We are sharing the WFCS Campaign against Waltham Forest Council’s excessive housing targets and request you take part in the actions suggested if you are a Waltham Forest resident:
The Council’s proposed Local Plan sets a “requirement” of 1800 new dwellings to be built each year.
The Plan is intended to apply for 15 years, making a total of 27,000 new dwellings in Waltham Forest. The requirement imposed on Waltham Forest by the Government and the London Plan is 1264 new dwellings per year. The excess (536 extra new dwellings each year for 15 years) is being chosen by the administration of Waltham Forest Council.
The Planning Inspectorate has refused to approve the proposed Local Plan, questioning the target of 1800 new dwellings per year. The Council intends to submit a revised version in mid-September, but with the same target of 1800 per year.
The months between now and September are an opportunity for residents to persuade elected Councillors to reject the higher target and for the Council to adopt the lower target of 1264.
Why does this matter?
The Council’s proposals involve allowing developers to build tower blocks on almost every possible site in Waltham Forest. Below is a map which the council intends to submit with its revised version in September: it shows the locations where tall buildings (10 storeys or more) would be allowed:
Studies by academic engineers say that tower blocks are much less environmentally friendly than blocks of mansion flats of 6 or 8 storeys.
The “Skyline Studies” published by Waltham Forest Council with Part 2 of the draft Local Plan show that many of the tower blocks are intended to be 14 or 18 storeys high. The new tower blocks would:
- loom over the town centres of Leyton and Leytonstone, and intrude on the settings of historic buildings and conservation areas
- be built along the edge of the Lea Valley, walling in the Walthamstow Wetlands and the open land of the Marshes (you can see the plans that affect the marshes in detail here). The worst impact will be from the New Spitalfields site, adjacent to Hackney Marshes and the River Lea, where there will be blocks of flats up to 30 storeys high!
- be built next to Epping Forest land by the Hollow Ponds (“Leyton Flats”) and at Wanstead Flats, intruding on the views from the open land, and they would not allow for gardens or for enough green space for the residents to sit out in, so that the Forest land would be overcrowded and overused.
There may be too little capacity on the main roads within the Borough to take the cars and vans servicing so many extra residents.
Air quality in the borough is already poor and the extra vehicle movements would make it worse.
The Victoria Line and Central Line, and the railway from Chingford to Liverpool St, would not have capacity to take the extra commuters into Central London.
The new tower blocks would destroy the character of the borough. What would be built would be flats that people would not choose to live in, in a borough that they – and the existing residents – would move out of as soon as they could.
Please support the WFCS campaign by sending the following text as an email to your ward councillors – you can find contact details for them by entering your postcode on the Council’s website at:
https://democracy.walthamforest.gov.uk/mgFindMember.aspx
Dear Councillors
I am a resident in your ward at [ADDRESS AND POSTCODE]. I am concerned about the difference between the housing target imposed on Waltham Forest by the London Plan and the higher housing target in Waltham Forest Council’s draft Local Plan and the likely consequences of the higher target for the character of the Borough as a place to live. Partly because of Covid, the Council has not yet consulted residents properly about its proposal to adopt the higher target. I am writing to call upon you to hold a ward forum to discuss this proposal with your constituents, in good time before the Council re-submits its draft Local Plan in September this year.
Yours sincerely, [YOUR NAME].
Thank you for this