Campaigning Works!

Thanks to everyone who has got stuck into the campaign so far. We had a great protest at the Waltham Forest Town Hall on Tuesday – around 30 local residents joined up with residents, families and workers at Walton House elderly people’s home who are campaigning to save their home from privatisation. It was a noisy, visual protest despite wind and rain, and we managed to collar councilors on their way in and out of the Town Hall.

With a tiny amount of money we have reached something in the region of 30,000 people with our material and had a big effect. Thousands of people in the Blackhorse Lane area now know about the plans.

We’ve spent around £200 and have raised £110 so far from donations and tins on stalls – if anyone else can put in some money at the next meeting that would be fantastic; we are also hopeful of a donation from Unison and we will still get money when we do stalls.

Most importantly cages are being rattled. Having tried to ignore us or fob us off for months, suddenly now councillors are replying to us, and both the consultants running the public ‘consultation’ and the North London Waste Authority (NLWA) want to meet with us.

We are also starting to get information that things are changing. We have been told two important things – one about the North London Waste Plan and one about the North London Joint Waste Strategy (this is the one the cabinet discussed and voted on in July and which looked like they might have agreed to expand the Edmonton incinerator).

On the North London Waste Plan – we have been told by the chair of the Environment Scrutiny Committee that they have told the NLWA that they would not support a new site at Blackhorse Lane, and that the NLWA said they probably wouldn’t be putting anything there (possibly Hendon instead). Of course we cannot trust this until we have it guaranteed in writing, but nonetheless it’s the whiff of progress.

On the North London Joint Waste Strategy – Barbara Herridge of the NLWA said to Paula on the phone on Tuesday that the document that the all the councils were sent for approval was changed by the Mayor during the consultation phase. Although the document includes a table of options, one of which, the expansion of Edmonton incinerator, is posed as the preferred option, that is then changed later in the document to say that they are not to have a preferred option, and that they are to be ‘technology neutral’. That does not mean no incineration of course, but it does mean they have not decided to expand incineration either. Then at the protest on Tuesday, Councillor Patrick Smith, a Higham Hill Ward Councillor and member of the Environment Scrutiny Sub-Committee told Frances that after the committee's meeting on the 17th of September Councillor Terry Wheeler had produced a revised statement – which might mean the same thing, or it might mean something else, but we have requested a copy of this statement.

Our meeting on Wednesday will be a chance to clarify these points with Archie Onslow from the consultants and Barbara Herridge of the NLWA, as well as to make our main points to them strenuously.

They will then leave the meeting, and we will be able to discuss where we are at as a consequence, what we need to do next, and who can volunteer to do what.

See you there, bring your neighbours!