Save Lea Marshes joined six local groups to march together at the national March for Clean Water in central London on 3 November.
Organisations who have been locally advocating for the River Lea joined forces for the first time to call for urgent government action to clean up the polluted river.
Save Lea Marshes gathers with EcoACTIVE, Leaside, East London Waterworks Park, Sustainable Hackney and local members of the National Bargee Traveller Association (NBTA) before the March for Clean Water
They united with thousands of people, representing hundreds of organisations across the country, in the largest ever demonstration for water in the UK’s history. Participants all wore blue to form a symbolic ‘river’ which wound its way from Embankment to Parliament Square. Marchers demanded emergency measures to clean up the UK’s rivers and seas.
Caroline Day from Save Lea Marshes said, “We have been campaigning alongside other organisations to clean up our heavily polluted local river – which runs through the marshes – since 2013. However, we have seen the pollution get steadily worse over the years, witnessing first hand some devastating pollution incidents which have caused mass fish deaths and lasting environmental damage to our precious river. Since 2021, we’ve regularly tested water samples from the Old River Lea which runs through Hackney Marshes. We’ve seen chemical markers of pollution from run-off and sewage at consistently very high levels. Put simply, immediate action is needed to end this pollution, and it was heartening to see so many people out united in calling for the necessary action from the authorities on Sunday 3 November.”
Leaside and River Lea boaters outside Parliament
Beth Summers from Leaside, a community hub for water-sports, adventure and nature, said “Leaside supports 3500+ people each year paddle, bike and boat on the River Lea through our youth club, schools programme, community groups, adult paddlers and local residents. Our community is passionate about the River Lea, it is a precious resource that brings joy, adventure, calm and transformative life experiences. Yet each year we see water quality getting worse, plastic pollution increasing and biodiversity struggling. Whilst we do all we can to monitor water quality and the majority of people have a fantastic time, some are getting ill from contact with the water. It’s not good enough. Young people and our communities should be able to explore and enjoy our waterways without the fear of falling ill. Leaside is passionate about facilitating community led action and collaboration so together we can create a healthy, vibrant and thriving River Lea.”
Colin Legge, a boater on the River Lea said, “It was great to witness a genuinely co-operative spirit with Leaside Trust, Lea boaters and the National Bargee Traveller Association (NBTA) – that’s boaters, canoeists, kayakers, the local community, both younger and older – all collaborating to ensure healthy waterways for future generations.”
360 capture of the River Lea contingent joining London Waterkeeper by National Park City ranger Michael
Theo Thomas, founder of London Waterkeeper, an independent charity campaigning for clean rivers in London explains why the current system of regulation and enforcement is failing to curb pollution and why the march was so important, “We have all the laws we need in place, the result of campaigns stretching back decades but regulators have not been using them to their full strength. Light-touch enforcement just lets polluters get away with damaging nature. This show of solidarity for clean water means the pressure on Government, water companies and agricultural polluters will only increase.”
Jess Dolan, director of environmental charity ecoACTIVE, said: “The River Lea is one of the most polluted in the UK. It is contaminated with sewage, wastewater, chemicals, plastic and oil. Levels of faecal e-coli bacteria can exceed international standards more than 40 times. We can only imagine the harm this is causing to wildlife. We know that Walthamstow Marshes, a Site of Special Scientific Interest, has been in unfavourable and declining condition for years. We cannot let this disregard for the health of the Lea any longer. Action to clean the river and restore nature is needed now.”
Peter Mudge, one of the directors of East London Waterworks Park, who joined the march said, “Water is the most important element in our plans for East London Waterworks Park. We believe that we can provide clean water for wild swimming solely using natural processes. But the River Lea flows along the boundary of our site, and it has been suffering from severe pollution for many years. We envision a better future where people and wildlife will be able to enjoy the benefit of clean water throughout the lower Lea Valley and were delighted to join other local groups calling for an end to pollution of our precious waterways on 3 November.”
With even more dire news about the plight of our rivers emerging since the march, including the perilous state of Thames Water, we pledge to continue and step up our campaign for clean water for all.
We are gravely concerned by the latest Local Plan recently announced by Waltham Forest Council. If enacted, there will be a number of new large-scale developments, mostly tall high-rise buildings, in areas adjacent to the marshes. An additional nine-thousand residents could be housed in the most overcrowded and deprived part of the borough, with its already overstretched services and overburdened green spaces, including the Site of Special Scientific Interest on Walthamstow Marshes.
We encourage everyone to object to these wholly unsuitable plans which we will summarise here (with images) so you don’t need to trawl through hundreds of pages of documentation.
Draft Local Plan overview
Lea Bridge strategic area in LP2
There are significant changes from the Draft Local Plan. When the Draft Local Plan, LP1, was first presented it did not show the western end of Lea Bridge Road as part of the Lea Bridge Strategic Area (map on left).
A change appears to have been made in the closing stages of the LP1 modifications process after the main consultation had ended. The line marking the Lea Bridge Strategic Area has been carefully drawn to cut across the Thames Water Depot site, designating the eastern part of the site where the proposed secure facility for children would be built as part of the Strategic Area and excluding the footprint of the heritage buildings (map above right).
This appears to have happened after the proposal to build a secure facility for children on this part of the site was first publicly known. The change was not included in the draft LP1 consultation and associated inspection. It only cropped up in the ‘modifications’ stage when minor changes were being negotiated with the planning inspectors after they had regrettably dropped their earlier objections to LP1.
