Bethnal Green and Bow Conservatives

East London Advertiser has run articles two weeks running about a clash between Tower Hamlets Chief Executive, Martin Smith, and the council’s political leader Lutfur Rahman (Labour). It appears Martin Smith is being forced out of office at great public expense. It is on the Advertisers front page on both 11th and 18th June 2009 issues

The Advertiser also has article headed “Labour HQ seizes local party’s crisis-hit selection process” – see the online version of The East London Advertiser here. The Advertiser says Tower Hamlets Labour Party was placed under “special measures” three years ago. Because the problems have yet to be resolved Labour HQ will not allow the local party to select council candidates at the next election. The article makes for a very enlightening read, whatever your political colour.

You would be unlikely to read about any of the above in East End Life! If you really want to know what’s going on in Tower Hamlets get the Advertiser.

Boris recently unveiled proposed routes for the first two of London’s twelve Cycle Superhighways – the corridors for cyclists that are a key part of his policy to stimulate a cycling revolution in the capital.

The two pilot routes, which will be up and running in May 2010, are from South Wimbledon to Bank via the A24 and A3, and Barking to Tower Hill via the A13 and Cable Street. The Mayor and TfL are consulting closely with the eight boroughs that the routes will run through.

The aim of the Cycle Superhighways is to provide safe, direct and continuous routes into central London from the outer boroughs, making life easier for cyclists and encouraging those who travel into work by other modes of transport to commute by bike, helping to cut congestion, relieve overcrowding, and cutting emissions.

Another ten routes, spanning across London and greatly improving the capital’s cycling infrastructure, are being developed ahead of 2012, with each route covering between 10 and 15km.

The Mayor said: “I’m not kidding when I say that I’m militant about cycling, and these Superhighways are central to the cycling revolution I’m determined to bring about. No longer will pedal power have to dance and dodge around petrol power – on these routes the bicycle will dominate and that will be clear to all others using them. That should transform the experience of cycling – boosting safety and confidence of everyone using the routes and reinforcing my view that the bike is the best way to travel in this wonderful city of ours.”

Link to map; http://www.london.gov.uk/news/docs/cycle-superhighways-map.pdf

Tower Hamlets Labour Party continue to abandon all guidelines and ignore local residents, as they push ahead with turning our borough into Concrete Hamlets. Time after time, out-of-context plans are approved, despite objections by local people and opposition from other councillors.

Most recently, the City Pride plan was approved on the Isle of Dogs, with a record level of density that will see 430 apartments and a 200-room hotel squeezed into a tower block on the site of an existing pub! Conservative Cllr Phil Briscoe spoke against the proposed density that is almost 4-times that of the council guidelines and said “This level of density even far exceeds cities such as Mumbai, Shanghai and Sao Paolo.” At the same meeting, Labour councillors re-affirmed their support for building a tower block on the current Roman Road supermarket site.

Tower Hamlets has only 50% of the green space required for so many people, yet the Labour Party are intent on building ever more, regardless of our quality of life. Local people are rightly fed up with this and are saying “enough is enough”!

In the latest twist, Labour councillors have changed the start time of planning meetings from 7.30pm to 6.30pm, without any proper notification for the public. Local residents turning up to the meeting last week were justly outraged to find it was already over. Conservative planning committee member Cllr Shirley Houghton said “This is just another cynical attempt to keep residents away from planning meetings. At a time of so many controversial schemes, the council should be making it easier for residents to attend meetings, not more difficult.”

Despite the fact that Conservative Mayor Boris Johnson has frozen the GLA precept, Labour run Tower Hamlets have taken the decision to increase our Council Tax by 2.3%. This at a time when many people are hard pressed. Our Conservative Group have presented an alternative budget which would decrease the Council Tax by 1%, whilst still spending more money on housing and making our Borough cleaner and safer.

This current Labour administration in Tower Hamlets has a history of wasting our money. A prime example of this is the amount of money they spend on East End Life. Not only do the Council spend our money producing a Labour propaganda sheet, which employs an indeterminate number of people at the Town Hall. They then also, at our cost, send round a never ending number of people to our doors to check that we are receiving it. How much does this whole machine cost? The sad truth is that they are undermining our genuine local newspaper The East London Advertiser. This waste of public money has to stop.

Proposal to build 208 flats on the former Safeway car park.

The Labour dominated Strategic Development Committee passed the duplicate planning application on 15th April 2009.

This is despite the 550 objection letters and 2,500 petition signatures against the development that were sent to the council. Claire Palmer, Alan Tucker spoke on behalf of residents against the development and Cllrs Phil Briscoe and Tim Archer also spoke against. The strange circumstances of the duplicate application brought the council into disrepute by getting a mention in Private Eye.

