Tolani Benson

Member since September 2, 2020

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Tolani Benson5 years ago The Earl of Essex is a beautiful historic pub and listed building, which is being allowed to crumble as the current owner wishes to redevelop the building into flats. It seems that until the owner gets the planning permission to develop the whole thing into flats they will ci tinge to refuse to develop or maintain the site and let this historic building get into a worse and worse state of disrepair. This could and should be an important community asset and hub, if it were reopened and renovated as a family friendly pub for residents to enjoy with their friends and neighbours. This is something that is completely lacking in the Manor Park area, and would be incredibly valuable. The council needs to force the owner to maintain the building as allowing a listed building to continue to degrade in the way it has been is tantamount to vandalism and destruction of this irreplaceable asset. It has the potential to play such an important role in the community but the council continues to let the owners get away with allowing it go unused (actually letting it as very low quality emergency accommodation and allowing people to live there in horrible unsafe surroundings which is even worse!)Please do something to save the Earl of Essex!!

Tolani Benson5 years ago

Tolani Benson4 years ago There is a continuous problem with pavement parking along Romford Road, which makes the street inaccessible for those in wheelchairs and with prams. The area is also in dire need of some greenery to help improve the look of the space and to absorb some of the pollution.I propose installing some large format planters with small trees and shrubbery (as has been done on Upton Lane - see attached photo) along Romford Road between the Earl of Essex and Rabbits Road junctionsq, to make the pavements inaccessible to cars. The cost of the planters and initial planting could be covered by this project, and ongoing maintenance of the planters done by the local community, perhaps helped with sponsorship from local busineses.Adding greenery would significantly improve the look of this stretch of Romford Road, which is particularly bleak and has been lacking any investment. Currently most investment seems to be concentrated in the northeast corner of manor park close to the station, with very little focus on the wider area which makes up most of the ward. It would be nice to focus some investment on one of the main thoroughfares, and improve both the look and feel of the place, whilst improving accessibility for residents.I'd like to add that ideally I'd like these all the way along Romford Road from both ends of Manor Park, beyond the section I've specified, but given the budget constraints I feel this area should be made the priority as it is the most in dire need of some beautification.

Tolani Benson5 years ago As we all know the air quality in the Borough is one of the worst in Europe, and much of this pollution in the local area comes from Romford Road. While more needs to be done to reduce traffic and encourage active travel, it is likely that this will remain a busy thoroughfare as a route to central London, so we must find ways to offset the impact on local residents.We could follow the lead of our neighbours in Waltham Forest by installing air cleaning systems which use solar power and natural moss materials to clean the air and have the CO2 reduction abilities of 275 trees per unit. This would make a huge difference to the local air quality and health of local residents.This should be done alongside greening and planting of real trees and plants, to improve the attractiveness of the area, but will have a bigger impact than trees alone.https://www.guardian-series.co.uk/news/18134557.waltham-forest-council-installs-city-tree-air-cleaning-systems/

Tolani Benson5 years ago As well as focusing on the high streets, it would be nice to create spaces for mini urban gardens in our residential streets.Many of the streets are tree-lined but the beds at the bottom which would be ideal for community planting have been filled in. We could also use spaces at the ends of our streets for creating mini urban gardens with planters etc, as demonstrated by the residents of Manor Park Village on Carlton Road. If we can identify suitable spots and make available funds for the planters plenty of residents such as myself would be happy to maintain these in order to brighten up our living environment. This would be a good way to encourage a sense of community in local areas as neighbours come together to take ownership of their greenery.This may also help with reducing fly tipping in these spots that are otherwise bare and unattractive, and encourage people to take more pride in the area.