The current LP2 consultation does not include any allocations for this site. However, Waltham Forest Council’s support for a secure facility for children, which would be built on this eastern part of the site, was recently expressed at a full council meeting by council leader Grace Williams. Williams is one of the directors of the London Councils consortium that desires to create London’s first ‘secure children’s home’ at this location. Including this section of the depot site in the Strategic Area seems to be designed to enable the planners to treat it as a development site, an important deviation from the original Local Plan.
The eastern part of the site is where the filter beds from the former Lea Bridge Waterworks are buried. The area outside of the development line is where the heritage buildings are located. So dividing the site in this way would be a back door means of ruling out the possibility of creating East London Waterworks Park at the Thames Water Depot site.
It is interesting to note that the planning application for the secure children’s home was held back just at the time this LP2 consultation got under way. The planners may view the planning application as more likely to succeed once this LP2 process is over and the status of the Lea Bridge Strategic Area is confirmed.
Anyone who supports East London Waterworks Park should object to Local Plan 2. If the other developments proposed for the surrounding area are built, the population of the area will be massively increased, as will the pressure on local green and blue spaces. This area has the worst health outcomes in the entire borough. Even without these developments, the park will be essential to support the health and well-being of the local population.
Borough site allocations marked in red
Some of the new areas allocated for residential development are in close proximity to East London Waterworks Park and in immediate proximity to the Waterworks area in the Lee Valley Park. Included for the first time are significant housing developments at Rigg Approach, Lammas Road and Orient Way.
These previously industrial areas are now earmarked for tall residential buildings. This is in addition to the tall buildings proposed all along the eastern side of Walthamstow Wetlands, the already-approved Lea Bridge station sites, New Spitalfields and Leyton Mills (as can be seen from this map).
Buildings of ‘3-20 storeys’ are considered ‘appropropriate’ for Rigg Approach and Lammas industrial area, whilst the council considers Orient Way (which will lose its pocket park to the Lea Bridge development) appropriate for buildings up to ’15 storeys’ high. It plans high-rises of ’18+ storeys’ for Lammas Rd and Rigg Approach!
390 new homes are proposed for Rigg Approach and 240 homes for Lammas Road. The Local Plan does not include any new provision for health and social services for this influx of new residents to the area. Lea Bridge and Leyton have the highest under-75 mortality rate linked to preventable causes and deprivation in Waltham Forest (see graph).
Despite the significant impact of such high towers close to the marshes, there are no visual representations of how these buildings will appear on the skyline, including views from the marshes. We can only surmise this is because this would demonstrate how such construction would significantly adversely impact the openness of the marshes. As Metropolitan Open Land the value of ‘openness’ should be a protected characteristic.
Currently Orient Way is an industrial area which mainly houses one-storey warehouses. It is now proposed as a site for 320 new homes, plus industry. This is in addition to the already-approved Lea Bridge Gasworks development that was bitterly contested by local residents and waived through by a council planning committee blatantly ignoring the environmental contamination issues plaguing similar developments of other former Victorian gaswork sites.
The Lee Valley Regional Park Authority (LVRPA) currently oppose the new site allocations due to the serious adverse impact upon the Lee Valley Park. In their recent internal papers, they state:
At this stage there is no indication that the evidence base underpinning the site allocations have taken account of the Regional Park and its openness in respect of the additional tall buildings designation for these areas.
References to buffer habitat and new green edges and the design and siting of buildings to protect and enhance the openness will not be sufficient to overcome the enclosing and barrier effect of tall buildings in these locations, particularly given the cumulative impacts with consented schemes such as the Lea Bridge Station sites which include residential blocks with heights of 23 and 26 storeys.
If the LVRPA had put up a more robust defence against Lea Bridge Station Sites planning application, it would likely be in a better position to now defend the park against these further intrusive and inappropriate developments planned for the local area.
The inclusion of new areas for development is staunchly rejected in the Authority’s Regeneration papers (RP/85/19):
It is noted that the both the Rigg Approach and the Lammas Road site allocations have been amended to allow for the potential co-location of residential and industrial floorspace.
The Authority does not consider the Area of Change within the two sites to be suitable locations for tall buildings given their location within the Regional Park and adjacent to important areas of open recreational space most of which are protected for their ecological value.
However the new designation for these areas of change as ‘locations suitable for tall buildings’ would open up the potential for tall buildings within the Park, on either side of Lea Bridge Rd and along the eastern boundary of the Lee Valley WaterWorks Centre.
Despite the Site Allocation requirements for public realm and landscape improvements, tall buildings in these locations will both enclose and intrude upon the adjoining open landscape character of the Regional Park and the current visitor perception of openness and removal from the surrounding urban area.
There will be even larger scale developments at New Spitalfields and Temple Mills as per the Draft Local Plan, and the same concerns about intrusion apply. Temple Mills is considered suitable for towers of between 15 and 25 storeys. New Spitalfields is stated to be suitable for towers of ‘between 18 and 30 storeys’, even higher than those proposed for the Lea Bridge area.
Nearby open spaces at Eton Manor and Hackney Marshes (particularly East Marsh) will all be severely impacted by the presence of tall towers and by a very large new population utilising these spaces for recreation and leisure. The impact of pets, increasingly posing risks to sensitive and easily disturbed species, is not assessed for these ecologically important areas.
If this Local Plan is adopted, Lea Marshes will have towers of considerable and intrusive height all along their eastern fringe from Lea Bridge Station to New Spitalfields.
We have previously discussed at length the unnecessary risks involved with this foolish intention to build on floodplain at New Spitalfields during a climate emergency. Even as this consultation takes place, there is serious flooding deluging streets, playing fields and residential areas across England.
