Features

Ambitious for Wanstead

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Jo Blackman, Daniel Morgan-Thomas, Paul Donovan, Bayo Alaba and Sheila Bain were all elected as councillors for Wanstead Village and Wanstead Park last month. Here are their ambitions for the next four years

We were all delighted to be elected by the people of Wanstead on 5 May and look forward to playing our part in making Redbridge safer, greener, healthier, cleaner and fairer as promised in our manifesto.

We want to make Wanstead safer by ensuring we have active and engaged local police Safer Neighbourhood Teams, who can work alongside the council in tackling antisocial behaviour and motoring offences. To support road safety, the council is already bringing forward measures to reduce speeding on a number of Wanstead roads and we will be pushing for more of these in the area.

Redbridge Council has already made a considerable investment in local street cleansing and refuse collection, garden waste and recycling services. We will do our bit by continuing our monthly community litter pick as well as supporting community initiatives to keep our streets clean.

Active travel is also an important part of making our borough greener and improving air quality: we are providing more bike racks for the High Street and hopefully more cycle hangars as these have already proved popular in residential roads in Wanstead, as well as providing more electric vehicle charging points. The installation of a cycle lane on Blake Hall Road and Aldersbrook Road will be completed and hopefully extended to other roads.

To support local accessible travel, we will continue to urge Transport for London to complete their promised work to give Snaresbrook station step-free access, maintain our local bus routes and keep full opening hours at Wanstead station.

Being ambitious for Wanstead also means delivering on projects that will make a difference to our community, such as the new swimming pool at Wanstead Leisure Centre, major improvements to Wanstead High School and we will work hard to ensure the redevelopment at Whipps Cross Hospital meets the needs of local people.

We also look forward to the return of the Wanstead Festival this September and hope to work with the newly established Friends of Christ Church Green to see other appropriate and enjoyable events for our green spaces – and all over Wanstead – flourish with council and community support.

As always, we will be grateful for input from local residents, businesses and community groups in shaping our priorities for Wanstead and to keep it as the very special place we all know and love.


Clockwise from top left: Councillors Jo Blackman, Daniel Morgan-Thomas and Paul Donovan represent Wanstead Village. Councillors Sheila Bain and Bayo Alaba represent Wanstead Park. For more information, visit wnstd.com/councillors