Tesco have said that if the development is built they would be interested in occupying the retail space beneath the 10 storey tower block in 2012.

Developers have reduced the price of one-bedroom flats to £264,600. Residents believe that the scheme is not financially viable.

Latest news on plans to build 208 flats on the former Safeway car park in Bow.

Planning permission was granted late last year. No Environmental Impact Assessment was carried out and solicitors acting for residents believe there should have been an EIA. Following threats of a Judicial Review the Council are putting through a DUPLICATE planning application. It is on the agenda for the Strategic Development Committee on 2nd April 2009. They have done nothing to address the legal faults with the previous documents. No EIA has been carried out. At first residents were mystified by this, but now realise that it’s an insurance policy.

The Judicial Review threat is against the previous application. If the Council put a new identical application through the JR process will have to start all over against the new application number. This is hardly the best example of democracy in action. The six Bow Labour councillors should be ashamed of themselves.

Only 22 objections have been received against the new application and the Council is saying the previous 1,000s of objections don’t apply. Councillor Phil Briscoe has got the deadline extended to noon Weds 1st April so please get those objections in ASAP. They’ll be listed in an addendum to the minutes. The plans still involve building a 4/5 to 10-storey development of 208 flats on the entire car park. There will be only 30 pay and display visitors spaces.

2000 people signed petitions and hundreds more wrote individual letters protesting against the original proposal – an unprecedented level of objection, which deserved serious consideration. This was ignored by Labour Councillors – and the original objections will not count in this latest “consultation”.

• Visually it will do nothing to enhance the area as it will be built right out to the car park wall along Anglo and Cardigan Road. It would be over twice the height of the Lord Cardigan and will look like a huge fortress has been dumped on the area. A 10 storey tower block would rise out of it in Vernon Road.
• The current car park would be replaced by just 30 pay and display places in an underground car park. This is nowhere near enough, and will kill off the shops and market.
• It is claimed the retail element (a small Metro & 2 small shops) will deliver 125 full-time jobs.
• Transport: articulated lorries are supposed to travel north up Cardigan Road, through no entry signs and turn left down the middle of a street market

Everyone wants a supermarket and the plan includes a food retail space. This is being used by developers to negotiate the best deal for themselves. They are putting pressure on the Council to agree the plans. People are saying that Tesco are interested in a Metro sized store but the Council cannot guarantee that Tesco or any other chain will take on the space. This site will take at least 30 months to build and during that time huge changes can happen to a company’s objectives, ownership and financial standing. It didn’t take Morrison’s long to shut our local Safeway.

There is a danger that Bow will be blighted for years to come by a totally inappropriate development because of promises of a supermarket that either fails to materialise, or that opens and then closes two years later.

This proposed development would have a negative impact on Bow by removing a lot of car parking space. It will force shops and the market to close. Residents adjacent to the site would be facing a huge brick wall. It destroys an open space that could be used for something much more imaginative. This is too high a price to pay for the promise of a small supermarket.

If you agree with us please write to:

Tower Hamlets Planning Department
Mulberry Place
5 Clove Crescent
London E14 1BY

Quote reference PA/09/00203&209 2 Gladstone Place

Make it clear that you are objecting and explain why. The scheduled Strategic Development Committee meeting on Thurs 2nd April has been cancelled because of the Town Halls proximity to the G20 meeting. The plans will probably come to committee on 15th April.

There is more about this meeting on Phil Briscoe’s blog.

Richard Barnes – London’s Deputy Mayor visits Bethnal Green and Bow Conservatives

On Wednesday 18th March Richard Barnes, London’s Deputy Mayor, made the journey to Bethnal Green to give an insight into the GLA under Boris and the Conservatives.

Richard, in his entertaining talk, said that Boris Johnson’s greatest legacy would be financial probity. He said the Conservative administration has already saved people money in these difficult times as they have ensured that the GLA precept for the year 2009/10 is frozen. Richard said ‘This Labour led Council in Tower Hamlets has let its residents down. It is totally their responsibility that hard pressed people are seeing an increase in their Council Tax this year’.

Richard went onto say how he enjoyed the diversity of cultures within this great city and especially within Tower Hamlets. He is proud that the Mayor is promoting a large number of cultural events for a variety of communities across the Capital including for the first time a free concert for St. George’s Day in Trafalgar Square on Saturday 25th April. ‘It is important that all Londoners celebrate being Londoners and put London first’, Richard said.

Richard also mentioned that, earlier this month, he had been honoured to lay a wreath on behalf of the Mayor in commemoration of the Bethnal Green tube disaster in WW2. He said it was an example of East End spirit that this awful event was still being remembered today.