Footpath47

@TonyJuniper @stuartpengs It’s a shame your laudable comment ‘one strand among many, all of which are needed’ did not apply to Natural England’s miserable response to the the Barking Riverside development. London’s most important conservation site by the Thames, is being ruined under high-rise horrors.

@stuartpengs If species recovery was the only thing going on then a fair point. It is though one strand among many, all of which are needed. A shame we have to restore some species from near or even actual national extinction, but it’s where we are & work on this is needed.

The sleight of hand with species reintroductions being marketed as 'conservation' the trajectory can only ever be upwards. You're starting from zero so any amount is a 'conservation success'. REAL conservation of declining species is a whole other ball game. It infuriates me that people fall for it as conservation.

@TonyJuniper @BLackgold_5 Night time, radio navigation device. What you see is a metallic array pattern, sprayed onto the underside.

@BLackgold_5 Dornier 217, but don’t know what that bit is

Can you identify this aircraft? And what is this thing on top?

@MattLismore @lbbdcouncil Unfortunately none of the local MPs would do anything but gaslighting and excusing @lbbdcouncil ‘s incompetence and fleecing of leaseholders not just via fictitious service charges but also charges for energy via B&D Energy.

This isn’t even capitalism. It’s medieval lordship. Father starts a war. Sons sell the weapons to countries that need his protection to survive. Buyers know the purchase is tribute. Saddam Hussein would have recognised it instantly. The US isn’t a democracy right now. It’s a protection racket with a flag. Britain needs to face that fact - and build something different with Europe before it’s too late.

@EmmaLewell That isn’t what our party promised Emma, we promised to end the feudal leasehold system. The cost of living crisis for leaseholders ends only when leasehold ends. Rowing back on our manifesto pledges is not acceptable & leaseholders are already seeing through this spin.

I think that article actually proves my point, it mentions the volume of homes built, but doesn’t reference that the site has no recreation facilities, no GP, no hospitality, no jobs and no supermarket. It has none of the amenities required to live a happy & full life AND it is entirely leasehold. @tomcopley you know I’ve done a large amount of work in this borough highlighting huge issues on housing - I would have hoped you would have been open about the myriad of huge challenges at Barking Riverside. Having potential does not mean that potential is being filled.

@BrokenBarnet @tomcopley This provides some good insight. Barking riverside is basically, lots of flats and the only infrastructure is transport links to get you somewhere else. It was originally pitched as “Barcelona on Thames” mylondon.news/news/east-lond…

@markrwilliamson @greenarteries @CambridgePPF The did something similar, with a different label, at what L&Q refer to as “the largest housing development in Europe” at Barking Riverside. Slick PR, photoshopped imagery, poorly informed CICs, secrecy around decisions… yet important environmental information buried.

Development corporation plans represent ‘a fundamental shift in local democracy’ - @CambridgePPF

It’s probably similar to the silver lining we’ll feel watching right wing fossil fuel shills discover why it was a bad idea to build our entire economy around an energy source controlled by some of the most corrupt unstable regimes on earth, rather than building up domestic renewable energy sources.

It is worth noting, that one of the main beneficiaries of @MayorofLondon’s GLA housing grants are @lbbdcouncil The funding is contingent on the adherence to the service charges charter mentioned by the mayor here. @lbbdcouncil have been found at first tier tribunal to be overcharging shared owners in “affordable housing” funded by the GLA, by 20% on their service charges, in a clear violation of their service charge charter. There has been absolutely no consequence for @lbbdcouncil - The GLA are aware of this, but have done nothing to hold the council to account. @tomcopley - you and I have spoken about this on numerous occasions extensively at city hall, is there anything you can do about this?

There’s no such thing as ‘too small to matter.’ A single oak tree can support over 500 species of insects, birds, and mammals. Your backyard is an entire ecosystem waiting to happen.

@giveashitnature Throw in a pocket pond for good measure as well…

The Mayor talks a lot about tackling leasehold, but he continues to fund leasehold properties - locking owners into the misery of sky-high service charges. @AndrewBoff exposes his hypocrisy 👇

The annual sewage discharge data is out and once again it seems a key part of the story has been missed, which is that we have absolutely no way of knowing the true impact of different sewage discharges on our rivers and seas because we do not record the relevant data. Look at the article below, where it’s stated that sewage was discharged “300,000 times”, which gives no indication of the seriousness of the discharge. Even when broken down into “1.8 million hours”, you might immediately ask the question: 1.8 million hours of *what* exactly? The duration of a discharge is only one of the pieces of information we need to know to assess the harm of a discharge. The others are: - Concentration of the sewage: the more dilute a discharge is, the less harm it will do to the environment (and vice versa). - Volume of sewage discharged: a trickle of sewage discharge is going to cause less harm than a torrent of sewage (and vice versa). However, not a single CSO in the country is monitored for either of these two crucial pieces of information. To show why this is important, I show below the hours of discharge for two CSO’s on the Roding. They are a mile apart & both likely discharging illegally: one for 488 hours & one for 261 hours. I challenge anyone (particularly politicians or water company execs) to tell me the relative harm caused by these two CSO’s and thus the amount of resources that should be invested in fixing each outfall. I will reveal the answer in the thread below tomorrow.

I’m stunned that a developer would go back on their word. If only there was a way to know they would do this, is it the first time something like this has happened?

@tomcopley @BrokenBarnet @MattLismore What point is there in building thousands of these “same old, same old” ugly, high-rise apartments, that are going up all over London, where people become worn down by living in soulless concrete high-rise canyons, where they can no longer see the sky?

@BrokenBarnet @MattLismore Don’t believe the cynics. Barking Riverside is a fantastic development with huge potential, especially now the new outline planning permission has been approved by LBBD. timeout.com/london/news/20…

It’s absolutely fantastic news for London that both Crews Hill and Chase Park in Enfield, and Thamesmead in Greenwich, have ben confirmed as new towns. Between them the locations have the potential to deliver 36,000 homes. theguardian.com/society/2026/m…

@tomcopley @BrokenBarnet @MattLismore I’m no “cynic”. Lived in Barking for generations. No GP surgery. Why, after waiting so long? Shows the developer’s order of priorities! I was optimistic of the future #BarkingRiverside but all sold down the river when the developer jumped on Labour’s “high-density bandwagon”

@yimbyalliance Some of these sites are good, others questionable. We need to learn from the mistakes made at Barking Riverside if we want to make these towns places people want to actually live. They should also be forced to contain zero leasehold homes.

@Nesil_Caliskan @SteveReedMP Also, your post is slightly confusing: can local people determine how the money is to be spent, or has it already been decided that it will be spent on Mayesbrook Park & Rippleside?

While planners and developers are house building, they are responsible for every ton of carbon released into the atmosphere. They are responsible for every species pushed closer to extinction or forced to relocate.    To trade nature's future for housing is not development, and it is a disgrace to the word 'growth.’