Flood risk isn’t seriously addressed in the numerous pages of documentation. Waltham Forest Council merely make the following comment regarding the New Spitalfields site:
V. Mitigate the Flood Zone 2 fluvial flood risk across the site through the use of effective design, siting buildings to the lowest flood risk areas and prioritising vulnerable uses and/or infrastructure to be sited away from the areas of highest flood risk
Quite how this ‘mitigation’ is meant to be applied when there are no ‘lowest flood risk areas’ on the New Spitalfields site is anyone’s guess. The site is all located in Flood Zone 2 and some of it in the higher risk Flood Zone 3 (see image above).
What is the reason a deluge of development should be unleashed upon the most deprived part of the borough and in close proximity to its most ecologically valuable sites? It seems the advantage is simply to drive up Council Tax revenue for a cash-strapped council who have an ideological commitment to growth at all and any cost. With the new Labour goverment very much committed to national residential growth per se, rather than building the right homes in the right places, unfortunately there will be a carte blanche for this type of inappropriate and damaging planning at a local level.
You can read our full submission to LP2 as well as our previous (ignored) submission regarding New Spitalfields for further context and detailed analysis of the inappropriate site allocations.
CPRE London have also objected to Local Plan 2, specifically the unsoundness of the plans for the New Spitalfields site and the Lea Bridge Station sites. The charity also continues to support plans for East London Waterworks Park at the Thames Water Depot and another much-needed community park on currently fenced-off green land east of Banbury reservoir.
Key points to include in your objection:
Oppose the division of the Thames Water Depot as indicated in the Lea Bridge Strategic Area map. There has not been a transparent consultation about the status of this land. Moreover the whole site, which is Metropolitan Open Land, should be retained as open space and not divided in any way. As Waltham Forest Council stated in their planning refusal for the two free schools, the whole of the depot site should be accessible to the public in its entirety. The Local Plan should designate the depot site as East London Waterworks Park – a vital community asset that will improve the health and well being of the local population in the most deprived part of the borough. As a floodplain adjacent to the Lee Navigation and River Lea, the area not suitable for new buildings, including a secure facility for children.
Oppose the allocation of Rigg Approach, Orient Way and Lammas Rd for high-rise residential blocks. These areas should be retained for low-rise local industrial buildings to support local business, and due to their close proximity to the Lee Valley Park and their location in an overcrowded part of the borough, should not site tall residential tower blocks.
Oppose residential development at New Spitalfields. This area is in Flood Zone 2 and 3. It should be partially or fully restored to functional floodplain to improve flood resilience. It is highly unsuitable for tall buildings, and under no circumstances should tower blocks of up to 30 storeys in height be situated adjacent to ecologically sensitive sites of Hackney Marshes and the Old River Lea.
Please send in your objection before 9 October 2024 if possible.
New Spitalfields development threatens ecological and flooding disaster!
The New Spitalfields development is back as part of a new consultation on the Leyton Mills neighbourhood. You can download the consultation document using this link https://talk.walthamforest.gov.uk/leyton-mills-spd
You have until 14th April to comment.
We would urge you to do so.
First, there are some improvements on earlier plans. The absurd idea of building a pedestrian/cycle bridge across the Old River Lea from New Spitalfields to the opposite bank of Hackney Marshes, directly onto the Site of Metropolitan Importance for Nature Conservation (SMINC), has been taken out. Access to the Old River Lea from New Spitalfields is to be prevented by a green barrier along the river bank and the pedestrian/cycle path up the east bank of the river has also been abandoned, all points strongly argued for by Save Lea Marshes to protect Nature.
However, that is about the sum of the good news.
The scale of the development remains much as it was. The whole Leyton Mills area, which includes the present Leyton Mills Shopping Centre, New Spitalfields Market, the Temple Mills Bus Depot and Eton Manor, will host up to 5,400 homes. No breakdown per area is provided. However, based on existing average households this will mean a total new population of around 13,000. New Spitalfields and the Bus Depot site will most likely account for more than half of that number, meaning a new town of around 7-8,000 people right next to the Marshes. Such an enormous site is simply unsustainable in such an important and vulnerable environment.
The document lists “Hackney Marshes and the Old River Lea protected and enhanced for ecology and biodiversity” as one of its goals. It is hard to understand how a new population of this size right next to Hackney Marshes, plus the thousands at Leyton Mills and other developments nearby at Estate Way and Coronation Square, can allow for the protection and enhancement of the ecology and biodiversity of the Marshes and the Old River Lea.
The plan for this enormous set of developments clearly emanates from the same mindset that has given us the much smaller development at Lea Bridge Station. The Lee Valley Regional Park Authority (LVRPA) noted that the Lea Bridge Station development would have a negative impact on Lea Marshes: the growth in population would result in increased footfall, and the tall towers would produce a decreased sense of openness. Sadly, despite being charged with the protection of the Marshes, they kept these findings to themselves in an internal report (see the screenshot below) preferring instead to take the Section 106 money on offer.
The developments at New Spitalfields and the Temple Mills Bus Depot will inevitably entail a far greater increase in footfall than at Lea Bridge Station. Furthermore, the cumulative impact of building at all three sites will create a concrete vista of towers all along the east side of the Marshes (see the graphic below from the consultation document) thus severely reducing the prized sense of openness and freedom from urban intrusion. Exactly how tall the towers will be is not stated but previous documents referred to heights of up to 30 storeys. Much was made of the views over the Marshes in earlier documents, obviously good selling points for flat occupiers and developers. One of the ways that planners attempt to justify such overbearing and inappropriately sized buildings is to refer to them as ‘gateways’ or ‘landmarks’ for our green spaces.
