Tag: redbridge

Redbridge Brass band – Our British Isles

Hear the glorious sound of Redbridge Brass in this fabulous concert programme. A full 28-piece brass band from the Championship Section in top form – truly engaging and memorable.

Featuring music celebrating these islands, the concert includes beautiful Irish and Welsh melodies, evocative Scottish Dances, plus the epic London Overture, James Bond, and modern classics Pie Jesu, Bohemian Rhapsody and the amazing Riverdance and more.

Refreshments available including wine and homemade cakes.

Starts 7:30pm

Tickets:   Adult £12 Child (under 12 yrs) FREE

www.ticketsource.co.uk/redbridgebrass

www.redbridgebrass.com

Wanstead news roundup, 24.11.12; Wanstead’s grip on power, and the future of ironing

• Wanstead’s role in the running of Redbridge Council has increased with the appointment of Wanstead Conservative Councillor Alex Wilson to the Redbridge ‘cabinet’ – the executive part of the council. Now three of the nine councillors on the cabinet are Wanstead Conservatives (Alex Wilson, Thomas Chan and Michelle Dunn) following the resignation of Cllr Sue Nolan, who is admittedly a Snaresbrook councillor. (If you’re expecting Wansteadium to assess whether this shift in the balance of power is going to have big effect on the governance of Redbridge, you must be new here.)

• So it may or may not be good news for residents of Wellington Road who are planning to be out in force at the Area One committee on Monday evening – after they got word that their campaign to stop or slow through-traffic had not succeeded. Motorists coming down Hermon Hill cut down Nelson Road and go on to Wellington Road to avoid the traffic lights at the junction with the High Street. Except on Mondays when the bin lorry completely blocks the road, and said motorists curse, slam into reverse and retrace their tracks. Residents say 60 cars a day speed down the road at up to 70mph.

• Congratulations to Keatings Jewellers on Wanstead High Street which is celebrating its 25th anniversary. And congratulations also to nearby Santa Fe which has marked its 20th anniversary.

• And at the other end of the High Street, it’s reported in the Wanstead Guardian that the owner of the buildings which house Snaresbrook Cars and the much loved Ironing Board outside Snaresbrook Station has applied for permission to demolish the buildings and put the business into temporary cabins. More here.

• Meanwhile reviews of the delicacies on offer at BBQ Express, Wanstead’s favourite talking point, after it apparently opened. The tweet and photograph below were posted on Friday night by Uzii Shaban who uses the hashtag #boss. But Uzii seems inadvertently to have posted a picture of a different branch of BBQ Express since as we all know, Wanstead’s sign now has no flames and is not illuminated as in the picture. Maybe the photo of the real thing just didn’t do it justice.


• And finally, the new subscribers keep on coming. At the time of writing there were 352 people who had signed up to receive Wansteadium by e-mail. Each morning, on those days when we have published a new entry, they get a beautiful and fascinating e-mail with which to wow their friends and colleagues. You can join them by signing up here.

Wanstead news roundup: A bumper summer edition, including a new Larder, new jobs, and some hedgehogs

• Plans for a homeless hostel on Cambridge Park were approved by the Redbridge Planning Committee. More than 150 Wanstead residents had opposed the plan. Voting on the committee was split, but the plan went through on the chair’s casting vote. Opponent Mick Goodenough told Wansteadium legal advice was being taken with a view to mounting a judicial review  indicated a judicial review of the decision was unlikely to succeed.
• Litter bins on Christchurch Green are too small for the amount of litter, the Wanstead Society has told Redbridge Council. That, or foxes, or something else,  might be the reason for the regular sight of overflowing litter, though tweeter Paddy Fantastic (below) has other thoughts. The council says it will replace the bins, when the current ones wear out.

