Ferndale Area Residents Association (FARA)

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High Streets First campaign

FARA responded to a recent consultation about doubling the size of Davies Lane School and using Pastures. Our thanks to all the residents who suggested points to be covered and gave their views. (Where there were conflicting views we’ve gone with the majority.)

NB Should the plan to expand into Pastures go ahead there will be a further more detailed consultation – so please watch out for more news here or sign up for our email service (just send a message to info@fara-leytonstone.org.uk).

Our response on behalf of FARA contained the points below:

“We DO support the proposal for Davies Lane Primary School. Our support comes with the following caveats:

• Any expansion to the Pastures location should include enough parking spaces to accommodate every staff memberthat may commute by car.

• A plan to prevent an increase of school-run traffic into Davies Lane and Ferndale Road should be drawn up and shared with residents, and the level of traffic monitored.

• No temporary buildings (such as portakabins) are used at any time.

• Playgrounds should not back onto residential gardens.

• Playgrounds should also be screened by e.g. a line of trees to ameliorate any visual or noise issues to residents.

• The high brick wall at the Davies Lane boundary should be retained, and also the line of mature trees at the boundary with the back gardens of Ferndale Road.

• Pastures is a wildlife haven, attracting woodpeckers etc., and this should continue, i.e. some “wild” space must be left rather than considering all land for school use.

•  Community groups should be able to continue to use Pastures land for events, including but not limited to Leytonstone Muslim Community Centre for their annual Family Fun Day, Transition Leytonstone for their annual Birthday event, etc. A particular effort should be made to provide free or low-cost meeting space out of school hours for local voluntary groups, and for youth groups such as Scouts/Guides and Woodcraft Folk (to compensate in some degree for the loss of the former youth centre).

•  We wish to record our discontent that pressures for more school places are being brought on the south of the borough, when more affordable housing (and hence school places) could in future be provided in Chingford and other areas.”

FARA members may recall a recent consultation on how to use the £170,000 that the Met Police will pay for their controversial police base on Wanstead Flats during the Olympics. A limited range of options was given: FARA favoured restoring the tree avenues in Bush Wood, but the final vote went to relining Jubilee Pond. (People who pass this part of the Flats regularly will be aware this pond is somewhat leaky and prone to drying up.)

The decision has not gone down well with some locals, who think the Corporation of London should have stumped up for the repairs, allowing the new money to be used for something else. See the local Guardian for more on this story.

The Council plans to double the number of pupils enrolling at Davies Lane School from this September, which involves building on the Pastures site to increase the school’s capacity. There are no plans available yet for what the new buildings would look like. A public consultation is happening now (deadline is 5 February) so please feel free to make your own response on the Council website, and if you are a FARA member please let us know what you think as we will be making our own response and would like to hear from as many residents as possible.

FARA is due to meet a senior school governor next week and we will update our members, and this website, with any useful information we may receive.

From the consultation document:

“The proposal for Davies Lane Primary School is to enlarge the school to increase the physical capacity by two forms of entry, utilising the Pastures site. The number of pupils to be admitted to the school into Reception from 1 September 2012, and subsequent years, would increase from 60 to 120. The number of pupils to be admitted to the nursery will remain at 45 full time equivalent places.”

On Wednesday 23rd November the outside / forecourt of the former Lincolns pub will be used for a film shoot, for The Magnificent Eleven film. There will be a fight scene followed by an arrest. Exciting!

Parking from outside 2-20 Davies Lane will be taken by film crew vehicles on the day. After the filming, the building will be left in its new guise as an “Indian restaurant”.

Demolition will now take place in the New Year.

A cat has been taken from the Chillout Lounge without the owner’s permission. An “older woman with short hair” went into the Chillout Lounge, said “I’m here to collect the cat” and took it (we don’t know who she was).

The cat is fluffy, grey and white (part Persian) and is called Izzit.

Anyone seeing such a cat should contact Flash or the Chillout Lounge as they both have the owner’s details. Thanks!

We’ve heard through the grapevine that the former Tyre World shop (used to be Age Concern before) is to become a bathroom and tile shop.

Also the former ‘La Mama’ cafe is being refurbished but we’re not sure for what business yet – if anyone knows already, please drop us a line!

Following sightings of a tow truck operating in our neighbourhood very late at night, our Safer Neighbourhoods team thinks that it may be being used by car thieves. So if you see a tow truck with a car on its back at an unusually late hour, please take the registration number if you can and call 999 to report it.

Spring Clean volunteers with their haul

Today FARA participated in the borough-wide Spring Clean, and appropriately we had a beautiful spring day and warm sunshine. The Council supplied us with litter pickers/sacks/gloves and high-visibility vests, and also a council official to take part alongside us (and get her ear bent about some of our local litter and recycling issues!). Some of us went round the streets in the FARA area, de-littering the roadsides and noting various flytips and dirty front gardens to report to the Council. Others performed a thorough clean-up of ‘our’ section of Wanstead Flats. Altogether we gathered about a dozen sackloads of assorted rubbish which the Council later sent a truck to collect.  Thanks to all the volunteers who took part!

At the annual meeting on 26 January the following people were elected to manage FARA in the coming year:

Chair – Flash Bristow
Vice chair – Wendy Reilly
Minutes secretary – Mike Bristow
Treasurer – Gail Smart
Honorary chair – Jane Sterland
Membership secretary – Vicky Allen
Communications officer – Liz Dawson
Street coordinators:
Malvern Road – Vicky Allen
Ferndale Road – Joyce Bussey
Montague Road – Nicholas Russell and Georgina Farrer
Cotton Close – Ellie Towers
Davies Lane – Simon Barker

Thanks to everyone who braved the cold weather to attend the meeting!