It’s taken us an age to produce a first newsletter, so apologies for that. The good news is that BAG now has over 120 members and hopes to continue growing and getting stronger.

Contact us or join here.

Without any further ado here’s what’s been happening in the last few months:

FUN DAY

A big thanks to everyone who came to the first Blackhorse Action Group Fun Day a couple of months back.  It was great to see people learning juggling skills, painting flowerpots, making badges, having a go on the ‘energy bike’, and having their face painted by Big Brother’s Carol Vincent.

We hope you also enjoyed the opportunity to find out a bit more about what you can get involved with in the local area, from community gardening and ‘time banking’ (a kind of skill swap) to saving energy at home and campaigning against unsuitable tower block proposals.  We also showed a film about Walthamstow market, raffled off prizes donated by local businesses, but also it was nice just to sit back, relax, and chat to their neighbours over a cup of tea and a cake or some delicious home-cooked Indian food.

We hope to put on more social events in the future. In fact there is a Quiz- and Music evening in the pipeline for September.  If you are interested in getting involved, please email the entertainments working group

FUND RAISING

Would you like your residents association to get some money to benefit the community, bring people together, and improve the area?  What are your priorities?  We would like to hear from you.  There are several possible sources of funding that we have identified, including the big lottery fund, the co-op, and the local West Walthamstow Community Council.  We can bid for anything from a few hundred pounds to up to ten thousand pounds.

The more feedback we have from residents on what YOU feel would benefit the whole community, the more likely it is that we will get some money, so please email us with your thoughts.

At the recent Organising meeting the committee came up with the following suggestions – please tell us which ones you like best, and why, or let us know if you have other suggestions.

·      Gardening tools and equipment to share, plus somewhere to store it
·      Gardening classes / workshops
·      Window boxes and hanging baskets plus workshops to fill them with flowers
·      Tea dance
·      Street party
·      Bicycle racks or a bike shed (where?)
·      A community noticeboard (where?)
·      English as a Second Language classes
·      A guide to the local area
·      A video camera

It would be helpful if you could let us know by 31st July if possible

WILLOWFIELD SCHOOL UPDATE

The council is currently supposed to be investigating whether there are any other possible sites to build Willowfield school, apart from on the green belt playing fields, and this report should be completed soon.
It is also still very unclear whether the Environment Agency will allow the school to be built on the land anyway, due to flood risk, but the council is still pursuing this option.

Caroline Molloy, member of the BAG ‘Development and Planning’ Working Group, said

“BAG has been saying to the council that the school should be built on higher ground, not on flood-prone green belt land just because that land is cheapest.  There are other sites nearby that could be used, including some of the land that is currently earmarked for high rise housing or other development.  We are also sceptical of the council’s repeated claims that the school will provide all the community facilities we need in the area.  We have asked them what facilities will be available for use by local residents, at what times of day, and at what cost, but they are so far refusing to answer.”

BAG will continue to raise this with the council.  If you are a parent, teacher or governor at Willowfield school, we would really like to hear what you think about this – please contact us.

HIGH RISE TOWER BLOCKS

Thanks to everyone who gave us feedback on the high rise developments behind Blackhorse Road tube station. We have received over 150 supportive emails from residents and that consolidates BAG as a strong representative group.

BAG was awarded a grant from The Glass-House, a community-led design charity who have provided us with the advisory services of an architect and town planner.

We’re setting up meetings with Ward Councilors, other relevant portfolio holders and the GLA member for our area. Some meetings have already taken place and Clr. Liaquat Ali has said that he does not want a ghetto in Blackhorse Road and he supports many of our points e.g. a more creative design which encourages social cohesion, the need for a mix-used development as there is complete uncertainty regarding timescales to create a hub opposite Blackhorse road tube station.

A letter has also been sent to English Partnerships, the landowners and we’re aiming to set up a pre-application meeting with them, council and developers.

If you have some time to offer please come and join the Development & Planning Working Group. There is much help needed to leaflet, attend meetings, write press releases, write emails etc and if you think you don’t have anything to offer join anyway and surprise yourself . We meet almost regularly every other Tuesday. Please email us.

BLACKHORSE TIME BANK

You will be pleased to hear that the time bank is now up and running.
A time bank is a pool of people who share their skills to help each other without money changing hands. The rule: ‘an hour for an hour’ strictly applies. For every hour spent sharing your skills you will get 1 time bank credit for which in return you can ‘employ’ someone else to help you with skills you need.  For example: I help you paint your living room and in return I get one hour Spanish tuition from someone else in the time bank. You do an hour babysitting for your neighbour and in return you get some help in the garden from another member of the time bank etc.

There is a person who has the all over view and connects the people whose needs and offered skills fit – the BROKER.

If you want to join the time bank do the following 3 things:

·      list up to 5 of your needs (help with walking the dog, cleaning the house, writing a letter etc)

·      list up to 5 of your offers (teaching German, cooking, organisational skills, doing the shopping for the old lady from across the road etc)

·      send your lists with your contact details to the broker:

Anyone can join the time bank who is willing to commit themselves for one year to do something at least once a month through the time bank.

People are assets 
the real wealth of any society is its people. Every individual has valuable experience, skills and connections to contribute to the wellbeing of others in their local community.
Working together 
We need each other. Giving and receiving are the basic building blocks of positive social relationships and healthy communities.

Contact BAG’s timebanking group – email

For more information on how timebanking works visit here.

For more information on the London time banks visit here.

WASTE AND CLEANING PROBLEMS

Blackhorse Road area residents are concerned about the quality of street cleaning and refuse / recycling collection lately.  A meeting was held by the BAG Waste and Recycling working group a couple of weeks ago, and more details and further guidance will be posted on that section of the BAG website.

Residents are encouraged to raise any complaints about waste with the cabinet member responsible (email him here) stating also that this is a formal complaint.

OTHER LOCAL NEWS

WALTHAMSTOW DOGS

With barely a month to go before 75 years of dog racing comes to an end at Walthamstow Stadium almost 9,000 people have joined a facebook group to protest at its sale to housing developers.  The current housing slump means that the site is likely to be left to rot for years, and as such an all party group of MP’s are lobbying for dog racing to continue at the track, at least on a short term lease.

Join the Facebook group

ST JAMES ST LIBRARY

Having been heavily criticised for closing the library without any consultation with the local community, the council reluctantly sent out a questionnaire to “some” local people. Unfortunately they deliberately asked the wrong questions and failed to mention the very Library they’d been ordered to consult about even once in the entire survey. A complete sham. Regular open air libraries continue the protest.

Reopen St. James St Library Website

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!

For this meeting we have invited Karen Lyons, the coordinator of all London Time Banks, and Peter Roberts from Mildmay Time Bank in Islington. They will give us an introduction to time banking and advise on how to start up one in our own residents association. Also they will answer all our questions (hopefully) around the whole subject. Everyone interested in this group is very welcome.

For more info please contact: timebanking@blackhorseactiongroup.org.uk

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