Andrew Peel, a campaigner for Friends of Queen’s Market in Upton Park, says the Council has questions to answer over plans for the market.
Newham Council is again trying to build luxury flats on top of the long-running street market next to Upton Park station.
The Council says the market will be maintained and improved, and that they are listening to Newham people. Their actions tell a different story: the original five options for the Market’s future ranged from ‘maintain and improve’ to ‘build all over it’.
Friends of Queens Market, a long-running community group of shoppers, traders and others, collected more than 6,000 signatures in support of the ‘maintain and improve’ option and handed them into the Council. But, it appears, Newham failed to take account of these signatures.
Apparently 254/306 luxury flats and other buildings can be built onto this working market and they say the market will be unaffected: dream on!
These new flats wouldn’t benefit the 38,000 people on Newham’s waiting list.
Look, for example, at the ‘social housing’ provision at the Boleyn, the old West Ham United ground: where only 39 of the 854 flats come into this category.
The problem is developers reach agreements with councils to deliver a certain percentage of housing for social rent, then use a get-out-clause meaning they deliver six percent or less, which is the London-wide figure, according to housing charity Shelter.
What worries the people at Queen’s Market is what happened at Newham’s other markets like Rathbone and Canning Town.
And what about Newham’s promised Market improvements? They have either disappeared from the plan, new flooring, or they are trying to fob us off with the cheapest, shoddiest options.
The new lighting is dimmer, with 99 lights replacing the previous number of more than 400, resulting in the recent demonstration by traders.
The £1 million roof still leaks, the planned canopies look to be more of the same. This contrasts with the thousands of pounds squandered on consultants, a new office for the market managers and other items.
Friends of Queens Market demand that our money, as Londoners and Newham residents, is spent on long-term investment in quality that lasts: good lighting, a leak proof roof, proper flooring and cleaning.
We demand full accountability and real community planning from the Greater London Authority and Newham Council. Shoppers and traders defeated Newham’s last development push in 2006, they can win again this time.
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