The following text is adapted from a speech that Save Lea Marshes was intending to give last year. Waltham Forest Council’s constitution states that any petition receiving over three thousand valid signatures – from local residents and those who work or study in the borough – will result in a full council debate. Yet such a debate was denied last July, despite a successful and verified petition of well over three thousand signatures from local people (in addition to a general petition of over 10,000 signatures) opposing the plan to build a secure facility for children on the site earmarked for East London Waterworks Park.
We recently received news that a review of this plan by London Councils has led to it gaining the support of the Labour Government, who will fund the ‘secure children’s home’ on the Thames Water Depot if a planning application is granted.
On 7 October Waltham Forest’s Cabinet met and agreed to a proposal for the ‘Council’s capital delivery team to join the project as development manager to lead the project’s design and build workstream’. Absent at the meeting was the Leader of Waltham Forest Council, Grace Williams, who previously campaigned to successfully save the site from inappropriate development by the Department of Education. She is now one of the directors of London Councils – the prospective developer.
‘Creating East London Waterworks Park is the ideal use of a floodplain during a climate and ecological emergency, yet London Councils are proposing to build on the Thames Water Depot where the park is planned. Half the site is in Flood Zone 3: the highest risk for flooding events. The remainder is in Flood Zone 2, the next most serious category.
The site once formed part of Leyton Marshes. Considering its location directly adjacent to both the Lee Navigation and River Lea, its vulnerability to flooding events is obvious. Last year the Lee Navigation burst its banks at Hackney Wick and the Old River Lea also came very close to bursting its banks; the very high level of the river was sadly sufficient to destroy the kingfisher nests. Whilst this year we’ve seen record-breaking drought, the Flood Relief Channel has been very close to exceeding capacity on several occasions during the last few years.
It’s now unequivocal: climate change is not a future proposition, it’s today’s reality. Climate instability is worsening at an alarming rate and with it will come the increasing frequency of extreme weather events such as flash floods, already witnessed in Waltham Forest. Heavy rainfall in the summer of 2021 overwhelmed the drainage network and resulted in more than £16.4m in flood damage in the borough. Waltham Forest Council claims it is acting to prevent future damage and loss.
Yet building on the site of a former waterworks will be incredibly costly, require considerable environmental engineering to attempt to mitigate increasing flood risk, and even then, may well not be effective. Whilst we are not experts on child safety, we can say that placing them at further risk: making them vulnerable to the risk of flooding where they are meant to be safely housed, is wrong.
East London Waterworks Park’s use of the site benefits from the addition of water. In the park water will be an asset, not a risk. The currently buried filter beds on site have the potential to store 26,000m³ of rainwater, creating natural swimming ponds and new wetland habitat, massively increasing flood resilience the most effective way, through natural mitigation. Rainwater could be harvested to create beautiful gardens for growing, learning and observing nature. The creation of wild swimming ponds could provide the open water swimming provision that the council promised local people and has so far failed to deliver.
Before the election Labour announced that ‘local communities would be given the right to buy up derelict eyesores and turn them into parks’ under a Labour government. Thousands of people, many of them local, have generously donated to create such a park. Thousands of local children, living in a deprived part of the borough, could benefit from access to abundant green space and a forest school.
A huge number of new high-rises are planned for the Lea Bridge area, including on the former Lea Bridge Gasworks and close to Lea Bridge station. With all these new developments there will be a significant increase in population, yet the existing pocket park at Orient Way is earmarked for destruction. There is evident need for a brand-new park with expertly co-designed blue and green spaces. As well as being what the community desires, it’s what the council needs to fulfil its own Local Plan commitments.
We understand the times we are living in and what is required of us, so we desperately need to work with Nature, not against it, before it’s too late. Waltham Forest Council has declared a Climate Emergency, yet it looks certain to rubber-stamp a development on protected land that could easily go somewhere more appropriate.’