It will, of course, be possible to create the required Biodiversity Net Gain on both New Spitalfields and the Bus Depot as, at present, they are almost entirely concreted or tarmacked over. The negative ecological impacts will primarily be on Hackney Marshes and the Old River Lea. These burdens will fall principally on Hackney. Waltham Forest Council will be the beneficiary, collecting significant additional council taxation from these high-rise developments.
It may be possible to protect the Old River Lea at New Spitalfields itself with a green buffer along the river bank, as set out in the plans. However, it will not be possible to stop people accessing the river and the Site of Metropolitan Importance for Nature Conservation (SMINC) at East Marsh or when they cross the river at White House Bridge to South Marsh. In recent years the river has become popular with swimmers and party-goers. Despite the fact that the number of these visitors has been limited there has been an immense amount of damage caused to vegetation and wildlife at the SMINC on the Hackney side of the river as well as to the opposite Waterworks river bank.
The denuded Waterworks river bank at the Old River Lea
However, if the New Spitalfields and Bus Depot developments go ahead the situation will become much worse. The number of people visiting the river will rocket and the impact on the ecosystem will become quite intolerable. The thousands who will move into these new homes will have the Marshes on their doorstep. It was suggested at the planning consultation held at ASDA that marshals may be able to keep the harm from this additional new population in check. This seems optimistic. It would mean round the clock security at immense cost. PSPOs which have previously been taken out by Hackney Council have had no impact on the behaviour of swimmers and party goers.
Green and blue spaces like Hackney Marshes and the River Lea are supposed to be places for relaxation and the improvement of our physical and mental health. However, they have a limited capacity to provide health benefits when crowded out by tall buildings and when crammed with users and their pets. Placing so many thousands of new residents so close to the Marshes and the river will overwhelm their capacity to meet the needs of the community living in the wider area. Far from enhancing the environment, the new developments will severely compromise the existing and already degraded ecology of Hackney Marshes and the Old River Lea.
Existing transport connections, air quality and noise pollution are already stretched. The consultation document notes: “The Leyton Mills area features significant highway infrastructure including the A112 High Road Leyton, A106 Eastway / Ruckholt Road and the A12. These routes take high volumes of traffic accessing the local area and the strategic road network, and present challenges in terms of severance, air quality, noise pollution and comfort for walking and cycling.” Pouring so much concrete and putting these open spaces under such pressure from users will further reduce the capacity of the Marshes to combat air pollution and city heat. The site will attract new traffic and there will be considerable demand for delivery and other services worsening air pollution. While the plan is to make these sites car free it is likely expensive flats will have to be provided with garage space to make them attractive.
Such an enormous new population will need far better public transport, which may be hard to achieve given cuts in bus services. The plans include a new railway station at the Bus Depot, however, this is by no means certain as Stratford Station is already overcrowded and lacks the capacity to absorb yet more passengers. There is already a serious traffic bottleneck over the railway. If a new railway station is constructed, there will be heavy movements of people across Ruckholt Road to get to the station adding to traffic problems. If the station is not provided, the roads into Leyton will be crowded with people walking to Leyton Tube Station, further stressing the capacity of that station.
The document also recognises this part of Waltham Forest is the most deprived part of the Borough: “The SPD area is surrounded by relatively high levels of deprivation – over 30% of the Lower Layer Super Output Areas (LSOA)2 are in the top 20% most deprived nationally, which is well above the proportion for Waltham Forest or London as a whole. Particular challenges faced by people in the area are access to housing and services, living environment”. The document fails to mention that the south of the Borough is also the most overcrowded part of the Borough and suffers the highest levels of health inequality, which the council claims it is tackling. Yet despite these already desperate conditions of deprivation, overcrowding and poor access to services this is the part of the Borough in which the council is concentrating its development programme. It is next to impossible to improve health inequalities when services will be ever more stretched by such a massive rise in population. Once again this project is simply unsustainable.
Finally, and most seriously, on top of these very severe shortcomings, the greatest risk these developments pose arises from their location, smack in the middle of a river valley. The consultation document recognises this is flood plain and that there is a risk of flooding (as is seen in the graphic below). The sites are not just next to or near the Old River Lea but also the Dagenham Brook, which crosses New Spitalfields, and the Fillebrook which runs between the two sites.
It is known the Flood Relief Channel is no longer adequate to cope with a major flood and has nearly overflowed on several occasions. Cumulative development further north means there is too much hard surfacing and run-off from roads, too much sewage from Combined Sewage Overflows, and too little land to absorb floodwaters all the way down this part of the Lea Valley. A recent upsurge in rain caused the Lea Navigation to flood Hackney Wick and Fish Island and brought the Old River Lea to the edge of New Spitalfields and Hackney Marshes.
The River Lea is already severely polluted. The river is reaching its limits.
Under normal circumstances it may be that some technical fixes can be implemented. The plans propose the following such fixes: “Setting floor levels above flood level • Including flood-plain storage compensation • Incorporating flood evacuation and civil contingency systems.” However, these are not normal times.
Nowhere in the document is any mention made of the often declared climate emergency. Waltham Forest has declared one of these emergencies! These are not sites set back from the river, they are right next to rivers, three of them, all at risk of flooding. If the flood relief channel overflows at the Waterworks the river will be in danger of turning into a torrent as it discharges just north of New Spitalfields. The river is on a bend at New Spitalfields, which is also where the Dagenham Brook joins the Old River Lea, making it a particularly vulnerable point.
“In my training, which was only about 10 years ago, I was led to believe that 40°C in the UK was nigh on impossible, because there are all sorts of factors that should stop that from happening, not least the fact that we are surrounded by ocean. It should be too moist for temperatures to get that high.”
