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.
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.
The risk is increasing. The climate emergency is not a ‘maybe’. It is now. In July 2022 temperatures in London exceeded 40°C. Meteorologists quoted in The Guardian were astonished by what was happening
“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!
