Clapton Pond Blog

History Of The Empire

The latest Hackney podcast traces the Hackney Empire's past ups and downs and considers its future as it prepares to "go dark" after this year's panto run comes to an end. A venue that has played host to Opportunity Knocks, Maria Callas and Giant Haystacks as well as Marie Lloyd and Clive Rowe can surely adapt and survive. I certainly hope so. I'll be at Aladdin on Boxing Day, maintaining what has become a family tradition. This year's Susie McKenna presentation has already been praised in the Evening Standard and by my kids when they went a couple of weeks ago. I wasn't there that time and they've been very good about not telling me all the jokes. Happy Christmas to the Empire and all the best for the New Year. 

The Future Of Hackney Wick

For me, the truest test of the 2012 Olympics' worth will be any long term economic and social benefits they produce for people living in the vicinity of the Olympic Park. Will there be more jobs and better facilities for local residents? Will existing neighbourhoods be enriched and enhanced? Regeneration projects are always contentious because they can result in gains for a few at the expenses of many living in the areas concerned. As the film I recently helped make for the Guardian showed, residents of Hackney Wick hold a wide range of views about the effects of the Games and there's a great deal of uncertainty about the future.

They and others now have a chance to influence what happens next as the Council's Hackney Wick masterplan goes out to public consultation until 9 February 2010. The masterplan is a separate document from the blueprints for the Olympic Park itself, but will be profoundly influenced by what happens there. As the Council puts it: "In the coming years Hackney Wick will be faced with many choices as a result of the investment into the area brought about by the 2012 Games, coming from both the private and public sectors."

The Council is at pains to demonstrate a commitment to protecting the Wick's character and unique combination of charms as part of nurturing improvements. To that end it has designated a Hackney Wick Conservation Area directly north of Hackney Wick station. This, it says, is an "unusual step" to take in advance of the completion of a public consultation. The only previous example was the 2005 Lea Bridge Conservation Area. The Council says this had a beneficial influence on the development of Paradise Dock and that the Wick designation will enable it to "resist the loss of historic buildings and open spaces such as working yards, and the alteration of the historic street pattern."

What might emerge from a process of change combining preservation and development? The Council speaks of "positively inform[ing] future development, for example, by incorporating and re-using the historic buildings as a basis for new developments to add economic value and create a distinctive sense of place." The masterplan's proposals include turning the area around the station into a "hub" of restaurants and shops.

Read the masterplan - the Hackney Wick Area Action Plan, if we're being formal - for yourself right here. 

You can respond to it by filling in the online feedback forms supplied and, if you wish, by meeting a planning officer: Email strategic.delivery@hackney.gov.uk or phone 02083567743 to arrange a meeting at the Hackney Wick Community Centre on 11 January (noon until 2:00 pm), 22 January (10:00 am until noon) or 25 January (6:00 pm until 8:00 pm). The community Centre is also holding drop-in sessions on 14 January (6:00 pm until 8:00 pm), 19 January (10:00 am until noon) and 21 January (6:00 pm until 8:00 pm). 

Two Videos: Bendys End & Olympic Wick

I've recently made - well, helped to make - two video films for the Guardian. The first was about the last day that bendy buses worked route 38. I've recently been trained in using a professional standard video camera. As you will see, my technique is still pretty rudimentary - a polite word for "hopeless" - but I think this failing was more than made up for by the fellow Claptonites who kindly let me point the camera at them. The clip, which was edited together by Guardian video producer Rebecca Lovell, is necessarily very short and to-the-point, which means that some good stories about the old Routemasters, which preceded the bendys, were cut out. I've remembered them, though. And with the contract to build Boris Johnson's alleged "21st century Routemaster" to be awarded by the end of the year, I might yet have an opportunity to make use of them. I'd like to thank everyone who appeared in the film. Watch it here.  

The second film is about residents of Hackney Wick and their feelings about the approaching Olympics. This took much longer to make and my role was that of interviewer and provider of "voice over" in the Kings Place editing suite. The real work was done by producer Francesca Panetta of Hackney Podcast fame and photographer and cameraman David Levene. The result was the first of what will be a series of collaborations about the impact of the Games on communities bordering the Olympic Park. Watch it here. 

Kingsmead Eyes

The Kingsmead estate and its neighbouring primary school attracted an unfair share of bad publicity for a time some years ago. But Claptonite Gideon Mendel, a photographer of great renown, has conveyed a much more truthful image of these places: many images, in fact. He worked with 28 of the school's children over a six month period in which they photographed their own homes and community, family and friends, lives and times. He's also completed his own parallel project in the school and on the estate, which includes individually snapping every one of the school's pupils. The results of Gideon's and the children's endeavours, Kingsmead Eyes, can be appreciated at the Museum of Childhood in Bethnal Green until 7 February next year. They include this beautiful video. Kingsmead has played a special part in my Hackney life as my eldest child, now aged 25, was a pupil at the school when I lived in Homerton before I become a Pond-dweller.    

38 Bendys End

Today is the last day that bendy buses will work route 38, one end of which (as you may have noticed) is a bus stop by Clapton Pond. Route 38 is the third to be de-bendified (following the 507 and 521) but the first long-haul one, terminating as it does at far-off Victoria. I'm a bit sad that they are going: not hugely so because it's daft to get too worked up about any kind of bus, but I'll miss their novelty shape and the smooth ride they provide. 

You'll be familiar with the arguments about them. Traditionalists, many cyclists and Ken Livingstone-haters dislike them for not being double-deckers (especially for not being Routemasters), for being hard to overtake and for being Ken Livingstone's idea. Admirers point to their high capacity and the fact that their replacements - double-deckers in the case of route 38 - will take longer to load because of having fewer doors, and be more numerous in order to maintain capacity. Both factors seem bound to add to road congestion at least to some degree, especially in the centre of town. 

