Platinum Jubilee Party in Tredegar Square - Sunday 5th June. Your help needed!

 

Would you like to help out organising our party for the Queen?

On 6th February this year Her Majesty The Queen became the first British Monarch to celebrate a Platinum Jubilee, marking 70 years of service to the people of the United Kingdom, the Realms and the Commonwealth.

As many of you will know, we have a special bank holiday weekend from Thursday 2nd to Sunday 5th June, and Mile End Old Town Residents Association are going to hold a party in Tredegar Square to celebrate the Queen's Diamond Jubilee. As that week is half term for many, we will  be holding the party on Sunday 5th June as many families will be back on the Sunday from any trips. But that is not set in stone yet. 

"Fun Day on Steroids"
We need residents to help plan the day and help out in lots of ways! It may be baking a cake, making some bunting, stepping up and singing a song,  or doing some of the boring, but necessary, red tape form filling.

Meotra usually holds a Fun Day each summer, and this year we expect our party to contain elements of that, but with lots and lots of extras. We will likely have the usual elements of face painters, a clown, bouncy [Windsor] castles, Bobby Bubbles and his Crown Jewels of Bubbles; but we want lots more: Cakes, cakes and more cakes. Picnics Galore, bring a dish, tug-of-war, a traditional street party for the children, music, Egg and Dog race. Perhaps traditional cakes from your part of the UK or from around the world? [Mauritian Neapolitan is my fav.] Which street can make the best cake (I hear Clinton have a bit of an advantage!). A traditional table and chairs sit down feast for the kids in the middle of the square. An evening gig for adults in theHac with some local musicians or DJ Jim on the desks?

Obviously all the above are just ideas and the day is a blank canvas. Meotra has quite a bit of money set aside for the day to ensure it is as memorable as the 1953/1977/2002/2012 parties. It would be great if residents from across the 14 Meotra streets could get involved with organising the day in small or larger ways?  Neighbours from the same street getting to know each other better as well as between streets.

From here to Metformin...

Update on street-related issues within MEOTRA

Thanks to everyone who fed back about litter/street issues in our neighbourhood following last month’s article - around 20 issues at least.

We have had a meeting with the council officers last week which has moved some of the issues along a bit:

Onyx House Eurobins

The four 1500-litre Eurobins (two pink and two black) that have been living in Aberavon Road are still there. We have a bit of a standoff: Onyx House have no one to “present them” [ie put them out], and the council bin men won’t go in and get them as the wooden bin stores are congested, have hinges hanging off and are deemed a Health and Safety Hazard.

MEotra [emphasis on the ME] have looked at the planning application and, low and behold, the bin stores don’t match the granted planning permission. There are two rows of them opposite one another and this means the bins are a nightmare to get in/out. The planning application just had one row, with plenty of space, although being side on that wouldn't have worked well either! LBTH are going to get planning enforcement onto it.

Street Litter and Full Litter Bins

The council are going to replace lots of our street litter bins with “Big Belly" ones which compact the litter, hold around 8 times as much and even text the council automatically when they are getting full.

Around 9-12 of these are going to be installed (including the four lower Grove Road bus stops; outside Costa, Starbucks, Nando's and KFC; two between the Greedy Cow and Coffee Room; and the Onyx House bus stop). This should happen within a couple of months.

Eurobins for the businesses on Grove Road

The council seem to have as many reasons for not doing this as I have for not getting up in the morning. Something to return to post local-elections (the bins that is).
The good news is the council have come and jet washed the pavement outside all the businesses and it looks much better. Cheers!

Get LYN on to it

I have reported some of the issues folk emailed in, using the LYN App (Love Your Neighbourhood) which is on both Android, iPhone. You can also just use a “regular” online form. It would be great if folk used this to report problems.

The Last Resort - Shame the council on Twitter

If you are reading this on the Meotra website then if you look to the left (<--) you’ll see we’ve tried to shame the council into action on some things. I don’t like this approach, and only use it if a stalemate/brick wall has been reached:

• The crudely fenced-off hole in the pavement on the corner of Mile End Rd and Tredegar Sq. has been there for months. LBTH say “It ain’t ours, tell TfL” and, you guessed it, TfL say: “It ain’t ours, tell LBTH”. This game of Wiff-Waff between authorities has left MEotra with a sore neck.
• The Black Bin Bags in Pink Wheelie Bins phenomena - Pink Bin Men come and won’t empty the bins with black bags in them; then Black Bin Men come and won’t take the black bags out of the pink wheelie bins. This has gone on for weeks on Grove road. It is the sort of thing Michael Rosen might put to verse.

Anti-social Behaviour (ASB)

The police were in Tredegar Square today (Wednesday) for an hour to chat to residents and discourage any anti-social behaviour. They sent a message about being there very late in the day unfortunately (Tuesday?) and it was buried in the MEotra inbox.

Making Mile End Station Step-free - TfL Consultation closes Thursday 10th February

 

(Map adapted from www.ianvisits.co.uk)

TfL currently have a live consultation "Help shape the future step-free access to the tube" which closes on Thursday 10th February. 

Many locals would like to see Mile End Station become step-free and the above consultation offers you a chance to influence that. Whilst the survey doesn't directly allow you to select Mile End Station, your answers and postcode etc will help. You can also add a comment in the free-flowing box to question 16 mentioning Mile End.

It also asks if you want toilets at stations - this is a pet peeve of mine. I think ALL stations should have a loo. With the closing of ticket offices they have the space, if not always the plumbing, although the staff have toilets. If McDonalds can have public toilets so can we at our stations. 

The survey can be completed online in around 10 minutes or you can email haveyoursay@tfl.gov.uk

Why Mile End?

Mile End is the third busiest tube station in the borough (only Canary Wharf and Tower Hill are busier) with around 24,595 entries and 22,390 exits per day* and a total of 15.75  million entries/exits per year, making it the 51st busiest station on the network (out of 268) and one of the 20 busiest outside of Zone 1.

(*Answers on a postcard as to why Entry and Exit figures don't match!).

It is a very busy interchange too.

With the large QMUL campus nearby, having the nearest station accessible is important to students and staff alike.

As most new developments in Tower Hamlets are now car-free, growing numbers of residents rely on the tube to travel around London. 

How practical would it be to implement?

That's for the engineers to work out! They could at least do a feasibility study.

The above station layout suggests that it might be possible with lifts from the platform to the ticket hall area and then a second lift possibly from where the current staff office is to the street (the existing staff area could move to where the bricked up old ticket office is. Alternatively, access via the eastern end of the stations via Maplin St (by the Rusty Bike) might be feasible.