Mini-Holland

LBWF, lobbyists, and ‘partner’ companies: greasing the wheels of commerce or corporate capture?

March 17, 2025 Mini Holland, Redevelopment

For the past fifteen years or so, LBWF has worked with a variety of private developers and infrastructure engineers to radically reshape the borough’s built environment. The formal relationships between these different parties of course are recorded in council minutes, contracts, press releases, and similar. But there has been plenty going on behind the scenes as well, and to shed some light on these less overt interactions, the following looks at two brief case-studies. The first is about lobbying, and its starting point is a short Linkedin comment that was posted by one Peter Bingle: Why is ... »

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Air quality in Waltham Forest: Cllr. Loakes focuses on emissions, but new figures show particulate matter is a big killer, too, and LBWF seems slow to recognise that

August 20, 2024 LBWF spin, Mini-Holland

In the Summer 2024 issue of the council’s Waltham Forest News, Cllr. Clyde Loakes MBE, Deputy Leader and Cabinet Member for Climate and Air Quality, reports: ‘“Waltham Forest has the lowest per capita emissions in London bar one and I’m incredibly proud of what we’ve achieved so far alongside local communities and businesses”’. This is perplexing for a couple of different reasons.  First, the reality is that Waltham Forest’s status as a low emissions borough is nothing new. In 2023, for example, Energy Manager Magazine published this table: In fact, between 2005 and 2012, t... »

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Speed humps in Waltham Forest: new evidence shows that activists’ call for a review are perfectly reasonable

February 5, 2024 LBWF spin, Mini-Holland

It is pleasing to report that the campaign for a review of speed humps in Waltham Forest is progressing well, led by determined activists in partnership with the Chingford Residents Association, gaining support from local MP Sir Iain Duncan Smith, and currently attracting ministerial attention in the Department for Transport. However, barely a month passes without new questions arising about exactly what LBWF has been up to. Take the recent statement about speed humps that Deputy Leader and Cabinet Portfolio Member for Climate and Air Quality, Clyde Loakes, provided to the Sunday Tel... »

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The Sunday Telegraph reports the ‘misery’ that speed humps are causing in Chingford

December 11, 2023 LBWF spin, Mini-Holland

Yesterday, the Sunday Telegraph published a long story about the Chingford speed hump saga, which is archived here: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/12/10/speed-bumps-bring-misery-to-london-borough-chingford/ Amongst the many striking observations included are the following: ‘Shanta Prasad was born in her home on Chingford’s Old Church Road in 1964 and has lived there ever since. In all of those 59 years, she has never had any trouble sleeping – until last year, when London Borough of Waltham Forest installed a speed bump outside her house. “As soon as they were installed, our house... »

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Parliament’s Public Accounts Committee scrutinises ‘active travel schemes’ like Mini-Holland and finds them grossly wanting

November 8, 2023 LBWF spin, Mini Holland

A Public Accounts Committee (PAC) report published on 3 November 2023 is highly critical of the kind of active travel schemes (ATSs) that have been so enthusiastically implemented by LBWF. The Department of Transport defines active travel as ‘everyday journeys made by walking, wheeling [i.e., using wheelchairs, mobility scooters, prams or pushchairs], or cycling’. So ATSs ‘can range from creating new infrastructure, such as separate cycle lanes on roads or amending existing road space to create pedestrian zones outside schools, as well as activities such as providing training in cycle safety’.... »

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Chingford speed humps: the prior consultation was manipulated, and what LBWF refers to as supporting evidence is revealed to be decades out of date

September 20, 2023 LBWF spin, Mini Holland

Here’s a further update from our Chingford correspondent, this time with some incendiary revelations (see links for back story). ‘Recent research casts further doubt on how LBWF has acted in installing speed humps in Chingford. First, it emerges that the consultation about speed humps was blatantly manipulated.  LBWF claims to have distributed a survey to all households in the area where the humps were planned, seeking their opinions. One notable fact is that only 6.7 per cent of households responded, which seems to give credence to local claims that the distribution was nowhere near as c... »

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Ex-Guardian journalist Dave Hill skewers Cllr. Clyde Loakes over Waltham Forest’s Mini-Holland and LTNs UPDATED

August 24, 2023 LBWF spin, Mini-Holland

In the New Statesman last week, Cllr. Clyde Loakes claims that Mini-Holland and LTNs are ‘proven to make ourselves, our neighbourhoods and our planet healthier’. As might be predicted, while Cllr. Loakes’ tone is bombastic, his argument is largely vapid.  Thus, to take one example, he quotes the Kings study on air quality of 2018 as if gospel, apparently unaware that, LBWF spin notwithstanding, careful evaluation has shown it to be hedged with qualifications, and anyway significantly flawed (see links below). Answering Loakes, ex-Guardian journo and one time Clare Coghill admire... »

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Traffic calming measures that are harming houses and people: a local resident fights on to force LBWF into recognising its responsibilities

August 21, 2023 LBWF spin, Mini-Holland

A previous post focused on a local resident’s concern that badly thought-out traffic calming measures in Waltham Forest are producing damaging consequences (see link, below). More recently, the same resident has requested a meeting with the newly appointed LBWF CEO, Linzi Roberts-Egan.  Asked by one of the latter’s staff to explain why a meeting was justified, our resident replied with the eloquent and very full elucidation of their case reproduced below, which once again is damning of both the traffic calming measures themselves, and the way LBWF has dealt with complainants. Th... »

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LBWF spends millions of public money on cycling, but cannot say whether residents as a whole are getting on bikes, or just the better off

June 27, 2023 LBWF spin, Mini Holland

In the past few years, LBWF has spent upwards of c. £30m. on cycling infrastructure, while preaching the virtues of cycling at every opportunity.  Indeed, cycling has become an integral part of the borough’s assiduously promoted self-image, alongside artisan coffee, craft beer, independent shops, and ‘the arts’. Accordingly, it’s reasonable to ask: is this policy working? Are more people cycling? Have all residents, regardless of background, been equally enthused? And is LBWF collecting enough data to make an accurate reckoning, and thus justify the planned further interventions, for inst... »

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LBWF’s ‘traffic calming’ measures again in the dock: an expert paramedic argues they worsen ambulance response times and so may increase fatalities in health emergencies

May 18, 2023 LBWF spin, Mini Holland

In a previous guest post (see links, below), a local resident examined the ‘traffic calming’ measures which LBWF is installing across the borough, and pointed out that they have a severe impact of those living nearby, producing amongst other things noise pollution and household damage. What follows casts light on another aspect of the problem, the way that the measures slow London Ambulance Service (LAS) call outs to serious cases like cardiac arrest and severe allergic reaction. The author has worked as a LAS paramedic, and deserves to be taken very seriously indeed. Waltham Forest Matters is... »

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