The site allows people check how busy their local supermarkets are.

Wanstead High School and Woodbridge High School were among those who contributed.

Temporary fencing has been assembled around play areas in Wanstead and South Woodford’s parks.

With kerbside recycling collections suspended, Redbridge Council is keen to assure residents that recyclable materials are not going to landfill.

In the third of a series of articles documenting the thoughts of local anti-bullying ambassador Elsa Arnold, the founder of the Spreading Kindness Through E11 initiative explains how we can all effect change I’ve always been someone who has dreamt of ways to make a positive difference and inspire even just a small change in the world. It’s important to me that I am able to have an impact and help others with issues I understand and feel passionately about shaping. When I experienced bullying and struggled with my mental health, my desire and need to help others got stronger, and after struggling so much, I couldn’t stand by knowing that other people were experiencing similar difficulties. I knew and believed I could make a difference. But I’ll be honest, taking the first few steps to speak out and stand up was one of the...

In the second of a series of articles looking at local historic photos found in a 100-year-old family album, historian Richard Arnopp presents a selection of images of the Hobbs at their Forest Gate home Last month, I introduced the Hobbs family, a talented and interesting clan, some of whom lived locally in Forest Gate and later Ilford. In 2017, I acquired an album, dated 1896–1907, containing over 100 photographs taken by family members. The patriarch of the family was George Wilson Hobbs, a self-employed artist who had been born in Newport, Isle of Wight, in 1838. With his wife, Fanny, and their family, he moved to Forest Gate around 1880 and resided at 35 Bignold Road until his death in 1913. That house was the setting for a number of photographs from the album which will illustrate this instalment. In those days, Forest Gate...

Equity release is being widely promoted as a way to unlock money tied up in your property. But what are the pros and cons? Geoff Williams from Wiseman Lee explains why it is important to seek legal advice In recent months, you’ve hardly been able to turn on the TV or the radio without an advert for equity release popping up, offering the release of money from your home as a lump sum or as monthly income. Before you take the plunge, it’s important to be aware that there are alternative ways to raise capital by selling and downsizing your property or attracting additional income by renting out a room. Make sure you consider all other options first to ensure that equity release is right for you. If you still feel equity release might be the way forward and you are over 55, it is...

Should you ditch your car? Kathy Taylor from Wanstead Climate Action assesses your options if you want to stop contributing to air pollution and reducing the lifespan of your neighbours Did you know that a mile of congested urban diesel driving takes about 12 minutes off the life of the rest of the population? This stark fact is one of the many interesting ones to be found in the book There is no Planet B by Mike Berners-Lee.  If you needed a reason to scrap your diesel (or give it to a country dweller) apart from the upcoming expanded Ultra Low Emission Zone (ULEZ) area, the fact that an estimated 40,000 people a year in the UK die prematurely from air pollution should persuade you. It’s the nitrogen dioxide and the small particles (PM 2.5s) that are the killers (including those from tyres and brakes). So,...

A project which has been bringing the community together by collating wartime memories of Redbridge was hoping to stage a local theatre production this month. Alfie James reports From stories of rationing and being evacuated to blackouts and bombings, the Hope and Glory community theatre project set out to explore what life was like living in Redbridge during the Second World War. We have set up two groups: a group of researchers meeting regularly at Redbridge Museum and a group of local performers using performance techniques to explore what life was like in that period. Thanks to the local press and the power of social media, as well as good old-fashioned word of mouth, the project has already generated a lot of interest. We’ve been overwhelmed by the amount of positive support received by the community and we couldn’t thank you enough. We’ve received emails...

A talk about local war memorials was due to take place at the Woodford and District branch of the National Trust this month. As with many events, this is likely to be cancelled. So we invited Richard Speller to talk here about Wanstead’s own monument of remembrance. Photo of the Wanstead War Memorial by Geoff Wilkinson Due to the appalling death toll suffered in the 1914–1918 Great War, virtually every family in the land would have known of someone who had lost their life. Thus, within a very short period, war memorials of every different type – stone pillars, statues, windows, plaques – were erected all over the country. These were, in the main, funded by local communities. Of course, these memorials not only list those who died in the First World War but also the second (1939–1945) and beyond, and the Wanstead memorial commemorates Marine Tom...

In the 21st of a series of articles charting the Wild Wanstead project, Iain Ambler considers the natural history of George Green and its future as a special site for wildlife in Wanstead. Photo by Geoff Wilkinson George Green has an interesting environmental history that we can see many remnants of today. It appears to be a fragment of old acid grassland or heathland, probably in or at the margins of Epping Forest. In 1683, John Evelyn visited Wanstead and recorded the costly planting of avenues of trees by Sir Josiah Child around his recently acquired estate. The remaining massive sweet chestnut trees standing on the Green today (four in a line, three together, one towards the St Mary’s end of the green) formed part of one of these double avenues of trees radiating out for some distance from the focal point of the grand house, which...

Richard Arnopp was one of several participants in last month’s Museum of London Archaeology workshop exploring the history and secrets of Wanstead Park’s Temple Anything to do with the history of Wanstead Park is almost guaranteed an audience and, with that in mind, Epping Forest hosted two free archaeology workshops in the park last month as part of Layers of London, an interactive online mapping project. The events – led by Paul McGarrity of Museum of London Archaeology – took place in the Temple, a building dating from about 1760, originally constructed to house a menagerie. Paul explained that archaeology isn’t just about digging - archaeologists record buildings which are still standing too. He said that the analysis of buildings is based on the same principles as other archaeological fieldwork. In excavations, archaeologists use the sequence of buried layers to reconstruct the history of a...