There's also the question of cost - a particularly important one in view of Transport for London's financial woes. All buses need replacing eventually, but Boris Johnson's anti-bendy policy means that these are being replaced sooner than would have otherwise been necessary, resulting in TfL having to pay more to the bus operating companies. Those higher contrast costs would have been higher still had the London Mayor not been persuaded by TfL to only de-bendify when contracts came up for renewal rather than purging the whole lot straight away.    

Of course, the one thing almost everyone agrees about bendys is that their having three sets of doors make fare-dodging a cinch. A recent written answer (you might have to click twice) to a question by London Assembly member Valerie Shawcross about the cost of de-commissioning bendys - or, to be formal, "articulated buses" - factored in an anticipated increase in revenue resulting from less fare-dodging in future. Is this projection exaggerated? Shawcross thinks so. Would money have been better spent on providing more inspectors? I don't know, because I've yet to do the maths. Maybe someone else has. 

These debates will rumble on and time will provide the best test of them. My one firm opinion is that there are more important things to get worked up about, whichever side of the argument you're on. But I'll still mark the bendys' passing from Lower Clapton Road with a small sigh. 

       

Joys of Hallowe'en

That nice lady at the top end of Thistlewaite Road topped even her own very high standards this year with this fantastic Hallowe'en creation. The house was constructed from the packaging of someone's new bed, by the way. Genius. And it attracted small ghouls by the horde.

I love it that our neighbourhood embraces Hallowe'en with such enthusiasm. As well as being a lot of fun for the kids there's something valuable and satisfying about families occupying the darkened autumn streets. True, a did feel a cold shiver each time I bumped into a pint-sized and resolutely silent Grim Reaper, but in general the evening bore out the adage that a place feels - and probably is - safer when there are plenty of friendly people out and about.

I'm also grateful to Clapton's Hallowe'en - perhaps particularly the Millfields end of Mildenhall Road, where there seemed to be hideous jack 'o lanterns everywhere - for massively reducing my household's outgoings on confectionary for the foreseeable future.

See what I mean? 

Wind Turbine, Anyone?

Those quality bloggers of Leabank Square have already set out the arguments for and against the Olympic Delivery Authority's proposal to plant a wind turbine on Hackney Marshes. The big upside would be a significant amount of profitable green energy generated for the borough: the Council claims that the combined output from a turbine on the Marshes and another that has already got the go ahead in Waltham Forest would be sufficient to power all "the main Council buildings" by day and all of Hackney's street lights at night. A reduction in carbon emissions would be another good outcome. The main problem, at least for some people, would be that the turbine would measure 120 metres in height. That's pretty vast, and would have a big impact on the skyline.

My initial reaction is to favour the idea, despite being a bit bothered by the size of the windmill and the fact that some of the East Marsh land surrounding it would have to be placed out of bounds. However, the latter isn't all that big and the Council has said (see here) that it would not reduce the number of football pitches (ten) that would be marked out there or impede its future sports development plans. And although I'm becoming a bit of a fogey about tall buildings - I've definitely taken against that thick finger of apartments jutting from Dalston Square - I find tall wind turbines rather graceful and beguiling.

Jules Pipe says that, "On balance, I think the wind turbine is a good idea," but adds, "if the public response to this is no, then it will not go ahead. This will not be forced through if residents don't want it." You can read more from him here. The Council has set up a number of consultation mechanisms (listed in full here). There's an online survey you can complete and an email address - windturbine@hackney.gov.uk - to which you can send your views. Next month there are two consultation events - the first is at the Wally Foster next Monday from 3.00 till 7.30 - and six drop-in sessions at Hackney libraries. The consultation ends of 14 December. Full details here. There's also stuff about the wind turbine proposal along with an upbeat account of progress in and around the Olympic Park in the latest Hackney Today. 

[P.S. I'm away for the rest of this half-term week and am unlikely to be online again before Sunday. This means that any comments probably won't be attended to until then. But please don't let that put you off.] 

Seen While Running

A brand new local blogger takes his camera for a run down the canal. Sample photo caption:

Old Ford Lock. A working lock but I have yet to see a boat going through.This is right next to the house that was the Big Breakfast house back in the 1990s.It is now a rather smashing home, if a little overshadowed by the new stadium. I would get the f*** out of dodge in 2012 if I was them it'll be like Oxford St at Christmas with extra fireworks.

Now read on.

Olympics Media Centre: Shades Of Grey

The bloggers of Leabank Square down in the Wick continue to be dismayed by the construction of the Olympics media facilities directly across the river from where they live. The ODA has heralded a change to the skyline. These locals see it differently: 

We all well & fondly remember all the greenery we used to see across the canal. Arena Fields was the most lush, peaceful, environmentally refreshing view we could ever have wished for....This is what the ODA think we want to see instead! 

For the whole post including photographs, read on. 

Meanwhile, Paul Norman of Estates Gazette reports that ongoing wrangles over who deals with the recently-discovered debt accrued when the land for the Olympic Park was being purchased have prevented the newly-formed Olympics Legacy Company from holding an early meeting with the East London Business Alliance, the organisation seeking possible tenants for the media centre after the Games have gone. Remember that the Council has invested great hopes in the centre becoming a job-generating creative industries hub after the Games are over. Fingers crossed.   

Lack Of Broadband

From the latest excellent edition of Hackney Citizen:

Hackney runs a serious risk of getting left behind as the rest of London goes digital. The borough may be undergoing the biggest regeneration project of any London borough in the lead up to the 2012 Olympics, but it is standing on the sidelines of the digital revolution.

Read the whole article and indeed all the others.