|
p5
Robbie Richards should think again about Stoke Newington High Street. It
doesn't have to be the noisy filthy one-way red route he describes: it's only the failed
traffic planning of the past thirty years which made it that way.
Take out the one-way system and end the priority given to through traffic. Plan instead
for pedestrians, bus users, local shoppers (car-borne or not) and cyclists and you'll find
that it's a fine Victorian High Street with as much potentialas that place round the
corner after all.
Crispin Truman, N16
Thank you for producing such a good magazine and I must compliment you on
the web page design. In response to Robbie Richards' article about Hackney Council's
planningpolicy, I must add my voice to those who have said that we don't need more
restaurants nor do we need more 'gifte shoppes'. As with the plans for the global
regulated parking, aren't Hackney Councillors getting very greedy - do they have
aspirations to emulate Islington Councillors?
What Church Street could do with is a decent butcher and a decent baker, some more
straightforward supply shops - the food equivalents of the KAC hardware store.
Delicatessens are great but they can be expensive for everyday stuff.
Natalie Sinnadurai, N16
Having enjoyed Robbie Richards' entertaining gaze into the next millennium
in your last issue, I thought that N16 readers would want to know what decisions were
actually taken on changes to planning policies for the use of premises in Church and High
Streets, at the Neighbourhood Committee. These policies were developed and approved by the
committee's Labour Councillors. Our overriding aims were to protect the existing
proportion of retail businesses, without stifling the burgeoning leisure sector and to
encourage both the day and nighttime economies of Stoke Newington Town Centre.
- The core High Street shopping area, around the Woolworth stretch, now has a zoning of
65% retail to 35% all other uses
- The rest of the (upper) High Street, and Church Street along to roughly the Fire Station
has a split of 50% retail and 50% all other uses.
- The rest of Church Street has 65% retail and 35% other uses
'Other uses' include Estate Agents, Building Societies, and Restaurants.
We think that this arrangement more than defends our existing stock of 'daytime economy'
shops, but still allows the night economy to be reasonably sustained. We are against
blanket bans that might artificially skew one part of the local economy, nor do we see
planning zoning as the means to deal with irresponsible businesses that create mess and
annoyance to locals.
Hackney Council enforcement officers already have all the powers they need to do that. We
need to make sure that they use them.
John Hudson, Labour Councillor, Clissold Ward
If Matthew Adams (letters issue 2) is so very worried about your
magazine's pretensions, I wonder what he would make of this load of pretentious codswallop
which appeared recently in the Sunday Telegraph.
All too ironically entitled 'Changing Values', the piece sought to justify the £500,000
increase (since 1991) of 85 Stoke Newington Church Street by quoting the (ex-Islington)
occupant and, thank goodness, would-be vendor: 'the area has changed. It used to be very
working class, but now it is fashionable, with restaurants and a jazz club. My sons say
they realised the area was changing when, suddenly, attractive girls started appearing on
the street.' Ah, that's the secret of Church Street and no doubt why, as the article
points out, the 'barristers and bankers are rediscovering the area'!!
Susan Barton, N16
I am responding to the letter from Marinella Nicholson in your June/July
issue about the Hackney-Chelsea Line. While she is not correct to say that the plans for
it have been abandoned, the scheme for which a tunnelled route was safeguarded by the
government in 1991 is at the wrong end of a long queue of big and very expensive rail
projects for London.
In any event the line more recently dubbed the South-West/North-East Metro would get no
closer to Stoke Newington than Dalston. That is also the location for what, much sooner,
will be one of Hackney's new connections with the Tube, as London Underground's East
London Line is extended north from Whitechapel, via Shoreditch, Hoxton, Haggerston and
Dalston Junction, to Highbury and Islington. The East London Line Group, of which Hackney
Council is a founder member, has been lobbying hard for this scheme, and recent official
announcements have given real encouragement to our campaign to be 'First for the New
Millennium'.
There is renewed hope that the two-year construction period for the East London Line
northern extension will begin no later than 2002. The total extensions package, including
southern links to Croydon, Wimbledon and Clapham Junction, is costed at £150 million only
10 per cent of even the cheapest option for the South-West/North-East metro.
Roger Blake, Principal Planner
Traffic and Transportation Team, Hackney Regulatory Services
I thought that Diane Abbott's comments about the police in the July issue
of N16 didn't do her credit. I'd have thought that as a black woman she would be wary of
blanket condemnations of whole groups of people. But by stating that 'police officers in
Stoke Newington in the past had a well-deserved reputation for corruption and brutality',
that is what she did. The simple addition of the word 'some' would have made all the
difference.
Adam Rock, N16
Oh, honestly. Sue Heal's piece about dog shit is what we can happily call
crap journalism. The problem is not 'the dog owners of Stokey'. That tars all dog owners
with the same brush. It should have read 'some of the dog owners of Stoke Newington'.
Nearly every dog-owner I know in the area picks up their dog's shit in the plastic bags
handily provided by the Council and deposits them in the right rubbish bins. Others make
their dogs shit in the gutter, where it will be flushed down the sewers. The rest are
merely ignorant, doing what they've always done with their dogs unforgivable, but still
understandable.
It takes time to change attitudes properly. After all, who on earth (let alone crusties
and skinheads) would let themselves be ticked off by some little bourgeoise in the street,
without confirming their own worst prejudices about the woman? Enough to make them bring
the dog back to the same spot next day and wait till it shits there again. Heavy fines are
certainly one answer. But no Council subject to the cutbacks which Hackney Council endures
will burden itself with the extra costs of policing and enforcing dog shit laws. There are
more important things to do.
Keep up the good work with dog-owners, Hackney Council, and don't be misled by Sue Heal's
arriviste nonsense.
Tim Stilwell, N16
Letter from Florida
My wife Zandra Boam lived in Stoke Newington from 1938 to 1967 at 144 Brooke Road. She
went to Northwold Road School and worked at Arnold's and Leon's on Kingsland High Road.
She would like any information about these places as she has lost her own records. Can
anyone help? Our e-mail is zandoncam@aol.com
Thank you.
Oren Campbell |
. |
