Still some hope for the Standard Music Venue?

There’s an unexpected glimmer of hope for both local bands and live music fans hit by the closure of the borough’s one remaining dedicated venue, The Standard, in December. It was bought by TFC Supermarkets, a Turkish supermarket chain and the site was boarded up in Mid January. The retention of The Standard was a [...]

£1 Million for lifts at Blackhorse Road station

Thanks to the Higham Hill blog for pointing us in the direction of news that Blackhorse Road Railway station has been awarded funding to install two new lifts. The improvements are being made as part of the Department for Transport’s Access for All scheme which aims to improve access to railway stations. 980k will be spent [...]

TFC Turkish supermarket confirmed for Standard Music Venue

Since the summer the rumour has been that the much loved Standard Music Venue had been bought by a Turkish Supermarket chain, but BAG can now confirm this. Waltham Forest’s only dedicated live music venue – serving the area for over 25 years – is destined to become a TFC supermarket. Where this leaves the [...]

Blackhorse Lane Area Action Plan Meeting + Deadline Extension

If you want to send your views to the council with regards the Blackhorse Lane Area Action Plan, please note that the dealine has been extended untill Friday the 14th Oct at 5pm. The planning department have granted us an extension till then. This was agreed at the meeting we had on Wednesday (5th October) [...]

Umit Supermarket applies to extend opening hours

A piece of planning news from Cllr Clare Coghill: “Hello, I thought you may be interested to be made aware of the below application to extend the opening hours for sale of alcohol at Umit Supermarket. If you have any thoughts on this, please let me know. Licensing Act 2003: Premises licence variation app Umit [...]

Lease on “The Mill” Signed

The former St James Street Library building is now leased from the council for use by the community for the next 15 years (as opposed to sold off to a property developer). HUGE thanks and well done to everyone (and there are so many!) who has made this possible.      

BBC Radio London in Walthamstow

On Thursday and Friday (2nd/3rd June) BBC London broadcast live from Walthamstow town centre with guests ranging from a pink shirted Clyde Loakes to Samantha Fox. Russ Chandler – co-promoter of the long running Walthamstow Folk nights – talked to the Robert Elms show about the probable loss of Walthamstow’s only dedicated music venue “The [...]

Standard Music Venue about to be sold?

Already lacking a cinema, Waltham Forest’s moribund night-time economy could be about to suffer another blow with the loss of its only dedicated music venue? The “For Sale” sign has been pinned to the side of the “Standard Music Venue” for so long now that many happily assumed the gig goers haunt would survive for [...]

£10 million plan to open up Walthamstow reservoirs

The BBC have announced that Thames Water in conjunction with Hackney, Haringey and Waltham Forest Council are hoping to raise 10 million pounds to open up the Walthamstow reservoirs as a nature reserve and wetlands centre. The reservoirs are already open to any member of the public willing to trek down Forest Road with a [...]

Job opportunities at The Mill

After securing access to the former St James Street Library building and a years funding through NESTA’s Neighbourhood Challenge project, “The Mill” now has two job vacancies. The first is for a Community Organiser to provide outreach and organisation to the community, making links, networking, organising events and bringing the community together to make The [...]

Blackhorse Action Group (BAG) – invitation to attend the 2011 AGM

We hope you will be able to join other residents of the BAG area at our 2011 AGM: on: 28 March 2011 at: 7.30pm venue: Frederic Street Community Centre, E17 7LF (Frederic Street opposite St James’ Street station) – see link for map below** Now that we’ve got a real chance of securing the old [...]

Residents Survey 2010-11 Results

It seems surveys are like buses, the national census campaign is underway and last week the council asked for your views on the future of the Blackhorse Lane area. Now BAG can finally reveal the results of its first large scale survey of residents. We distributed over 2000 questionnaires in the area as well as [...]

WFCouncil wants your views on Blackhorse Lane 20 year area plan

Waltham Forest Council would like to know your views on Blackhorse lane and how it can be improved. Theres a PDF of the questions they’d like answered, but this is what they ask you to answer: I like the following things most about Blackhorse Lane: I think the main problems in Blackhorse Lane are as [...]

BAG awarded major grant for St James Street

Blackhorse Action Group and St James Street Library Campaign are delighted to announce that they have won a major grant from the National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts (NESTA). NESTA received more than 600 applications for community projects around the country. Ours was one of only 17 winners. This brings twelve months of funding and [...]

Tesco say “Express store planned for December 2011″

A number of residents have been in touch asking for the latest news regarding the former Essex Arms site, and Tesco’s plans to build an Express store and flats on the site. Since the pub itself was demolished in early 2010 there has been no information about the opening date or when building work would [...]

Trio of upto eight storey flats planned at St James Street

UPDATE: The Waltham Forest Guardian says objections to the plans can be submitted up until the 31st of Jan. “Private company PHCC East London Ltd wants to build a health centre in one of the units with 19 flats above, with shops and 45 flats in the other structure. The application states that both blocks, [...]

Merry Christmas and a happy new year

Edward Road Area Neighbourhood Watch Newsletter Dec 2010

A group of Edward Road residents have set up ERA – the Edward Road Area Neighbourhood Watch. Here’s their first Newsletter: Season’s greetings and welcome to the first issue of ERA, the Edward Road Area Neighbourhood Watch quarterly newsletter for residents living on Edward Road E17 and the roads off it. We hope you will [...]

L&Q postpone Walthamstow Stadium consultation

L&Q have taken a break from organising fixed questionnaires and hidden consultations to accuse residents and elected MP’s of conducting an orchestrated campaign of threats and intimidation. They also portray themselves as working selflessly to give Waltham Forest affordable homes, and attack MP’s Stella Creasy & Iain Duncan Smith as being only interested in campaigning [...]

Residents Survey 2010

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Library campaigners banking on the Big Society

Walthamstow campaigners are racing against the clock to save their former library. And they’re calling on David Cameron’s planned Big Society Bank to back them. Waltham Forest council wants to auction the St James Street Library building, valued at £350,000. But it has given protesters till the end of the year to offer an alternative. If they [...]

Walthamstow Dogs – Independent survey

Having left Walthamstow’s much loved stadium to rot for two and a half years, L&Q recently decided to conduct a survey into residents views. Why they needed to do this when residents have made their views clear time and time again is unclear. Now Save Our Stow- the campaign group for the dog track – [...]

Coppermill Park – update on work

Firstly apologies to all the residents who got in touch back in late May/early June to ask about the new Coppermill play area.  The whole site was strewn with rubbish, while work on finishing it had ground to a halt. Thats before mentioning the completely mishandled consultation process. We got in touch with all 3 High Street [...]

New Willowfield school scrapped

Two months after pupils exhibited their ideas for the new build PFI Willowfield school, the scheme has today (July 5th) been scrapped by Education secretary Michael Gove. All other BSF projects in Walthamstow were also halted. FULL LIST OF BSF PROJECTS SCRAPPED (PDF) While residents were concerned at possible plans for housing above the school [...]