What was considered ‘nigh on impossible’ happened. “Even as a climate scientist who studies this stuff, this is scary.” “I wasn’t expecting to see this [40°C] in my career,” said Prof Stephen Belcher, at the Met Office.
Extreme weather events of this kind are no longer future events. If anything these risks are underestimated. This is not just about heat but about extreme events of all kinds. As Professor Michael Mann, at Pennsylvania State University in the US put it: “This is because of processes that are not well-captured in the models but are playing out in the real world – e.g. the impact of warming on the behaviour of the summer jet stream that gives us many of the extreme heatwaves, floods, droughts, wildfires we’re seeing,” he said. “It suggests that models, if anything, are underestimating the potential for future increases in various types of extreme events.”
These developments are already problematic, given the harm they will do to Lea Marshes and the Old River Lea, and their location in the most deprived and overcrowded part of Waltham Forest. Additionally, such development prevents a sustainable use of the land which could alleviate flood risk and genuinely improve ecology: returning the area to absorbent floodplain and marsh. Once built, this vulnerable development will be there for half a century at least, just as the climate emergency ramps up and things are likely to get a lot worse. We have to expect not just worse weather but extreme weather, including extreme flash flooding.
We are constantly warned against building on floodplain, yet here we are again planning to do exactly that in the heart of a vulnerable river valley in the midst of a climate emergency!
Now the lido plan has sunk, Waltham Forest must provide the amenity of East London Waterworks Park, and finally stand against the tide of inappropriate development engulfing Lea Bridge.
Birds over Low Hall Fields by @low_save
After thousands of people donated to East London Waterworks Park’s successful Crowdfunder, which raised over half a million pounds for ‘community-owned natural swimming ponds’, Waltham Forest Council made an election promise it would create the opportunity for open water swimming in the borough. The charity were pleased – didn’t this mean backing up further their ‘in principle’ support for the plan to regenerate the buried filter beds from the former Lea Bridge Waterworks into one-of-a-kind wild swimming ponds?
It would seem not. In 2022, the council announced that their favoured location for open water swimming was Low Hall, where they planned to construct a lido.
Low Hall was the previous battle ground of a considerable community furore in 2020. Waltham Forest Council cancelled all sports bookings from local clubs in the spring of that year, in order to facilitate Secret Cinema’s attempt to commandeer the space for pretty much a whole summer. And this during the height of the pandemic.
The plans were only defeated by a vibrant community campaign and determined local sports groups, backed by Sports England. Former Mayor of Hackney Jules Pipe, now Deputy to the Mayor of London, also played a rather ignominious role in the whole affair, seeing fit to over-ride all valid objections regarding the London Plan, and giving approval for Waltham Forest Council to have full authority over the application.
This episode is now rarely referred to, but is indicative of hope for co-ordinated collective action. Secret Cinema withdrew their locally unpopular application in June 2020. Clare Coghill, who had never responded to the campaign despite being a local ward councillor, announced her resignation as council leader. She later took up post as a director of a housing development company (London Square) which had been given approval to develop multiple high-rises in Lea Bridge during her time in office, a fact revealed by Private Eye, and fully befitting of their Rotten Boroughs feature.
Low Hall always seemed a strange choice for the lido. Just off South Access Rd, it is inaccessible to most in the borough. It is also located a 1.3mile walk from the Thames Water depot on Lea Bridge Road proposed for East London Waterworks Park. As explored, the sports ground is already used extensively by local clubs. Part of the site is a Nature Reserve and Metropolitan Open Land.
It was also public Metropolitan Open Land (MOL) opposite Leyton Marsh that was seized by Thames Water in the 1980s to create their fenced-off depot on Lea Bridge Rd. The company were responsible for demolishing many of the outstanding heritage buildings that survived from the East London Waterworks Company era. The site was eventually sold to the Education Funding Agency for an eye-watering £33m (plus VAT). Waltham Forest Council did not require the school places that would have been provided by the two free schools proposed at that location, and wisely refused the developer’s application in 2019. However, part of the council’s refusal was predicated on the defence it made of the site’s status as MOL. The campaign to create East London Waterworks Park – a genuinely nature-rich and community-owned amenity – began in earnest that same year.
Sadly, Waltham Forest Council are part of the Pan London Vehicle (PLV) of London councils that are intending to lodge another planning application, this time for a secure facility for twenty-four children on the plot of land where East London Waterworks Park is proposed.
After the council refused the application for the schools, we were briefly hopeful that they would defend our protected land in the area. However, the council’s planning committee gave permission for the new double-sized ice centre on Leyton Marsh in 2021, despite a viable alternative location existing in Leyton, at Eton Manor. The Lee Valley Park Authority and Waltham Forest Council favouring Eton Manor for the new facility would have meant we didn’t have to endure the loss of valuable and contiguous green space.
Ever since we started campaigning for our marshes to remain open and green, we have met with many obstacles to openness, wildness and freedom, usually in the form of private mega-events and over-sized or mis-located sporting facilities. The cumulative loss of open space in this area, given away for the Leyton Marsh temporary basketball facility, Hackney Marshes User Centre, North Marsh Pavilion and new double-sized ice centre, has been great indeed.
But there is the chance to restore public land back to the people and relink the marshes of the Lower Lea Valley. Waltham Forest Council can keep their election promise to provide open water swimmming, defend MOL, and give the residents of the area that they are overloading with tower blocks something in return. The LVRPA can follow their own Park Development Framework and defend the Park they were set up to protect from urban sprawl.
All these authorities need to do is support East London Waterworks Park against yet more inappropriate development; our community will do the rest for ourselves.