[blackbirdpie url=”http://twitter.com/#!/PaddyFantastic/status/102973321167118336″]

• Welcome to the Larder Mark III. After opening a new branch in Bethnal Green, Wanstead’s favourite is also taking over the Butlers’ Retreat tea rooms in Chingford Plain. The Larder is turning into a Wanstead success story.
• Speaking of which, Little Bears nursery on The Green has announced a pretty big expansion. From having places for 35 children, it is growing by adding a further 90 places, and is creating 20 new jobs.
• They are not the only things growing. The ArcelorMittal Orbit (also known as that weird red sculpture next to the Olympic stadium) is now about a third of the way through its construction. When it reaches its full height, it will disrupt the Freeview signal to houses on Hermon Hill.
• Wanstead is gearing up for the second Wanstead Art Trail, which runs from 11 September. The event’s new website is taking shape too; it’s here.
• Where Wansteadium goes today, the Sunday Times will go tomorrow. After our efforts to prove – despite apparent odds – that hedgehogs still roamed through Wanstead gardens, the paper reported this week that:

Hedgehogs could be wiped out in Britain within 15 years, a study has warned. They are on a list of the 10 indigenous species suffering the biggest decline in numbers in recent decades, along with the cuckoo, left, turtle dove, brown hare and Scottish wildcat. According to the Eden Species Report, which measures native species’ populations and rates of decline, there are about 1m hedgehogs left in the UK — a decline of about 25% over the past 10 years. In some parts of Britain the fall could be as high as 50%. With populations becoming more isolated as a result of the decrease in numbers, naturalists fear that the species will struggle to maintain a sufficiently large gene pool to sustain a healthy and viable population.

• There’s a full calendar of events in Wanstead here. You can submit your events at events@wansteadium.com
• Wansteadium’s fledgling free classifieds advert service, which allows you to sell your unwanted items to other Wanstead residents, can be found here.

What’s going on with Wanstead tree-chopping?

Noticed the alarmingly large number of street trees in Wanstead and Snaresbrook which have been chopped down and bound in red and white tape, as if to stem the bleeding? If you have, you’re not alone. One Wanstead-resident tweeted last week:

[blackbirdpie url=”http://twitter.com/#!/nutterlane/status/37985874050285570″]

So what’s going on? Wansteadium asked Redbridge Borough Council which helpfully explained thus:

The 2010 annual safety inspection of the 2,621 Highway trees in Wanstead and Snaresbrook identified 104 dead, vandalised or structurally unsound trees. Work to fell, remove stumps and then plant replacement trees, is programmed for completion by 31 March 2011.

In other words, it appears this is not a story about council cuts.

Wanstead news roundup, 15.11.10; Swings, Paphitis, Stone

• Up to £14K could be spent renovating the stone on the corner of Hollybush Hill which historically gave Leytonstone its name. The money would be spent on cleaning the stone, putting a plaque next to it explaining its history and, perhaps strangely, removing the pedestrian safety barriers nearby.

• Campaigners are holding a Take Back Wanstead Flats event next Sunday at which they plan to stake out the area proposed for the police’s Olympic base. Meanwhile one campaigner, Kevin Blowe, says in 2008/9 Redbridge issued 16% of the UK’s fixed penalty notices for flyposting, and that 49% of them were subsequently cancelled. He says he was issued with one for a poster put on a tree on Wanstead High Street, but it was withdrawn.

• Five playgrounds in Redbridge are to be renovated with some new government money, but none of them is in Wanstead.

• Dragon’s Den’s Theo Paphitis, amid preparations for Children In Need, had his dinner in Wanstead on Thursday, (presumably at Nam Am).

• Nice things said about Wansteadium, I

Mum just let me know Mike Leigh’s new film was shot on my Nana’s old road in Wanstead 🙂 http://bit.ly/bRpEC5 (nice local London blog too)less than a minute ago via Twitter for iPhoneJazCummins
JazCummins

UPDATE MONDAY, 2330 GMT: The plan to clean the stone at Hollybush Hill has been shelved, on the grounds of cost, reports Wanstead Guardian.

Redbridge ‘has £1.5m in tobacco shares’

Tonight’s Evening Standard is reporting that, despite campaigning against smoking, Redbridge has £1.5m invested in shares in tobacco firms.

The paper says the council “tried to obstruct publication of its holdings in such companies”, and says that £1m of the council pension fund is invested in RJ Reynolds, manufacturer of Camel, and a further £500,000 in other tobacco firms.

This is, it says, in spite of Redbridge having “one of London’s strongest anti-smoking policies”. The council told the paper that it had an ethical investment policy, but did not “fetter the discretion” of its investment managers.