Thanks to everyone who showed up for our community garden/harvest celebration on the Douglas Eyre playing fields.
The apple press was a particular hit with the look on some of the kids faces when the juice poured forth worth putting the event on for alone. The BBQ didn’t kill anyone, and the apple bobbing was as ever a reliable bit of fun.

Many residents discussed options for the community garden, including taking part in a PASE exercise.  PASE stands for plant, animal, structure, event – with people writing their choice for each on a post it note (i.e. what events could be held, what animals could be kept, what structure built).

The prize for the most outlandish animal suggestion goes to whoever said we should keep an elephant!

Those not chatting, quaffing juice, or manning the bbq were busy building a compost heap (below).
Made from used palettes – kindly donated from a company down by Tottenham Hale – its a first step towards a working community garden.

By the end of the day, limbs were aching and hands unused to a hard days work blistered but hopefully its the first of many events.

If youre interested in anyway in helping with the community garden whether that’s planning, or the digging when its set up, please email foodgardeningandenvironment@blackhorseactiongroup.org.uk.

Thanks must go to the Hornbeam Centre’s fruitpicking project for the use of their wonderful Apple and Pear press.  For details on how to help out with their project visit the website.

There’s a sort of stream of consciousness account of tonight’s Walthamstow West Community Council meeting on Twitter. Check out http://twitter.com/BlackhorseAG. Hopefully there’ll be a fuller write-up soon…

• Cut household bills                          • Make new friends
• Environmental benefits                    • Health benefits
• Visits to eco-houses

No one can do everything – but we can all do something!

BAG is currently recruiting for 2 EcoTeams to start Mid-November. There are only 6 more spaces to fill – first come first served.

EcoTeams are free to all residents in the Blackhorse Road area.

What is an Eco Team?
An EcoTeam is a group of 6-8 local people who meet once a month for five months to learn simple yet effective ways of conserving household energy and reducing bills while helping to save the planet. Small changes can make a big difference by living more sustainably.

What is involved?
Meetings are informal, friendly and are organised to be within walking distance of your home. EcoTeam participants meet to discuss choices for shopping, energy, transport and water – and you can try the ideas that appeal to you.
You also monitor how much rubbish & recycling you generate and your domestic use of energy. You’ll receive our information folder filled with tips, facts and internet links to help you and your team members.

How much time will it take?
About 2 hours a month, including the meetings and measurements.

Does it work?
Yes! Past teams have achieved great environmental savings:
Waste – 20%, Gas/heating – 21%, Electricity – 7%, Water – 15%
Household annual average saving of £148

Joining an EcoTeam
If you want to be part of an EcoTeam, just let us know your details and you will be invited along to a short initial meeting. The local team leader will show you a DVD and explain how the EcoTeams initiative works in your area. You then decide if you want to participate. It’s as simple as that and, remember, it’s free.

To join or to find out more
Please email Irina

National website: www.globalactionplan.org.uk
Registered charity number 1026148

Read the Walthamstow Guardian’s report here

Visit the Chair Phil Herlihy’s site for his view of what went wrong on the night

Save Our Stow put together this handy guide to help but phone WF on 020 8496 6775/6777/6774/6773 if you’re stuck

1. Go to this page: http://walthamforest-consult.limehouse.co.uk/portal
2. Register as a private individual with your name and email address. You’ll get a confirmation email which will allow you to log in.
3. Look at the bottom of the page for the document marked ‘Core Strategy Issues and Options’
4. Click on the link marked ‘Core Strategy Issues and Options’ and then click ‘Read Document’
5. Scroll to the bottom of the page and click ‘Next’
6. The document outlines the options facing the borough for the future and gives you points to ‘Add Comments’ throughout.
7. When you get to a page which is pink and blue, click ‘Add Comments’ – below the comments box is a summary of the options and issues and a summary of some options.
8. Please fill in the comments part of the form with anything you feel relevant. Select options A,B,C or D etc where you feel they are appropriate. You can select more than one at a time.
9. You can make comments and select options in Chapters 3 to 11.
10. When you finish writing each comments for each section, press ‘Submit’.

The document takes about half an hour to an hour to fill in but you can always fill in whats most important to you first and then return to it.

The following points may be of relevance:
Issue 3.1 – A locally distinctive borough
Issue 3.5 – Flood risk
Issue 5.1 – Sustainable Economic Development (Walthamstow Dogs is one of the biggest employers in the borough)
Issue 8.4 – Access to social and community facilities

45 GRAND TO SPEND

If you had a few thousand pounds to improve your area, what would you spend it on? That was the question put to residents at the Walthamstow West Community Council this month. Each of the four wards in Walthamstow West have £10,000 to spend this year, along with an extra £5,000 to spend on projects that cover the whole ward (Total: £45,000).
Residents have until June the 23rd to submit their ideas (see here for details). In previous years the money’s gone on projects as diverse as Basketball hoops for kids to a charity providing motorised scooters for the elderly. So what would you spend up to £10,000 on? You can suggest smaller ideas, i.e., ten £1,000 ideas might get chosen.
A youth project? Benches for the town centre? Its up to you.

