A constituency-wide General Election special edition of the FOCUS newsletter has just gone to press, and will be delivered by our team of volunteers.
Please contact Carl Quilliam, our Parliamentary candidate, if you would like to help his campaign.
His email address is: [email protected].
You can also contact him via his agent, Clyde Kitson, on (010) 8534 2947 or Bob Sullivan on (020) 8556 8335.
You can access an advance copy here: General Election Special
Waltham Forest E-Guardian 8:01am Friday 27th March 2015
Ticket offices at Tube stations across Waltham Forest will begin to close in the coming weeks.
The office at Leyton Station, scheduled to close in April, will be the first to go, followed by Blackhorse Road, Leytonstone and Walthamstow Central.
Closure works take around a month, except Walthamstow Central which could take up to three.
Labour London Assembly Member Jennette Arnold has condemned the move, claiming the move will leave passengers with less staff support.
Mayor of London Boris Johnson’s plan to close all the capital’s tube ticket offices will cost taxpayers almost £134million, Ms Arnold said.
She described the cost as “staggering”.
The £134million will fund additional ticket machines in 27 London stations, four new customer receptions and the conversion of 181 ticket offices for other uses.
Jennette Arnold said:
This argument isn’t about whether staff are based in ticket offices or not.
It is about whether there are enough staff in stations to provide the good service people in Waltham Forest have come to expect, particularly the elderly and disabled who often rely more on station staff for assistance.
The closures in Waltham Forest are expected to be completed by the end of the year.
An application has been lodged at the Town Hall to use the small kiosk, inside the station concourse as a minicab office.
Local traders in Church Lane are already concerned about the number of Gold Line cars waiting for passengers, and feel strongly that there is no justication in increasing the problem by granting permission for a second mini cab operator.
If you wish to express your view you may write to:
Building Control
Environment & Regeneration
Waltham Forest Council
Sycamore House
Forest Road
Walthamstow, London, E17 4SU
Telephone: 020 8496 3000
The entrance to the south site of Davies Laner Primary
The extension to Davies Lane Primary School came into use earlier in March, when Reception and Year One pupils moved from the main building. This will allow further works to be carried out on the main site.
The new building is situated on the south side of Davies Lane adjoining the Children Centre.
The main block on the south site
Liberal Democrats are taking the fight to the Tories and Labour across Waltham Forest. The Liberal Democrat candidates in the General Election are below. If you would like to help the Lib Dems in the General Election then please contact any of the candidates.
mobile: 079847 771 487 – email: [email protected]
email: [email protected]
mobile: 07872 427 778 – email: [email protected]
web: www.stevencheung.co.uk – twitter: twitter@stevencheung
Liberal Democrat Leader Nick Clegg has announced a £150m investment to transform the treatment of children and young people with eating disorders.
Nick has secured the fund in this year’s Autumn Statement and forms part of the Liberal Democrats ongoing campaign to bring mental health services on a par with physical health care.
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The fund will be rolled-out over the next five years and paves the way for the introduction of new waiting standards.
Research shows an increasing number of young people, some as young as five are being admitted to hospital for treatment of eating disorders at a cost to the NHS of around £200m a year.
The new funding will focus on channelling money from expensive institutional care to local provision through:
– pilot schemes to get young people with eating disorders early access to services in their communities, with properly trained teams, making hospital admission a last resort.
– extending access to talking therapies so that children and young people have choice of evidence based therapies.
Nick said:
“Too often children with mental health problems are being completely let down by the current system, with many suffering from eating disorders going unreported and untreated.
“We know that if an eating disorder goes untreated for more than 3 to 5 years the chances of recovery are greatly reduced, while incidents of self harm increase.
“That’s why we need to act now to transform the current system, intervening earlier with dedicated and targeted community-based services to ensure that we don’t fail this generation or the ones that follow.”
Damaged section of Hainaulot Road near the junction with Leigh Road
On 24 December the FOCUS Team reported this doubtful stretch of the higway in Hainault Road near the junction with Leigh Road.
The Team has stressed the volume of heavy traffic using this stretch of Hainault Road and certain of the residential roads in contravention of the road signs.
They have continued to monitor progress and have finally been informed that it should be repaired within the next four weeks.
So far, some tarmac had been laid, but FOCUS is continuing to urge a full repair, and will continuer to watch for any further action.
First published Friday 6 February 2015 in Waltham Forest E Guardian
Last updated 13:27 Friday 6 February 2015
SFW Express in Church Lane
A supermarket has lost its appeal against a decision to revoke its licence after being caught selling counterfeit alcohol and tobacco.
The owners of SFW Express, opposite Leytonstone Tube station in Church Lane, were also ordered to pay court costs of £11,983 at Stratford Magistrates Court yesterday.
Trading Standards officers found counterfeit goods including 242 bottles of wine, 154 bottles of vodka, and 63kg of tobacco In November 2013.
In June last year, Waltham Forest council’s licensing sub-committee revoked the licence after a review. But after the owners appealed the decision, meaning the shop stayed open.
The council is also prosecuting the owners for fraudulently selling goods.
A date for this case to be heard at Snaresbrook Crown Court is being arranged.
TFC Supermarket building in Leytonstone High Road
Published in the Waltham Forest E Guardian
Squatters were evicted from above a supermarket for their own safety.
Firefighters on patrol spotted a number of mattresses propped up against the windows of space above TFC, in High Road, Leytonstone on Wednesday.
They inspected the property and discovered around 40 people living there, in what used to be offices and classrooms of the East London College.
The brigade issued a prohibition notice as the property was unsafe and too many people living in a small space.
The notice said: “The property does not have adequate fire resisting separation and insufficient means of detecting fire so is unfit for use as a residential and sleeping accommodation.”
As police supervised the squatters as they packed up their belongings yesterday, the Guardian spoke to ‘Kamikaze’, who had lived there since December 2013.
The 30-year-old said:
We pay our electricity bills, we have had no issues with the police and we have done everything properly. The council has offered us a hostel for the night but after that we will basically be forced onto the streets.
We even have an agreement with the shop on the ground floor which said as long as we did not make any mess or steal from the shop then we would be allowed to stay.
But manager of the TFC supermarket downstairs, Hasan Altun, denied there was an agreement in place.
He said:
We have had this issue for over a year and we can’t just kick them out, they are so noisy and play on their guitars and drums in the night. It is impossible for me to have an agreement with them. I have tried to be amicable and give them my mobile number, but these squatters are smart people and they will say or do anything to help them stay.
If it is true that the squat is a fire safety hazard then they need to leave, if anything happened to there then it would affect my shop and my business.
The Heathcote Arms public house
A report on the Waltham Forest Guardian’s website says that a local businessman has secured a three year lease to turn the Heathcote Arms, Grove Green Road, into an independent public house.
Businessman Jason Verdi said,
I saw the lease was available and as a local man I saw the opportunity as it is such an important aspect of the community. I want to turn it into a family pub, with home-cooked food and free from the issues it used to have.
I am planning on getting it open as soon as possible, hopefully within two weeks.
We will see what we can do with it for a few years. I will certainly give it a go, but I could not leave it unused.