Wapping Bus gate visit, I went this morning to see it on its 1st day of implementation, had lots of questions but then met nearby 3 Council officers responsible for implementation who answered many of them 1. Black bags over signs & black tape over 4-7pm to be removed today
2. No fines will be charged in 1st two weeks but warning letters should go out tomorrow to drivers who went through today - this is good as gives regular drivers time to adapt 3. Police etc CAN drive through, talked to a Police officer in a car who was not sure @MPSTowerHam
4. Council vehicles i.e. Veolia ARE NOT allowed to drive through but question over community transport buses to be resolved but saw lots of @TowerHamletsNow vehicles this morning, internal comms issues!
5. Saw 9 DHL vans, they have depot nearby but not sure why going this way @dhlexpressuk you need to resolve route 6. Concierge said some courier companies now won't serve Wapping 7. One man who lives by bus gate worried about oxygen deliveries to his wife
8. Did not have time to check other signs but this by Overground does send right message if drivers look but need to check other routes/entrances when black bags removed 9. Other key question is where drivers go instead once fully operational & AQ impact on Wapping & Highway
10. Lets hope @TowerHamletsNow collecting before & after air quality information to inform other plans! 11. Talked to a number of residents on location, supportive of principle of bus gate but not way implemented i.e. residents & taxis not allowed to drive through
One 5th generation Wapping resident said we have never been divided before between east and west Wapping, she was upset 12. Need to make clearer on street exactly where bus gate line as not obvious on the road but clearly marked in map 13. Issues for residents either side tbr
Email the Council at liveablestreets@towerhamlets.gov.uk with your comments & feedback, first review in 6 months now not 18, copy me in on cllrandrewwood@gmail.com as curious to see how this works, so will also visit again later
@LoveWapping @WappingLondon
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This @TheEconomist article is very strange, odd & not really based on much evidence
It also repeats various myths without evidence, misses the big issues, and therefore comes to the wrong conclusions
A 🧵on its inaccuracies
a. no mention of leasehold or commonhold at all ! 1/
b. it correctly says these buildings are expensive which is true but then talks about land value in England as one main reason why tall towers in big cities are expensive
Economist article in black, my comments in red
The main reason why tall towers are expensive is 2/
because construction is v expensive
As evidence this agreement that Westferry Printworks could only deliver 21% affordable housing on a big site agreed by the developer, Tower Hamlets Council & the GLA
Construction costs £630 m
v
Land value £28m
v
Taxes (CIL & s106) = £49 m 3/
The issues are more extensive than @PlanningMag article states
Councillors who made the decision to reject the resident's Yes vote in favour of the business No vote
Incorrectly, used the wrong business turnout % to suggest a higher proportion of businesses voted than residents 1/
Proportionally more residents voted than businesses
Councillors were also not officially told that:
Some of the business votes were illegal (three people voted more than twice)
49.5% of all the business vote came from a single office building
Cllrs also not told that there was
2/
an active Police investigation underway
"amid suspicions of a “possible conspiracy to subvert the referendum”, allegation of multiple voting, and claims that some business owners had exerted “undue influence” to sway the vote against the council’s plan" standard.co.uk/news/london/po…
3/
Problems with Homes of Multiple Occupation (HMO) & why a man died due to Council inaction
A man died earlier this month in a flat fire, had the Council been more proactive and responsive he might still be alive but an attempt to get them to do so in January 2021 was rejected 1/
18 people, primarily students and delivery couriers from Bangladesh, lived in a 2-bedroom former Council flat at the time of the fire, 22 beds were seen in the property including in the kitchen (mainly bunk beds)
2/
The owner had bought the leasehold flat in 2005 but the freeholder was Tower Hamlets Council and the managing agent Tower Hamlets Homes, their arm's length management agency
Neighbours made complaints about number of people & leaks from the bathroom in late 2021 and 2022
3/
New independent private primary school in Canary Wharf planning application
CW Group has applied to build a new 9-storey (thin but tall) nursery and primary school in the middle of Wood Wharf
402 pupils (150 nursery pupils and 252 primary school pupils) and 80 FTE staff 1/
Summary here constructing-london.com/wood-wharf-sch…
This would be a fee-paying school separate from the Mulberry Primary state school already built opposite this proposed new school so there would be 2 schools on site
2/
It will be run by inspiredlearninggroup.co.uk/about-us/about… and would be the 3rd private school in the area including River House & Faraday
I assume CW Group are behind the idea of building a new private school as will generate a long run income and be popular with some of their new residents
3/
Local Plan consultation response - why the Local Plan needs to change
1st round of consultations on the new Local Plan ended on Wednesday - 2nd round of consultation should be later this year after they publish the draft policies
I wrote a 13 page response to it raising some 1/
of some of my issues with it & planning here in general
Fundamentally the objective of recent London and Local Plans has been to push most development in Tower Hamlets to Aldgate, Aberfeldy, Isle of Dogs including Blackwall & other parts of Poplar 2/
Development in most of the rest of Tower Hamlets is discouraged even when they have better transport links and better infrastructure than the growth areas listed above 3/
I went to the @ConHome Defence & Security Conference today
Several questions from audience about what will happen in Ukraine
All those who answered said, they don't know the outcome
That assumes Britain has a passive role
Britain could determine the outcome by helping Ukraine 1/
More western weapons would put Ukraine in a stronger position to win
(in the same way western support helped USSR defeat Nazi Germany) @BWallaceMP mentioned 250 vehicles sent by Britain
But Ukrainians crowdfunded to buy 101 ex-British Army armoured
vehicles themselves
(Ukrainians in UK find this harder to do as UK donation websites won't allow similar campaigns in the UK to buy 'weapons')
That we had 101 retired armoured vehicles incl. ambulances ready to go but were on the open market for sale suggests Britain not as
3/