Private Eye reports the Cann Hall mural fiasco
From Issue 1549, 11-24 June 2021 »
Redevelopment
LBWF’s Cann Hall murals, Cllr. Sally Littlejohn, and £14,500 of public money that has disappeared down the drain, lost forever
As previously reported here, in the past few years, and encouraged by a £40,000 Town Hall grant, Cann Hall councillors have been intent on installing an artistic mural in the ward, but on two separate occasions, their plans have fallen through and been abandoned. That’s the bones of the story, but it can now be revealed that these failures have come at a cost. For in both cases significant sums of money were paid out in design fees prior to the decision to abort, while in one case there also were unexplained ‘closure costs’. And when these various sums are totted up, they come to no less... »
LBWF’s plan for a mural in Cann Hall ward threatens to descend into farce – for the second time running UPDATED
In late 2017, Cann Hall Labour councillor Sally Littlejohn led a LBWF initiative to install a £40,000 ‘artwork’ on the dilapidated side-wall of a shop in the centre of the ward – a shop that coincidentally happened to be owned by a prominent family of Labour supporters, the most eminent of whom is Dawn Butler MP, best known in the area for her belief that the public should fund her second home’s jacuzzi. Cllr. Littlejohn no doubt hoped to reap the grateful thanks of locals, but it didn’t turn out that way at all. Many resented the lack of consultation, disliked the fact that the artists foiste... »
LBWF and fire hazards in its housing stock: the appalling case of Northwood Tower in Walthamstow (2)
In response to ‘[s]everal recent articles in local newspapers’ about Northwood Tower, LBWF has just issued a PR release which predictably claims that the latter contain unspecified ‘misunderstandings and inaccuracies’ and seeks to reassure ‘residents and the wider community’ that the building is ‘safe and secure’. No doubt local newspapers can respond for themselves, but as far as this blog is concerned, the PR release does not challenge any of the facts already posted. LBWF admits that the 2018-19 Fire Risk Assessment (FRA) of Northwood Tower di... »
LBWF and fire hazards in its housing stock: the appalling case of Northwood Tower in Walthamstow (1)
In the past few months, journalists James Cracknell and Michelle Edwards of the Waltham Forest Echo have done sterling work in exposing the serious safety flaws that currently blight many of the 22 tower blocks in the borough, see here https://walthamforestecho.co.uk/fire-safety-flaws-at-borough-tower-blocks/ here https://walthamforestecho.co.uk/tower-residents-fire-safety-fears/ and here https://walthamforestecho.co.uk/returning-to-northwood-tower/ What follows examines one of the tower blocks in detail, documents the dreadful situation that pertained there as of mid-2018, and reveals that ma... »
The Connecting Communities Programme in Waltham Forest: everyone’s welcome (except the disabled and poverty-stricken)
In March 2018, the government launched a new £50m. Integrated Communities Strategy (ICS), ‘to tackle the root causes of poor integration and create a stronger, more united Britain’. Shortly afterwards, it was announced that LBWF was to be one of five authorities in England involved in piloting the ICS to 2019/20, supported by an initial grant of £1.2m.; and subsequently, LBWF has published Waltham Forest Our Place. A Shared Plan for Connecting Communities [hereafter Our Place], an implementation document aimed at the general public. What follows outlines LBWF’s intentions, and then offers a cr... »
Health inequalities by ward in Waltham Forest: an investigation in eight acts
Prologue In the early 2000s, it was often noted that health in Waltham Forest varied noticeably from ward to ward. For example, the Primary Health Trust’s Public Health Report 2003/04 included the following graphic: What this showed, to take one example, was that men and women in Cann Hall at that date were likely to die 5.3 years and 4.4 years earlier that their equivalents in Endlebury. For a short while, such figures were also at the forefront of public debate, but subsequently they slipped from view. Recently, however, the subject has been referenced again, and what follows recounts ... »
The £40,000 Cann Hall side-wall ‘artwork’ is cancelled, artists Mathew Raw and Abigail Holsborough depart the scene, and LBWF scrambles for excuses – its a big victory for local residents
As the linked posts (below) describe in some detail, for the past few months, and as part of its Making Places programme, LBWF has been intent on putting an ‘artwork’ made of tiles and costing an extraordinary £40,000, on the dilapidated side-wall of a private property in Cann Hall Rd. – a private property that coincidentally happens to be owned by a prominent family of Labour supporters, the most eminent of whom is Dawn Butler, the Shadow Women and Equalities Secretary. Meanwhile, large numbers of residents have expressed their displeasure, citing everything from the ‘artwor... »
‘Public realm and shop front improvements’ in South Leytonstone: dogs get their dinner, while the area’s real problems are forgotten
Recent posts have looked at LBWF’s plan to spend £40,000 turning the wall of a private property on Cann Hall Rd. into an alleged ‘artwork’, and the subsequent massive backlash. But as documents released under the Freedom of Information Act reveal, this is by no means the only extraordinary waste of public money that LBWF is foisting on the same area, broadly South Leytonstone’s Cann Hall and Cathall wards. As has been previously pointed out (see links below), having studiously ignored the subject for the best part of a decade, Cann Hall councillors in particular have suddenly become infatuated... »
LBWF’s Making Places programme and the Cann Hall side-wall fiasco: good news and bad
As a previous post has described in detail, LBWF currently plans to spend a dizzying £40,000 on tiling the large side-wall of a private commercial property in Cann Hall ward, all in the name of producing a ‘joyous’ and ‘popular’ piece of public art, Matthew Raw and Abigail Holsborough’s Embedded Bread. The good news is that because of widespread local disquiet (and in particular a petition with well over 450 signatories) LBWF has just put the project ‘on hold’ (even if, to residents’ amusement, it is apparently incapable of explaining exactly what this means). However, ... »