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9 Oct, 5 tweets, 2 min read
Labour Cllrs unaminously voted for only 42 new homes (+more in old building) in one of the best sites in the whole of TH as regards access to transport, parks & shops
Very clear they do not believe there is a housing crisis as they claim
But the C'tee decision last night will
1/
be a wonderful argument against taller developments elsewhere
I did wonder last night how so many tall buildings get planning permission in TH given the arguments the Council made against a tall building on land itself owns
Those arguments can be used against them elsewhere
2/
But I really did want more new homes on this site
We won't solve the housing crisis through such a complete lack of ambition on Council owned land (for the 2nd time this year)
It is also unfair/poor planning to push so much development to quite small

3/
and then resist it so strongly in the central parts of TH which has the best transport links
I am not against development in TH or IoD but it has to be spread out more evenly across TH in order to make it more sustainable
The Council clearly disagree with that & therefore do
4/
not believe there is a housing crisis that requires using all of the resources at our disposal including land to solve
Public Transport Accessibility Level map - redder the colour the better the transport links, blue/purple the worse versus map of where Council want new homes
5/

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More from @Andrewwood17

Andrew Wood Profile picture
10 Oct
Key issues in Tower Hamlets
On Wednesday I wrote to the Councils Overview & Scrutiny C'tee with a list of what I thought the top issues were in TH including fact that TH has the highest number of ASB incidents in the country since lockdown + the most buildings affected by
1/ Image
cladding / fire safety issues in the country + 40% of the Councils income comes from business rates income = lots of closed business in CW estate
I detailed 5 issues that I thought the Council needed to look at in more detail, read here or below
facebook.com/groups/1458438…
2/
a. Care home deaths - how did 33 people out of 68 die in a 6 week period at Aspen Court? what happened elsewhere?
3/ Image
Read 7 tweets
Andrew Wood Profile picture
7 Oct
Not tackling the housing crisis
A thread about the failure of TH Council to actually do what they promise
Last week I read a report about new TH Council housing application on Southern Grove in Mile End where the Veolia depot was (Council own the land) when I spotted an error
1/
It said the site was 12 minutes walk to Mile End tube station (Central, District & Hammersmith & City)
Probably a typo as it did say the Public Transport Accessibility Level was 6a (where 6b best & 1 worst)
Close to two cycle super highways, 9 bus routes within 3 minutes walk
2/
11 minutes walk to a DLR station at Bow Church
In other words one of the best connected sites in TH
Close to two major parks + shops/cafes etc
Easy bus ride to several major supermarkets
And it is 2 minutes walk to Mile End station I checked
So how big is this proposed
3/
Read 14 tweets
Andrew Wood Profile picture
5 Oct
How many people in Tower Hamlets have a car?
Last week @Dan_Bromley_N said 30% in a debate, a number routinely used
Part of the problem is that we do not have any up to date figures but we do have DC1401EW - Household composition by car or van availability from the 2011 census
1/
It says of 101,257 households in TH in 2011
63% had no car
32% had one car/van
5% more then one car/van
=37% had car/van at home
But we do not have breakdown by number of residents so lets look at breakdown by household type as not all households the same
2/
Groups with lowest levels of car ownership
People living alone 25% - but 35% of all households
Students 18% - 2% of all households
Lone parent with children under age 18 18% - 7% of all households
Other households 29% - 15% of all households
= 59% of all households
3/
Read 12 tweets
Andrew Wood Profile picture
3 Oct
COVID-19 in Tower Hamlets update
It is really difficult to pull together number of cases, number of hospitalisations & numbers of deaths in TH from COVID
But although infections up in TH, as far as I can tell nobody has yet died from COVID in TH since June
National picture 1st
1/
Daily number of cases in TH from May to this week 1st pic
Last 3 weeks only 2nd pic
Trend line up but not huge numbers either & the last week is down
But obviously access to testing will affect this but new Shadwell centre has been open for last week
lginform.local.gov.uk/reports/lgasta…
2/
Cannot find recent hospitalisation data for Royal London/Barts hospitals but this graph I did based on daily London wide hospital admissions from 3rd August to 30th September shows an increase but very low numbers for a city of 9 million
england.nhs.uk/statistics/sta…
3/
Read 5 tweets
Andrew Wood Profile picture
1 Oct
Nearly 2,800 buildings register for government’s £1bn building safety fund to fix cladding
282 of them in Tower Hamlets, highest number in the country, twice that of Manchester 2nd highest
TH Council has a list of affected buildings, I have not seen it
1/
 insidehousing.co.uk/news/nearly-28…
In some respects this should not be a surprise we have more tall buildings then anybody else (for which we earn huge amounts in £ from government & developers)
But it does raise issues about why Tower Hamlets has done so little (in public) about tall building issues
It did
2/
do a High Density Living consultation
talk.towerhamlets.gov.uk/highdensity
But that did not really deal with a number of practical issues about how to manage these buildings especially fire & management & when housing association & private share same buildings
Historically @Fitz_xMP dealt
3/
Read 4 tweets
Andrew Wood Profile picture
1 Oct
Last night at the Council meeting we wanted to debate a range of issues but there was no time as it was the Councils AGM although we did debate 2 petitions
So @RabinaKhan, @going4golds & I requested an additional Council meeting to discuss a range of issues incl China & HK
1/
We do not normally debate international issues but this section of the motion makes clear why these issues are relevant to us esp. the move of the Chinese Embassy to Tower Hamlets
Treatment of Uyghur Muslims in China & the National Security law in HK important to us as well
2/
This section of the motion is based almost entirely on speeches made by UK Ministers or Ambassadors at the United Nations
We did not want to be making up our own foreign policy so felt it appropriate to re-use these speeches
gov.uk/government/spe…
gov.uk/government/spe…
2/
Read 6 tweets

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