Local resident and member of Marks Gate Padnall Views Action Group asked questions on Time Radio 107.5 question time 16/12/20.
A few surprises came out, the Council plans to demolish the flats at Reynolds Court and Padnall Court and re-build with higher density along with a supermarket. He went on to say that he gets lots of complaints about the Co-op (Rose Lane) and its too small.
This has not been taken into consideration when reviewing the traffic and pollution for the development at Padnall Lake for 300 homes. Nor the effect on Infrastructure. Let alone the fact that with more homes the green space at Padnall Lake will be even more necessary for the increased population size.
Here is what he said:
Presenter: Mark Dover (MD), Guest: Cllr Darren Rodwell (DR)
MD: You’re here to answer any questions people may have for you, you are of course the leader of Barking and Dagenham Council. Darren we have a few (questions) that have come in already so I’m going to crack on with this. The first one is a little bit long so I am going to try and read it.
DR: oh ok,
MD: Try and read it almost verbatim but not quite. This one is from Gary Middleton so this is what he says. Why have the council railroaded through plans to build 300 homes on the green land which is opposite, alongside the A12 Marks Gate completely ignoring local opposition by people who live there and think this is a terrible idea.
The original presentation was for 200 homes from the start they were told that seemed a lot. The parking and access along Padnall Rd is already very bad, traffic just trying to get off the estate at peak times is terrible, there’s no spaces there at the local schools and doctor’s, building more homes is just going to make this worse. Plus they really shouldn’t be building on open green space right next to a major trunk road. The response was to increase the number of new homes to 300 with only 124 spaces for, and in his words: stupid, stupid stupid.
You’ve had 40 objections to this posted on the council’s planning page which were supposed to be read out at the planning committee meeting but weren’t and also ignored was the petition of hundreds of names.
The council is supposed to be working for the residents, it seems that it is being run for the benefit of building contractors and yes there is a need for new homes in Barking and Dagenham just not here.
DR: well funnily enough that’s what most people say they all accept that there’s a need for new homes but they never want near where they live currently. The fact of the matter is if you go back to 1951 there wasn’t an estate there, there is now and change is happening. People for many years have complained that Marks Gate feels marginalised and, um .. isolated in a way that doesn’t connect to the rest of the borough and what we are trying to do is connect Marks Gate with better infrastructure and its starting with the piece strip of land which is next to the A12.
On the other side of the A12, by the way, Eastern Ave, there is actually housing and Moby Dick there.
But the fact of the matter is we do need housing, we are doing it, Be first as the company has listened, they’ve done all the consultations, in fact they have gone above and beyond the consultations they needed to do because we have been discussing what we needed to do with Marks Gate for many years. And on Rose Lane there’s been housing, the old church now has flats there and its what do we do with the old Padnall flats at the top end at Billet Rd because again they need to come down they are not really fit for purpose and we need to redevelop it so that we can get a supermarket up there as well as other.
We need the infrastructure but better community facilities for our young people and better facilities such as doctors so its all about starting at one point and we are starting near the A12 and its how we work to make sure Marks Gate gets the infrastructure it needs.
People can’t have it both ways they can’t moan that they are isolated and there’s no facilities and then moan that when the council is actually doing something proactive about it and it will bring homes to a truly affordable levels for residents that live there. Padnall Lake Green Space
By the way the parking situation would um… be a case of there’s 124 so that’s with what is the London plan and we would need to make sure that the local public transport is better so again it’s a bonus to the people that are up there because the 62 bus isn’t sufficient.
We need to do more to make sure there’s better connection to Chadwell Heath which will be a cross rail station and again as someone who used to walk down there its not that far for people that want to be a bit more healthier than sit in their cars.
So whilst I understand there are objections I am not part of the planning process I know that colleagues looked at this but I also know that they agreed it on the principles of what benefits it will bring to the wider community.
MD: Now obviously lots of points were made in his email
DR: That’s why I tried to answer it all Mark
DR: No
MD: the reason I say this, is just out of interest, where else would you build new homes, what other sites have been earmarked for possible
DR: first off 45 thousand of them are all on brown field sites and we gotta be really careful when we talk about green belt and brown field and everything else.
This was a strip of land next to the A12 that we cut, we cut the grass that’s about as much as we do with it there’s no facilities there other than it’s a bit of land that’s next to some council flats again which we need to look at improving and that’s what we are gonna do via this development but to do it we got to do it as part of this development.
So that’s what we are looking to do we are trying to improve the whole of Marks Gate whilst acknowledging that we will take up some of this green you know its grass, its all it is and um .. its not a park of any description it’s a piece of grass that’s a strip of land that quite frankly could have been built on in the 1930’s when they done the other side of the road where the Moby Dick and Eastern Avenue is. 
Houses opposite the Lake and development area
are set further back from the A12 than the new Builds will be.
