Room service arrives in Wanstead

The Wanstead Village Directory April edition is out with the shock news that Belgique – the fancy cafe on Cambridge Park – is now offering breakfast delivered to your door on Saturdays or Sundays.

Prices aren’t too bad either. There’s a minimum spend of £7.50, and you can order either a la carte, or from set menus, which range from £9.95 to £99. The latter includes the Sunday Times and a dozen red roses. It’s not clear from the website (or the small print) how much the charge for delivery is, but apart from that, the only downside is that it’s only available until 11am.

BBC London’s cab visited Wanstead

BBC London has an election cab, and on its first day it visited Wanstead. The team behind it tweeted:

@BBCLondonCab: talking to locals on Gordon (geddit?) Road in Wanstead – feeling here is politicians are all the same…

Meanwhile, according to a Wanstead Guardian article by the inestimable Claire Hack, the polls could be for an upset. According to a straw poll of people in Wanstead, the election will be as follows:

Labour: 0 votes
BNP: 1 vote
UKIP: 1 vote
Conservative: Possibly 1 vote
Liberal Democrat: Possibly 1 vote
Undecided: 1
Abstain: 1

This would obviously be a disaster for Labour, representing a decline from a 48.5% share of the vote in 2005, but of course that was when the constituency had slightly different boundaries, so perhaps that’s what has made the difference.

Wanstead’s Cuckfield Garage unveiled

Some were sceptical when work started on redeveloping the Cuckfield Garage in Wellington Road, Wanstead, fearing that the historic building might not survive the process.

But the hoardings are down, and the resulting mix of shopfronts and flats looks fantastic. It’s thought the underground petrol tanks have also been removed.

The building started life as the stables for guests visiting the Cuckfield Hotel – now the pub – before becoming a petrol station and eventually just a £5-a-time carwash forecourt.

The new premises are being advertised through County Commercial agents.

People still ignoring Wanstead danger signs

Jonathan Lethbridge, whose Wanstead Birder blog has become the main source of information for the country’s media about the deaths of birds at Wanstead Flats, has written that people have still been ignoring the danger signs and barriers around Alexandra Lake.

The bird death saga rumbles on. The stupidity of the local populace continues to beggar belief. I’ve seen families walking past the “Biohazard” signs and stepping over the high-viz tape to go and feed the ducks by the lake shore. Fail. The Corporation had to install proper security fencing to stop them. Personally I’d have let Darwinism take it’s course, but there you go