Arcade: back to the drawing board

At a council meeting last week – and as reported in this week’s Walthamstow Guardian - councillors finally admitted that the Arcade plans are no longer going ahead as planned.

The good news is that we might end up with, say, a swimming pool instead of a Primark. (Although this could turn out to be yet another pipe dream that vanishes when the council takes a long, hard look at its budget.) Meanwhile the bad news is that plans still probably include a tower block built by the same developer, there’s no suggestion of taking this opportunity to genuinely involve the community in the new plans, and the council still seems hell-bent on including a multiplex instead of refurbishing the EMD cinema next door and linking it to the Arcade.

Here’s the Fight The Height statement on what came out of the meeting:

"While we welcome the chance to rethink the Arcade site, Fight The Height still has some major reservations about the council and its plans.

"Firstly, the council is still partnering with St Modwen. Despite changes to the retail part of the plan, it would appear St Modwen are still planning a residential tower block that will be out of keeping the low rise character of Walthamstow and against the recommendations of The Prince's Foundation report on Walthamstow.

"Secondly, the council is still playing its cards way too close to its chest. This should be a vital moment to engage with the community on making the site work and be popular for everyone in Walthamstow. Instead, Cllr Wheeler was forced into admitting changes to the plans only to other councillors at two meetings where the public had no voice (and with no advance notice of the meetings). And there has been absolutely no public dialogue on the changes - just a terse announcement to other councillors.

"Finally, we're disappointed in the entire council - not just Cllr Wheeler - for the level of debate at Tuesday's meeting. Councillors appear mostly concerned in simply getting something, anything on the Arcade site. But most councillors seem to have given up caring what actually will go on - a cinema, a swimming pool, a hotel, a tower block - who cares as long as it gets built seemed to be the general attitude of Tory, Liberal and Labour councillors alike.

"The final resolution councillors voted on merely asked the cabinet to look at 'innovative ways to proceed'. We would much rather the council uses this opportunity to evaluate more carefully what will really work on the site now, and for many years to come; rather than just sign up whatever they can now. After all, what's a year or two more of an empty site after so many years?! A proper solution for the site would genuinely bring regeneration, wouldn't tower over the market and would bring a solution to the EMD/Granada cinema issue, rather than leaving it to rot."