In 2019, Waltham Forest Council refused plans to develop the Thames Water Depot site (opposite Lee Valley Ice Centre) on Lea Bridge Road for schools, due to the site’s status as Metropolitan Open Land.
It has now been announced that several London boroughs, using funding from the Department for Education, are planning to build a ‘new secure children’s home’ on this site.
There is already a developed community plan by East London Waterworks Park to wild it, create swimming ponds from the old filter bed structures, and restore the heritage buildings that survive from the Lea Bridge Waterworks era. The plan for the park also includes a forest school, where people of all ages can learn about our natural world. Last year the charity raised well over half a million pounds towards buying the land. Only this community vision for the former East London Waterworks site is consistent with its status and the objectives of the Lea Valley Park, of which it is a part. Once part of historic Leyton Marshes, creating the park will restore this land to open public access, and reconnect the marshes of the lower Lee Valley.
You can also fill in the developer’s feedback form stating your opposition to the proposal, design and loss of our open protected land.
East London Waterworks site map showing areas of the park planned for swimming ponds and habitats overlaid with red line denoting planned development site for the facility
We will be supporting and attending this vital community meeting. The upcoming and proposed developments in the Lea Bridge area will have a devastating visual and ecological impact on Lea Marshes.
Do join us!
Posted inUncategorized|Comments Off on Lea Bridge Community Meeting on 28th September!
We are posting an email sent by Claire Weiss to the Leader of Waltham Forest Council Cllr Grace Williams; Cllr Ahsan Khan, Deputy Leader with responsibility for Housing and Regeneration; Lea Bridge Ward Councillors Shabana Dhedhi, Gerry Lyons and Jennifer Whilby; and to Cllr Jenny Gray, Chair of Waltham Forest Planning Committee, regarding the latest proposal to increase the height of the two highest towers at the Lea Bridge Station site due to the inclusion of additional staircases.
The council is describing this change as a ‘non-material amendment’ to its original planning permission and is maintaining no new planning permission is required.
Original application image showing high rise towers looming over the landscape
Save Lea Marshes considers she makes excellent points and this proposal should not go further without a proper planning process to reconsider this project, given the failure to address these critical matters.
Please share.
Dear Councillors
Re: the Update on Lea Bridge Station Sites
1. Additional staircases should have been designed in from the beginning
The proposed raising of the heights of the towers at Lea Bridge Station Sites is cited as being prompted by the inclusion of additional staircases. I note however that the Lea Bridge Station Sites scheme has long been planned by the Council, in association with an appointed developer, and has had the time and opportunity to design additional staircases without waiting for new Building Regs to come into force. At the Cabinet meeting or 20th June 2017, which was two months after the Grenfell high-rise tower tragedy, I spoke raising concerns about the long-term implications of planning and fire safety in the construction of Motion (97 Lea Bridge Road) and other proposals in the Lea Bridge and Leyton Vision (which included tall buildings at the station). I pressed for construction to be halted until detailed investigations were made. The then Leader, Cllr Clare Coghill being absent from the meeting, the Chair was taken by Cllr Jenny Gray who told me that I should only speak about the Lea Bridge and Leyton Master Plan and no other development projects.
No credence was given to the points I made.
In the meantime, Motion was built with no additional staircases in any of the three towers, and now the LBSS towers have been planned without regard for what happened at Grenfell, in spite of the widespread national reporting and analysis as to why many residents could not escape the dreadful fire that consumed their homes.
2. Raised height of the LBSS towers will impact on residents of Motion and on the life and utilisation of the Marshes
Many original objections to this development, including my own, included the grounds of the height of the buildings. These objections came both from residents who will be affected – and that affect was both noted and overruled in the original application – and from groups and individuals further afield who made environmental objections. The Station Sites’ unprecedentedly high blocks will define the views eastwards of people making use of the Marshes. Adding even one storey to that will amplify the adverse effect because of the interplay of visual perspectives. Crucially it will also impact on that open space’s wildlife habitat, especially the routes of migratory birds. The image above illustrates the scale of the new buildings in relation to Motion and the nearby low-rise buildings. This will cause newly-significant impact on Motion residents’ light, which the Council declined to inform prospective purchasers about in spite of existing local residents raising the issue formally with the then Cabinet member.
3. Environmental issues
I draw to your attention some serious environmental issues. Energy conservation for the purposes of cooling and heating is made more difficult the higher a building rises to the sky. In the case of LBSS towers their isolation on the wide open space of the Marshes means their heat loss and susceptibility to cold wind and hot sun is exacerbated – the top two storeys being the most impacted. Again the image above illustrates this.
I ask whether both the EIA and the Financial Viability surveys will be thoroughly re-examined in the light of this.
4. Aviation
Looking at the Trium LBSS EIA Scoping Report I note that the proposal to SCOPE OUT Aviation was approved on the grounds of LBSS not being within London City Airport Aerodrome Safeguarding area and the tallest building not exceeding +99.3m AOD. As objectors stated originally, this clause in the Scoping Reports omits any mention of helicopters. During the construction phase of the raised towers the 99.3m AOD is likely to be exceeded. I note that Waltham Forest is one of the most flown-over boroughs because of its position under flight paths of three airports, and its proximity to helicopter ports including the roof of London Hospital in Mile End and the Police heliport in Essex. Residents experience frequent helicopter flights over this part of Lea Bridge due to the incidents of accidents and crime in the area and the opportunity for landing spots – for instance the very nearby Jubilee Park has been used by the Air Ambulance more than once and also the crossroads at the centre of the LBSS. In considering that on 16 January 2013, an Agusta A109 helicopter crashed in Vauxhall, south London, after it collided with the jib of a construction crane attached to St George Wharf Tower, when the pilot and a pedestrian were killed, I urge that the topic of Aviation needs to be SCOPED IN.