Its no different well you see it if you go into Romford if you are going down the A12 there’s houses both sides of the A12 there and the same if you go into Redbridge.
MD: does the building of all these new homes on that particular site does that make a difference as far as the value of other houses nearby, is that going to effect it in a good way or a bad way?
DR: Well to be honest in Barking and Dagenham we are the only London borough where the house prices are going up because of the demand is so great and um .. in that respect it will improve because Marks Gate will improve with all the infrastructure we are putting in.
There isn’t a supermarket in Marks Gate there will be by the time we’ve finished, what we want to see there because it desperately needs one and we can only do that with mass as the supermarkets are not interested.
MD: the other interesting point to this and this is really from Mick from Rush Green, I’m going to mention as its touching upon the same thing and I am going to read out his message as he’s written it because he has a good point because the only road, the main road in and out passed that particular section is the A12 as you mentioned,
so he says “Given the awful congestion on the A13 and the A12 coupled with the lack of supporting infrastructure why are more high density housing developments taking place around Barking, Dagenham and also into Romford. The infrastructure from a roads point of view is that going to be able to cope as its already busy in rush hour times.
DR: ok so lets step back one moment, if we go back 100 years the Becontree estate weren’t here they started it in 1921 and finished in 1933.
Ok that was because London expanded actually London is needing to expand again so what we have to do and what we are looking to do is build as much as we can on all the brown field sites that we’ve got, that’s what we are doing.
We’ve also got is that government has to invest in the infrastructure that means we’ve gotta have better roads connections better bus connections and we’ve gotta more what I call rural green solutions we are looking at doing that as a council we should be but again we need for us to build the homes.
We are very much discussing with government that we need that infrastructure. Remember cross rail is coming to Romford, cross rail is coming to Chadwell Heath, Gidea Park its going to Ilford those trains for that to happen that billion of pounds worth of investment, for that to happen they must be used and we got to make sure they are used or otherwise its been a waste of public money.
So what we are trying to do is to make sure that where we have the mobile hubs as they call it basically the easy way of getting to a location to be able to use fast transport like cross rail we need to build the density and that’s what we are going to do.
There won’t be any problem with school places in fact Warren Jnr, there’s with Warren Secondary they are all ready for the expansion.
300 homes isn’t going to make that much difference in this phase, remember we will knock down homes to rebuild re-purpose as well, so this is all done with this soft infrastructure knowingly needed being included so it doesn’t matter where it is in the borough I can assure you that when we are building the homes we are making sure that all the other infrastructures are as well and we will continue to do that.
MD: alright, I don’t know whether the person who just sent a text message in his name is Mark or he is saying thanks Mark at the end of his text message, but he says tell Darren there’s a lovely Co-op at Marks Gate and I use it regularly.
We wouldn’t be doing this if we didn’t think it was an improvement, we know its an improvement on the information that we have had from wider community living up on Marks Gate and whilst I will accept that there are some people that don’t want it I can assure people that people that need homes will be up for it these homes are at the values that people can afford, 80% of what Befirst has developed in the borough have all been sub-market.
MD: Ok, thank you Darren
Break
MD: Now Rosemary from Marks Gate wants to know how many of the properties being built by Befirst are going o be on sale to other boroughs
DR: None, there you go that answers that one, next
MD: ok, Anna wants to know how much of the housing being built will be for overspill from other London boroughs
DR: So Befirst, let me explain to residents what happen BeFirst is a wholly owned company by the council so every penny it makes it gets put back into council for the services that goes to the residents so every resident is in effect like a shareholder.
We just represent them as the coucillors. And all the Befirst builds goes at the moment goes to Reside, Reside is a fully owned housing company so its technically a private company but again wholly owned by the Council so we don’t run the company we are the shareholders of the company and they then rent those properties out at sub-market rent that support residents of our borough and none of them can be Right to Buy because they are private, in fact you can have a tenancy there for the rest of your life.
MD: so let me move on .. this one says In Reference to your enthusiastic support for so many new housing developments many new comers will put pressure on GP’s dentists transport schools local roads, we’ve kind of discussed that but is there a specific limit when you can finally say Barking and Dagenham is full.
DR: Yes and its based on the facts of whats going on here so again I’ll go back to what happened, when the Becontree estate which is two thrids of the borough was built it was built all the infrastructure we are just doing the same again that is actually happening down most of it below the A13 some of its happening, the second largest amount that’s happening is in Barking town centre and that is because it can take the infrastructure that’s needed there and we will carry on developing in a way that is contusive to what is going on in where the borough is going. So if I take schooling 95% of the parents in this borough get first choice schooling in the school that they want that’s the highest in London there’s no problem about school places. If I then take Doctor’s surgery that’s not us that’s the NHS the reason we have lost 4 hospitals in the borough is because the NHS test has changed in the way it delivers its services what we are looking to do is to bring facilities back into our community.