Dear N16

Like just about everyone else it seems, I was sad to wave farewell to the Routemaster - little did I realise how sad I would be, though, with the arrival of the 'evil' bendybus. On what is quite possibly the most depressing journey ever now - there is overcrowding, no seats, nowhere to put the shopping - all aisles are blocked with people, so access and exit at bus stops has become an issue with people being trapped in doors and what may actually infuriate me most, no card readers on the exits apart from the front door working! Did London Transport think that Oyster cards were unimportant or that, by having the majority of the passengers enter at the front door, the whole point of a multi access bus was defeated! Or maybe they realised by putting a bendy bus on a route where it could only work by driving on the wrong side of the road to go round corners - passengers would just abandon it for other services instead. LT's marketing said the new 73 would 'help reduce overcrowding and will improve services overall for passengers. They provide greater comfort for passengers, and have vastly improved accessibility for people with disabilities, parents with young children and people with shopping'. However, it seems exactly the opposite - I wonder, does anyone in City Hall or LT have to use the bendy bus or are they deliberately keeping it away from their own routes!

Jennifer McGilvray

Dear N16

I've checked your website and it seems that you haven't reviewed Tin Phat Restaurant (Vietnamese restaurant on 70 Stoke Newington High Street). Although the location of the restaurant is not great, the waitress (Ly) and the food are lovely and nice. Fresh rolls, fish cakes, pho bo, mixed seafood with flat noodles, honey roasted duck & hot and spicy king prawns with coconut milk are an unexhaustive selection of what they are offering. Please go and visit them: they are really worth it and they are so nice people that I want to recommend to everyone who hasn't tried the food yet. Takeaway & free delivery are also available (min £10 & orders before 10.30pm).
Cheap & cheerful, what else do you need ?!

Thanks,
Celine

Dear N16

I have received Hackney Council's latest information update (from Cllr Guy Nicholson ) on Clissold Leisure Centre issued on 30 September, which advises among other things that 'Building specialists continue to work in the centre to discover the causes of the faults and what is needed to rectify them'. Fine and very sensible. The report continues 'Their work is continuing into October because of the need to carry out further tests on the building when the external temperatures are lower'. Has Hackney Council and its huge range of expensive advisers not realised that temperatures in December, January or February are significantly lower than in October and that if there are problems of frost, condensation and all the other features of a winter, with fog and possibly snow, that this cannot be gauged in October when we could still have an Indian summer? Is this going to be another investigation by Hackney Council which will be meaningless and which will not be capable of getting to the truth?

The update highlights 'October 15 - report of the building specialists, which will detail what is wrong, to what extent, how it should be put right and an estimate of the cost'. That is inconsistent with the first observation on the 'winter'conditions. The update also highlights 'Autumn 2004 we expect [a very ambiguous word!] to begin advertising for the award of work to repair the centre'. Jumping the gun again.

Estimates of maybe £4.5 million of ratepayers' money (albeit recoverable possibly in the long run, under litigation) will be spent on refurbishment, but it may turn out to be refurbishment based on incomplete or erroneous information. Is this a repeat of the cavalier approach of Hackney Council, which together with builders or architects or others possibly, have seen £31 million wasted and Hackney again the joke authority of the UK? Surely a proper in-depth investigation, testing for climatic change when there is climatic change and not in the wrong season, among other things, is the right solution even if, unfortunately, it may mean a further short delay in obtaining the final report on which to seek a tender for work from contractors and on which to correctly base the litigation. It is unfortunate that users of the centre may have a further delay but surely that is a price worth paying to avoid a repeat of the nightmare saga that has already befallen the Borough and its hard-pressed ratepayers.

Yours faithfully, a concerned ratepayer (name and address
supplied)