My own unnecessarily flippant suggestion was a fish tank for St James Street Library – the one in the main library was a snip at £7,263 – there’d even be a few thousand left over for … oh what’s that other thing libraries are meant to have…?

Groups can apply for funding for projects which will benefit residents, with a deadline of August 4th.

BLACKHORSE ROAD NEWSLETTER

One resident brandished a copy of the June “Blackhorse Lane Newsletter” (Read here) and questioned why the council were forcing “super-high density” tower blocks into the cramped space by Blackhorse Road tube (with no community space or gardens) when redevelopment’s at Sutherland Road & Paper Mill boasted community gardens, and much lower heights.

WILLOWFIELD SCHOOL

At a previous community meeting BAG asked why the council preferred building the new Willowfield School on a greenbelt flood plane (Douglas Eyre Playing fields) rather than at sites opposite its present location or on the same site as the George Monoux College?
Simon Newland, Head of Capital Strategy & Planning has this reply:

The Council has undertaken an extensive search for sites, which meet requirements for a school site for a 900 pupil school. This search is continuing. One criteria is that the site is reasonably close to the current school site. Monoux College is not. All the land adjoining the current Willowfield School site is heavily developed and owned by a range of different parties. The Douglas Eyre Playing Filed has a number of disadvantages, but in terms of location and access to open space and playing fields, would be very suitable for a school.
We have provided thousands of pages of information to various local residents under Freedom of Information Act, linked to the Blackhorse Lane Action Group.

BIG SCREEN / BIG NOISE?

Not content with chairing the community council, Philip Herlihy also knocked up an “artists impression” of the big screen planned for the grass by the children’s play area in Walthamstow Town Square. Despite 39 letters of objection, the screen was conditionally approved this week although planning permission is only until the Olympics.
The 7am to 11pm operating hours were rejected, and new times will now have to be resubmitted (I imagine the operators submitted such ridiculously long operating times in a bid to look as if they are being flexible by cutting them down).

BLACKHORSE ROAD CYCLE RACKS

At Januarys Community Council meeting Stella Creasy asked if Tfl could both install more and fix the existing cycle racks at Blackhorse Road tube station. A resident expressed his shock at the council’s response that a secure shed would cost a quarter of a million pounds!!

Here’s the response in full:

Gina Harkell, Principle Transport Officer:
We could replace the existing stands with Sheffield stands but we have been bidding for funding from TfL every year for the past four years for a secure bike shed here. One of our arguments is the poor condition of existing bike stands so we are loathe to put in new ones as this will reduce the strength of our argument. We think our best chance is to build the new shed with Section 106 funds as part of Blackhorse Lane regeneration. A secure shed would cost about £250,000 as it would need to be built on the embankment.

Visit the excellent unofficial Walthamstow West Community Council website for details of the next meeting, and minutes for previous community councils.

There was so much going on, it was amazing. We had jugglers, a Kids’ corner knee deep in paints, paper and scissors, stalls giving away goodies -even bikes!- right left and centre, face painting (THANKS Carol!) and everyone had a really great time. We’ll post a fuller report and some of the fantastic pictures taken once we’ve finished the washing up!

But right now, a great big THANK YOU to Colin, Keeper at the Douglas Eyre Playing Fields, who made the pavilion available to us for free. We promise, Colin, that we’ll organise that quiz/karaoke/barn dance soon!

And a whopper of a THANK YOU to Irina (and Caroline, Nuria and others from BAG) for organizing it – I’ve not seen smiles that wide on so many kids’ faces in a long time! And there was so much community spirit that we had heaps of people sign up to our initiatives, such as timebanking.

(Oh, and THANKS to the Singh family who brought a vast and delicious chickpea curry with accompaniments at just the right time at the end of the evening, and then helped us carry all the day’s debris home!)

Signing off now, but we’ll get more about Super Saturday out soon!

Don’t forget that BAG is having a right old shindig on 17 May at the Douglas Eyre Playing Fields pavilion.

Doors open at 3pm, and there’s so much to do:

• Fun activities for kids
• Give and Take: bring clothes and books to swap
• Film: The Power of Community
• Discover what’s happening in your area!
• Guided BAT walk at sunset
• Bar
• Musical Entertainment
• Quiz
• Raffle

If you can, bring your favourite dish to share!

Download the flyer! Stick it on a tree near you!

If you are eligible to vote, you should have received your polling card by now. If you haven’t, you can contact the council’s electoral services group here:

Your polling card will tell you where your polling station is. It might also help to check out the council’s map here, and list of polling station addresses here.

Note: as a result of a review in 2007, some polling stations have been changed from what they were. People who voted, for example, at the primary school on Edward Road, will now vote at the Douglas Eyre Playing Fields.

You can see a list of the candidates and the parties they are standing for here.  The current GLA member for North East London, which covers all of Walthamstow, is Labour’s Jennette Arnold.

To find out more, please email: communityandspace@blackhorseactiongroup.org.uk