Conclusion
I believe it would be erroneous to consider the raising of heights of the LBSS towers as an incremental matter since it will incur critical changes to the original plans. I am therefore writing in advance of the planning application during the time that, as I understand it, the design of the additional staircases will be approved as non-material amendments. I appeal to Councillors to take full consideration of the critical points I have made when overseeing the proposed non-material changes.
Regards
Claire Weiss
Resident
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We are staging a swan-themed demo at the opening of the new ice centre. We will be protesting the wrecking of Oxbow island as a wildlife refuge.
Somehow, the swans have managed to raise eight cygnets, despite a range of new threats from the works on the island during their nesting season, however we’ve heard reports that resident otters have been driven away.
We fear that when the ice centre opens, there will be a deluge of visitors trampling the previously secluded island and what’s more – due to the opening of a new cafe – they may well be taking their disposable plastic rubbish there too. So please do come along and make your voice heard for our imperiled wildlife that have already faced so much destruction and disturbance from the construction of a 95% bigger venue.
We’ll meet at the Lee Valley Ice Centre car park, Lea Bridge Road, at 10.30am on Saturday 17th June.
1. Measure the distance between the pupils of your eyes. (The easiest way to do this is to stand in front of a mirror, hold a ruler horizontally against the bridge of your nose, and close first one eye and then the other.)
2. Open the PDF and click “Print”. Set the page size to A4 and the orientation to Landscape. Set the scale to X (%), where X is the distance that you measured in millimetres (mm).
3. Cut out your mask.
4. Affix it to cardboard using glue and then cut out the cardboard round the mask outline.
5. Attach a stick to one side of the mask, or alternatively use the straps from an old face mask and attach them to the side of the mask. Voilà!
This year we’ll be taking a gentle stroll for our biennial Beating the Bounds, following the ancient tradition of blessing the boundaries of the area by ambling around the perimeter of Leyton and Walthamstow Marshes.
Beating the Bounds traditionally involves a walk to mark significant boundaries, like the boundaries of a parish, a manor, commons or another important public open space. This often takes place during Rogationtide, in springtime, when prayers for a good harvest are offered. Willow sticks decorated with flowers and ribbons are carried and used to hit important boundary markers.
This year Rogation Sunday is on 14th May.
We will meet to begin our walk on the towpath by the Princess of Wales pub E5 9RB at 2pm on 14th May.
We will be keeping up the traditions, and sharing snippets of information – past and present – as we wander along. We will also have a special activity for children.
Please wear sensible shoes and bring water. The walk will last approximately 2 hours and will end at Leyton Jubilee Park, although you can leave at any point along the way.
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As we become ever more aware of the value of open green space to our well-being and the state of emergency for our wildlife, at the same time our local authorities seem intent upon the same course of damage and destruction, all in pursuit of outdated ‘growth’ models of development and progress. In the process, Nature is harmed and the public realm is impoverished, whilst Orwellian claims are made about ‘improvements’ that have no basis in fact, let alone public consent. The mountain of documentation that exists, in theory to legislate for improvements in biodiversity and quality of life, ends up gutted of all real meaning or outright ignored. Whilst there are both numerous and infamous examples of this happening at a national level, sadly we are seeing it happen time and again at a local level. Authorities such as the Lee Valley Regional Park Authority (LVRPA) and Waltham Forest Council, that are tasked with protecting our green spaces, end up collaborating in trashing them for profit and leaving us all worse off.
This familiar scenario, which we saw with the construction of the double-sized ice centre on Leyton Marsh, is once again being played out with the emerging plans for Eton Manor (Leyton) and the New Spitalfields site adjacent to Hackney Marshes. Plans are afoot to put increasing pressure on our remaining Metropolitan Open Land (MOL) which should have the same protected status as Green Belt. In the case of Eton Manor, the Lee Valley Regional Park are making efforts to remove its protected MOL status so the land can be ‘disposed of’ for the construction of private facilities. Waltham Forest Council is proposing building soaring high rises on the site at New Spitalfields, right next to East Marsh and the imperilled River Lea. What happens at these locations will have far reaching consequences, not just for the land in question, but for the whole Lee Valley Park. If development is not successfully challenged, precedent will be set for invalidating the statutory protections and privatising land across the Lee Valley.
New Spitalfields
New Spitalfields site (middle right on map, above East Marsh)
One of the most important areas of land, in terms of preserving the integrity of the marshes and local riparian wildlife, is New Spitalfields. Whist it is not protected land, this area, adjacent to East Marsh, has strategic importance for the Metropolitan Open Land at Hackney Marshes. The current ‘vision’ is for its future is blocks of flats up to 30 storeys! There will be huge impacts on the open space from population pressure and development at such scale.
Yellow stars on site map for New Spitalfields indicate proposed high-rise blocks
Despite these patent threats, it has now been revealed that the Lee Valley Regional Park Authority has lent its support to Waltham Forest Council in order to facilitate this vastly inappropriate development next to the Park. This could be a quid pro quo for the council’s planning approval and financial backing for the ice centre, or an attempt to curry favour for future commercial plans at Eton Manor and the Waterworks. As these developments will remove both land and property from free use and public ownership, the LVRPA is perhaps anticipating a negative public response and council opposition. It is reasonable to assume this is why it has lent its backing to a scheme from which it will derive no obvious benefit, but which will jeopardise the ecological health of the marshes and integrity of the Lee Valley Park still further. The LVRPA are fully aware of this, warning of these impacts in an internal report on the much smaller Lea Bridge Station development.
