News

Meanwhile… a boost for Carpenters Estate as delay looms 

With the billion pound masterplan for redevelopment of Carpenters Estate delayed for up to a year, Newham Council is considering interim plans – a series of “Meanwhile Projects” – to spruce up the estate. 

By Aidan White

A colourful community garden
The LightHouse and Gardens

As reported last month, work on James Riley Point, the first phase of a 15-year redevelopment, has stopped because one family has refused to move out. 

Now the Council has issued a compulsory purchase order which may delay work starting until summer next year. 

The delay and a reported £24 million increase in costs on the James Riley project has dismayed residents who have already suffered decades of neglect and indecision over the future of the estate. 

The Council’s housing company Populo Living hopes to revive their spirits with a series of micro actions to improve the estate in the short term. The major focus will be around the former Tenants Management Organisation site, which currently has offices and community space and which runs a food bank. 

The Meanwhile Project will create an artists and makers studio, a bakery, street art, incubator spaces, a café and outdoor seating as well as the continuation of the food bank and a teaching project which is being undertaken by local community leader Tee Fabukin. 

This work could be started later this year once initial plans get the go-ahead from the Council in the coming weeks. 

Deborah Heenan, Populo Chief Executive Officer, is herself frustrated over the forced delay in the regeneration work – one of the largest development projects in London which promises more than 2,100 new homes with more than half of them available at a social rent, around half the market price. 

She understands residents’ despondency. Many have waited for decades as planners and council leaders have failed to deliver on promises of change and renewal. 

“If people don’t see something physical they are not going to believe it is happening,” she said.

The Meanwhile Projects – which also include developing a community green space and an overhaul for Dovetail square where Populo has set up its community office and information point – will, she hopes, show residents they mean business. 

The projects will also take advantage of the upcoming work to transform Stratford Station with direct access planned next year for estate residents who at present are forced to use a pedestrian bridge.

One example of Meanwhile Projects in practice is found over the railway bridge in the E20 area where the post-Olympics development is largely finished, but where The LightHouse and Gardens centre provides a community space and garden and access to a range of facilities.

Owners of the land, Hadley Property Group, are preparing proposals for a mixed-use development on the site in the next few years. 

Meanwhile, The LightHouse and Gardens in Celebration Avenue makes full use of the site prior to its redevelopment. 

On May 12 a meeting was held at the centre of a new initiative – the Deep Boroughs Network – which aims to bring together residents’ and community groups from Carpenters Estate, E20 and other sites under development around the Olympic Park. 

The network developed out of the UCL Institute of Global Prosperity research project into poverty, led by Stratford resident Alexis Charles who spent six months talking to people and small businesses in and around the Carpenters Estate. 

She says: “A lot is going on, but there’s not enough information sharing. Our aim is to get stakeholders to share information about what is happening”

For more information, contact deepboroughseastbank@gmail.com or call 07949214845


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