: “Planning application approved, but as WS do not own site, academic. May increase protection. Key protection planning designation.”

Wansteadium will be seeking further clarification about what, if anything, this decision changes, and we’ll bring it to you here.

 Update, Thursday 8am

Wansteadium reader and Wanstead Society member Roger Estop writes:

There is now a planning permission for multi-use open space on Evergreen Field – the first time it has ever had an approved use. This establishes the principle of a suitable use for land that has lain vacant and useless for years – but whose openness is an essential part of the Wanstead scenery.

Rather than waiting for the worst and reacting against unsuitable development, the Wanstead Society proactively followed its vision. ‘We don’t own the land, but we feel the land belongs to Wanstead’, say the Society. After years of limbo, we want the community to shape its future.

The planning application raised awareness of the field and caught people’s imagination – there have been a variety of views about how it should be used. The permission sets a new baseline for the owner’s proposals – it means any alternative development will get intense scrutiny.

It is the first time there has been an intelligent response to the Council’s planning policy to protect the open space. This policy has existed for several years, yet the long term owner did not address the policy and sold the land to a new buyer, despite its statutory policy against development.

The Society now has to carefully consider ways forward. It has to define a practicable use, set how the land would be brought into use and how it would be managed in the long term. This has to be done in a creative, realistic and collaborative way – hopefully with the Wanstead-based owner, but also with local organisations and councilors.

Update, Thursday 3pm

The agent for Dalbir Singh Sanger, the owner of Evergreen Field, has told the Wanstead Guardian:

 “My client has plans for a small development there, with the addition of handing over 50 per cent back to the community in a very similar scheme.”

Wanstead good news roundup

A good news special.

• Natalie Lee, of Gordon Road, who runs a blog aimed at stylish mums, Style Me Sunday, is in the final of a national blogging competition. It’s a good looking blog, which has about 6,000 visits a month. You can vote for it in the competition by going here.

• You can also show your support for fellow Wanstead creative, singer Liza Finn (aka @LizaFinnSinger on Twitter). She is looking for backers – supporters who will put up as little as £1 each – to fund the recording of an EP. Her Kickstarter campaign to raise the funding starts on Wednesday.

• And good news too from Hermon Hill. Wanstead Methodist Church has decided to launch a youth club for 10-16-year-olds, which is good news in itself. But they are serious about doing it properly and are recruiting two part time youth workers. More details of how to apply are on this flyer (but applications close on 25 March).

• Finally, collections of garden waste start again from 2 April, and for the first time they will be a year-round feature. Whereas in previous years they have stopped in the Autumn, from this year they will be continuing, thanks to a government grant won by Redbridge Council. Quite how much garden rubbish there will be to collect during the winter remains to be seen, but the development is welcome nonetheless.

Information revolution at Snaresbrook

IMG_1364Snaresbrook passengers have, in the past few weeks, had a bit of extra help in deciding whether or not to squeeze their way on to a heavily laden Tube after it trundles down the line from South Woodford.

The dilemma is familiar – get on, despite the discomfort, or just wait for the next train. The risks are known to every commuter: one should always get on a train if one can, since any kind of delay might hit a later train. But on the other hand, the next train might have empty seats. What to do, what to do…

The newish development at Snaresbrook on busy mornings though is for the station announcer to tell the waiting passengers how full in percentage terms the next train – and the one after that – is. Listen, if you can, to this recording: Snaresbrook 20130226 08:02:57

The fact is that Transport For London has as much to gain as anyone from customers passengers avoiding crushed journeys – “regulating the service”, they would probably call it. And so better information about what is happening on the line is good for everyone.

Mike Smith, Central Line Stations’ performance manager, told Wansteadium:

“Our staff at Snaresbrook have made full use of station equipment to determine and advise customers of how full trains are, enabling customers to make their own decision about whether to jump on the train coming in or wait for another. I’m really pleased that customers have found this helpful, and we’ll keep looking at ways in which we can provide better information to help make the lives of our customers easier.”

What we don’t know is how the percentages are calculated. Is it by an assessment by station staff? Or by something more technical? Any Tubeheads are welcome to demystify matters.

Introducing ‘Blogging Wanstead Through the Ages’

photo (25)This is a new regular feature for Wansteadium – a ball-by-ball commentary of a reading of the classic Wanstead Through the Ages by W V Phillips.

This book seems like a local history from central casting – a tatty dustcover, yellowing pages, hand-painted illustrations, and a charming JR Hartley tone. It was first published in 1946, with a revised  edition three years later, and has just 112 pages.  Winston Churchill, MP for Wanstead and Woodford at that time, wrote an introductory note, which must have pleased Phillips no end, but which somehow misses the point in that it’s not actually about Wanstead. Instead it reads: “It is for the children that we have laid so many tyrants low. Let us hope they will be worthy of the great sacrifices…”

A foreword has an indication about the character of 1940s Wanstead. “[I]f there is one fact clear from local history, is that the community has ever taken strangers within its gates and made them citizens who can unaffectedly share the interest of present endeavours and the pride of past achievements.” Warms the cockles, don’t it?

The author’s note which follows proves the book’s Fly Fishing qualities:

authors note

 

(Reader ND points out that W V Phillips was Winifred, so is therefore a she, not a he. Wansteadium maintains the name can be unisex. But since later editions of the book bear the name Winifred Eastment – who wrote several other books too – we will concede the point.)

Once she relaxes into her subject, though, one line in particular leaps off the pages of the first chapter. Phillips mentions in passing that Wanstead’s “soothing sobriquet” is “Sleepy Hollow”. Now despite all the talking and reading Wansteadium has undertaken in the past few years in the public service of maintaining this website, the name Sleepy Hollow has only ever been mentioned in connection with the headless horseman-related work of Tim Burton.

So initially there is something to get one’s teeth into: does anyone actually refer to Wanstead as Sleepy Hollow any more? And if not, when did THAT stop? Comments via the form below if you please.

IN THE NEXT EXCITING INSTALMENT OF WANSTEAD THROUGH THE AGES…
…we discover whether Wanstead gets its name from a whitewashed building, the pagan god of wind, weather and half-day closing, or – tantalisingly – because it was built on a hill. 

 

 

 

Wanstead weekend photo, XXI

© Geoff Wilkinson, who writes on Wanstead Daily Photo: "I seem to remember a nursery rhyme when I was a child, it was along the lines of 'rain, rain go away please come back another day'. That certainly applied to Wanstead [on Friday]. However, it did make for this lovely photograph that I took early this morning of rain dripping from the branch of a rose bush with the bud waiting for spring."

© Geoff Wilkinson, who writes on Wanstead Daily Photo: “I seem to remember a nursery rhyme when I was a child, it was along the lines of ‘rain, rain go away please come back another day’. That certainly applied to Wanstead [on Friday]. However, it did make for this lovely photograph that I took early this morning of rain dripping from the branch of a rose bush with the bud waiting for spring.”