Wanstead roundup, 14.01.12; Westfield shame, no tax rise, and swan love

A bumper crop of news from Wanstead this week.

• Popular Wanstead cricketer Mervyn Westfield has become the first British player to be convicted of spot-fixing, after admitting being bribed to bowl badly deliberately when playing for Essex against Durham in a game in 2009. He will be sentenced next month; reports say he is likely to be banned from playing or coaching cricket at any level. (BBC report)

• Thousands of pounds of cosmetics were stolen from Boots in Wanstead High Street on Tuesday night. More details here.

• New plans for the redevelopment of Wanstead’s old cinema site, kitschy kalled the Kinema, have been submitted. You can see what they would look like here (pdf).

• Redbridge Council is inviting residents once again to make suggestions about how it could make budget savings. Incidentally, the council is proposing a zero rise in council tax for the third year running.

• And final word goes to the Wanstead Guardian story about . . . well, we’ll let them tell you.

A SWAN left to bring up his son alone after his partner was savaged to death by an out-of control dog, found happiness with a new female and her four cygnets.

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Help a soul who doesn’t see the point of Snaresbrook station

Readers of Wansteadium, many of whom experience Snaresbrook station as a daily delight, are invited to help poor old Ollie Durham out of his misery. Reply by comment, by tweet (with #wansteadium) or by email – wansteadium@gmail.com. It’s the kind thing to do, friends.

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Wansteadium reader Sally Humphreys writes: Snaresbrook Is a delightful old fashioned station with a nice garden (and loos). I live just off Hermon Hill opposite the old hospital and if Snaresbrook did not exist I would have a long walk every day to catch my tube to work – either to South Woodford or Wanstead.

Lose your Christmas tree in one easy step

It’s our annual New Year public service announcement.

Redbridge Council will collect your Christmas tree from outside your house, and take it away for composting. And the best bit about it is that you can request the collection online by entering your details at this page: Request Green Waste Collection. Once booked, trees should be collected within 10 days, though you will have to leave the tree at the edge of your property.

That won’t please the excessively houseproud, but is better than getting old fir tree resin smeared on your jeans.

Wanstead news and events roundup, 8.1.12

• There are plans for more phone masts in Redbridge, including one near Snaresbrook primary school. While some people still have concerns about health, but the demand for mobile phone coverage continues to grow. A BBC survey last year of areas without reliable 3G coverage found a sizeable gap around Hermon Hill (pictured) which a new mast might address.

• Parents wanting their children to enter primary schools in Wanstead have until next week to submit their application (via www.redbridge.gov.uk/eAdmissions). As these figures below from the 2011 entry show, Wanstead schools are much in demand. The main criteria for application to non-faith schools are whether children have siblings already at the school, and how close they live to the school. Though each of Wanstead’s two faith schools technically will admit children not of their faiths, the figures show that for Our Lady’s, out of 60 children, 36 were baptised Catholics and 26 who were baptised Catholics with siblings in the school. For Wanstead Church school, out of 30 children enrolled, 27 came from families ‘at the heart of the Anglican church’, two from families ‘committed to the Anglican church’ and one who had a sibling in the school.

• The Wanstead and Woodford University of the Third Age, for people who are retired, semi-retired or no longer working full-time is holding its inaugural meeting on Tuesday.

• A beagle which was found in Wanstead earlier this week (and about which there was much tweeting) has been reunited with its owners.

Anyone can add an event to the Wansteadium Events calendar by sending details to events@wansteadium.com. Wansteadium now has more than 1,200 regular followers in Wanstead so it’s a great way to let people know what’s going on.

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