Laura Brooking

Member since April 30, 2021

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Laura Brooking4 years ago This is where my cycle journeys Eastbound end. An experienced cyclist I avoid cycling on Romford Road at all costs at the moment, though it's a direct route to many useful shops and destinations. The traffic is out of control, too heavy and too aggressive, and the road surface is poor due to the high volume of traffic, including the vital buses that serve the road. This street is totally dominated by motor traffic to the detriment of all else, and I look forward to plans that reclaim it for people and make walking, cycling and bus journeys better along its length. I'm sure local shops and businesses and residents will benefit.

Laura Brooking4 years ago This junction is really poor for walking and cycling - people drive at speed, block the crossings and disobey traffic signals. The junction needs narrowing to traffic with greater priority given to the huge numbers walking through here, and for the many who would cycle if it were safer. It's a real relief this road, which has among the highest unmet demand for cycling in the whole of London, is finally being looked at with a view to improving it for people who live, work and shop here, and improving safety for those who travel through. I hope any scheme will tackle motor traffic dominance and improve safety for vulnerable road users.

Laura Brooking5 years ago Greening and providing a more people-friendly space in the Brooking Rd/Moore Walk/Dimond Close estate, introducing trees and low-maintenance plants to improve the environment in an unloved area at the heart of Forest Gate, currently dominated by bare concrete and parked vehicles, and suffering from fly tipping and litter. The plan is to populate bare soil and unloved patches of grass with trees and low-maintenance shrubs, providing shade and greenery, and introducing planters and seating to create usable outdoor space, particularly for homes without gardens. Planters around the car park would improve, define and protect pedestrian access and walkways, while narrowing the car park to reduce driving speeds – and providing seating. At present concrete bollards line pedestrian walkways, with nowhere to sit but brick walls. Using brickwork and/or low-maintenance planters, I propose improving the estate entrance from Woodgrange Road, so it looks less like an unloved industrial estate and more like a cared-for housing estate.These measures would improve the estate environment for residents and visitors, reduce antisocial driving, littering and improve care for the estate, encouraging more residents to enjoy the space, benefiting mental and physical health, and start to rebalance the space to put people at its heart.

Laura Brooking5 years ago Council housing estates are often fairly large areas with dense housing and large communal spaces offering a lot of potential to provide pleasant, green, friendly places for the communities living there to use and enjoy. However they can end up barren of greenery and seating, and dominated by car parking, leaving the space feeling unloved and unfriendly, and providing a poor environment for residents. Estates that look un-cared for are treated badly with fly tipping, littering, crime and antisocial vehicle use. With some strategic greening, estates can easily be transformed into places that offer more than just car storage and concrete and a place to pass through and turn away from - they can forge a sense of community, with outdoor rest areas, play space for kids without gardens, social areas, seating, shade, and a pleasant, positive environment for people to take ownership and be proud of.Some strategic greening with trees and hardy, low-maintenance shrubs, using both existing grass and bare soil areas along with a variety of planters, can not only define, protect and expand pedestrian space, but offer sanctuary for people and wildlife, reducing overheating in the summer, and cutting down rapid runoff from hard surfaces into drains after rain storms. Green roofs on garages and pram sheds can also be really effective at improving both the visual and environmental amenity of estates, for wildlife, water management and heat dissipation in summer - though is obviously costlier. Hammersmith's Flora Gardens estate has done this really well, with a grant from Natural England.The global pandemic has shown us the value of our green space, of the outdoors and our immediate environment, for our health and wellbeing. Plants can mitigate air pollution, boost our health, improve our local environment by discouraging littering, and create a beautiful and healing place to live.I propose improving the entrances and pedestrian routes on mine (Brooking Road) and other estates using these measures, introducing trees and plants wherever possible to line and mark out pedestrian routes and existing green space. The Triangle Estate in Clerkenwell has squeezed a lot of green space in and around the estate, for reference.The carving out and improving of green space within estates would go a long way to improving Newham's environment for everyone, whether they live on the estates or not.

Laura Brooking

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Extend the cycle lane Eastbound!

Dangerous junction

Greening concrete-dominated estate in central Forest Gate- £5000

Greening/improving estates environment