The council have released their Preferred Options Core Strategy, a public consultation which runs until 19 February.
The documents (available via a front-page link on Waltham Forest’s website) are full of bright photographs showing smiling children and attractive buildings. The words are full of optimism as they try to picture the borough in 2026.
Ambition is all very well, but let’s not get carried away. “Award winning, iconic buildings have made Waltham Forest a place where people come to see what is best in modern architecture” – what makes the council think that we can overtake central London in this respect, where the opportunities (and budgets) are greater? We are starting from the back foot, judging by the soulless housing developments which have been approved on a regular basis. When we look to the future, let’s play to our area’s strengths rather than setting unrealistic aims. For example, we are already one of London’s greenest boroughs – instead of taking that for granted with just a passing sentence, why not expand on our good fortune and plan to promote it? The consultation is available as both a 126 page document, or a 26 page summary. However, the response form is an offputting 19 pages in length.
Some choices on the form are easy – do you agree or disagree that we should apply good practice design standards? Ensure access to healthcare? How about agreeing to “provide facilities that are accessible and inclusive to all potential users”? I know that not everyone is naturally as engaged in equality issues as me, but I can’t imagine anyone disagreeing with this question, except perhaps for BNP members.
It’s impossible to read plans for the future without recalling disasters of the past – when I see the option to “resist the loss of community facilities unless the loss can be justified or compensated for” I can’t help feeling that this comes a little late now that the borough no longer has a cinema, for example. I’d like to see them go further – we should seek to repair historical damages. As for a wish to “redevelop under-used sites”, this sounds like something to which it’s easy to agree, until you think of the debacle of the Arcade site, or the defunct Walthamstow Stadium.
In writing this document, there has been no consideration of what will be happening in neighbouring areas. We are asked whether to “promote Walthamstow Town Centre as a key growth area”, but if the choice is Walthamstow or Stratford City, I fear my money will be spent outside the borough. Leytonstone and Chingford town centres could both be protected and enhanced to retain as much local spending power as possible. What is the point of developing Walthamstow Town Centre until you can get there from within the borough by transport other than buses? In particular, step free routes – for elderly and disabled travellers, those with young families, and of course those carrying their shopping home! After all, parking is pretty much limited to Selbourne Walk, and I wouldn’t trust my car to be left in that multi-storey.
The document addresses the borough as a whole, which is laudable but ignores the disparity between posh Chingford (where they have a Pizza Express, although not yet a Marks & Spencer or Waitrose) and the poorer areas such as Leyton (where until Asda came along they didn’t even have a cash machine). Different areas surely require a different strategy, or at least an acknowledgement of that reality and how it will impact on any vision for the future.
For me, one of the key factors in improving Waltham Forest is attracting young professionals with families, so that the demographic changes and people start to demand more from the area where they live. However, pivotal to this must be an increase in the standards of our schools – after all, when young families upsize, they look for a house in the catchment area of a good school, or ideally in a region where they are spoilt for choice. Yet only one question in the consultation seems to relate to this: “Ensure all young people have access to high quality educational facilities” and it is at this point that the vagueness and woolly aspirations of the document are apparent. Your idea of “high quality” and mine might conflict with that of the council – surely we need promises to which they can be held accountable, which fairly reflect the expectations of a dynamic and vibrant Greater London borough.
I love Waltham Forest, and I want it to do well. I’ve lived here for 15 years and plan to do so for the next 15, which takes us to the realisation date of this document. That’s why I’m worried, if it genuinely represents the council’s plans for the future.
The simple fact that there are twice as many questions about waste disposal than the standard of schools may be a depressing hint at how Waltham Forest Council views the future for its citizens.
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