Waltham Forest Council is under pressure from the government’s Planning Inspectorate for its unjustifiably inflated housing targets. Instead of reforming its first version of the Local Plan by reducing the housing targets and removing unpopular proposals for high rises adjacent to Walthamstow Wetlands and Hackney Marshes, it has instead stuck with its original framework. This is where the LVRPA has come rushing to its aid. A joint letter by WF Council and the LVRPA to the Planning Inspectorate on 28th September, expresses “the strategic importance of the [Local] Plan to both authorities” and makes a clear declaration of “support for its adoption following a second stage of Examination in Public”. Whilst much of the language of the letter is obtuse and inaccessible to lay readers, it is nonetheless of great import to the public since the Local Plan will shape the future of planning in the borough. We can only hope that the City of London Corporation, who own and manage Epping Forest, and the London Wildlife Trust, who manage Walthamstow Wetlands, take a principled position and object to the Local Plan during its second stage.
Whilst the Planning Inspectors have not adequately considered the impact on the Lee Valley Park, they have concluded that Waltham Forest’s plan would have an adverse impact on the integrity of Epping Forest. At this stage they have rejected housing targets which will result in unacceptable impacts on the marshes – negative impacts the Lee Valley Regional Park Authority appear only too happy to facilitate. Although Waltham Forest Council is keen to build as many houses as possible, no doubt in large part due to the income generation from council tax revenue, it is hard to see how Hackney Council, who finance the management of Hackney Marshes, will stand to gain in any way from this inappropriate development. Will they side with the other local authorities or represent the public interest and defend Nature here?
Eton Manor
Eton Manor site (right)
Equally egregious are the plans for nearby Eton Manor. A local and regional authority as well as a London university appear to be privately collaborating to remove part of the Eton Manor site from public ownership, despite the site’s important historical role in providing free public access to sports. Eton Manor was purchased by philanthropists to provide sporting facilities for East Londoners, in particular for local boys’ sports, at the turn of the twentieth century. After the 2012 Olympics Eton Manor was supposed to be the new home for the Manor Gardens Allotments, also created by the same philanthropists, which were evicted from their home at Bully Point. That plan was scotched by their former landlords and owners of Eton Manor the Lee Valley Regional Park Authority (LVRPA), who didn’t want any allotments on their land at this location, even though the removal of the allotments from Bully Point was only agreed to on the clear understanding they would be re-located to this site, which already had planning permission, after the Olympics.
Marked in red: Site of potential private development
The LVRPA have been attempting to sell part of the Eton Manor site for a number of years for commercial development and floated the prospect of a 98 bed hotel, gym and associated car park on the market in 2018. Through the determined efforts of veteran campaigner Laurie Elks and our own Freedom of Information enquiries, we have recently discovered the conspiracy between the LVRPA and University College London to re-privatise and develop Eton Manor.
In April 2021 LVRPA Members were briefed that a “hotel is still very much part of the thinking in line with the procurement” and the Authority “was in discussions with UCL and had jointly commissioned a feasibility study and masterplan to look at options for development”.
University College London (UCL) is now collaborating with the LVRPA’s project to build a hotel on this area of Metropolitan Open Land (MOL) and in return it hopes to attain its own private sporting facilities on 2.35 acres of the site deemed by the Authority as ‘no longer required for Park purposes’. So instead of environmentally compatible allotments at Eton Manor, if UCL and the LVRPA have their way, we will end up with a luxury hotel, and sports facilities only for UCL students. This on land originally bought by philanthropists to enrich the public realm and enable local people to take part in sports. The site for the proposed hotel would have been a much more sensible location for the new double-size ice centre now crowding out Leyton Marsh; we believe the only reason it was not chosen was the then-secret plan for its privatisation and sale.
No plans for the site have ever been placed in the public domain and the only information that has been attained derives from Environmental Information requests, released in redacted form only.
It has recently been revealed that it is not only UCL who are collaborating with the LVRPA in their commercialisation plans, but that Waltham Forest Council are getting into bed with them too: “LBWF and the LVRPA have therefore worked proactively togetherto align our ambitions for this site through collaborative work on the Leyton Mills Development Framework and new SANG Strategy. Both parties agree to continue to work together to deliver the opportunities presented by this site.”
The deciding planning authority is currently the London Legacy Development Corporation (LLDC) which will wind up at the end of 2024. Its position on the future of the Eton Manor site remains unknown. However, if the organisation which turned down having allotments (that the public could apply to cultivate) then favours a private built development on site, it will amount to yet another betrayal of local people. We suspect discussions between the LVRPA, UCL and LLDC, in which the public will have no input, are already underway. Waltham Forest Council seems to hint that it may be the deciding planning authority by the time planning applications come to the fore:
“The Lee Valley Hockey and Tennis Centre at Eton Manor, a site owned by LVRPA, is a key site in the spatial and growth plans found in the Waltham Forest Local Plan (Part 1), and presents a significant opportunity…for future investment in sports and leisure facilities.Although it is currently under the planning remit of the London Legacy Development Corporation (LLDC), planning powers will revert to LBWF on 1st December 2024.”
What makes these collaborations particularly dangerous, as well as galling, is that they take place behind closed doors. Valuable information on the proposed future of public spaces is only attained once detailed private development plans have been drawn up and the outcome for their delivery already put in motion. Nonetheless, this is why individuals and groups such as ours spend such a great deal of time attempting to access vital and concealed planning information. Whilst the odds are stacked against us in stopping the commercial juggernaut flattening our green spaces for private gain, previous victories in defending the marshes give us some grounds for optimism in the coming battles.
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