News on The Carpenters Estate

Welcome to the October edition of The Carpenters Estate. Read a pdf here

What’s happening on Carpenters Estate?

Going forward, we are committed to keeping you updated on what’s happening as we progress with the restoration of the Carpenters Estate. Mayor Rokhsana Fiaz promised a new start when she came into office back in May 2018, and the Council is committed to ensuring that you have loads of opportunities to get involved and have influence over the future of your neighbourhood.

THANK YOU TO EVERYBODY WHO BRAVED THE RAIN AND JOINED US AT OUR SEPTEMBER DROP IN EXHIBITION

Coming up soon:

DROP IN EXHIBITION

21st October, 4 – 7pm, in the square outside Londis

Come and speak to the design team about how the masterplan for the Carpenters Estate has incorporated your comments and ideas from our September event. Find out more about the landlord offer. Most importantly, share your feedback.

POP-UPS

Every Wednesday 3 – 5pm, in the square outside Londis

Come along and see Terrayne & Catherine to find out more about what is happening on the Carpenters Estate. We will be making every effort to keep each other safe; sanitisers will be available and all staff will be wearing visors. Please come in bubbles of no more than 5 so you can talk to a member of the team at these events

Your newspaper

Join the editorial team*

*Big on writing? Love photography? Looking for a career in journalism?

This publication is about Carpenters and the only right way to create this is with you involved. If this sounds like you email: info@populoliving.co.uk

A message from Deb Heenan

Thank you to all the residents who braved the rain to come to our September exhibition. We really appreciate your feedback on the Assessments and your thoughts about how the estate could be improved. The team will take all your views on board as they start to create the best plan for your estate.

We know that making sure the landlord offer works for you is just as essential as ensuring the estate is well designed. We are working hard to get this right for everyone (including those in temporary accommodation). We look forward to sharing this with you shortly.

DEBORAH HEENAN, CEO Populo Living

A message from the Mayor

I hope you are all keeping safe as we contend with the ongoing challenges of living with Covid-19 in London and in Newham. In the Capital, London is now on the government’s ‘watch list’ as an area of ‘high concern’, which is a stark reminder that we face further lockdown restrictions unless we all pull together to avert the situation getting worse.

East London is at particular risk, it is crucial that we all redouble our efforts and follow precautions to stop the virus spreading even more. We need to keep Newham safe, so whatever you may think about how the government is handling the Covid-19 crisis, let’s not put any more of our families and loved ones at risk here in the borough. And please keep an eye on vulnerable neighbours, friends or family members and help them.

At Carpenters, the team is carefully running socially distanced resident events so that you can remain involved in the restoration programme, but we are monitoring the situation carefully and will always follow the latest guidance to keep our residents safe.

At the end of September the Carpenters Estate restoration programme moved to the next stage, demonstrating the progress we are all making, by presenting an assessment of the 2019 capacity studies that we had commissioned. Talking to residents, including the steering committee, we asked you about what you wanted to keep and what was missing from results.

You know that I am committed in ensuring that the restoration of the estate is driven by what our residents need. It’s not just about cost, it’s also about providing quality homes and enabling community environments for Newham residents to live and thrive. It’s about excellent open green spaces to access to and the best community facilities that are sustainable, as well as beautiful.

I know that we have a busy few months ahead of us, as the design team works with residents to create the best masterplan for the estate.

Thank you for staying committed to this joint collaborative effort between the community and the Council, for all your ideas and input. Keep them coming, as all of them have real value.

Best wishes,

Mayor Rokhsana Fiaz

People at the Heart of Everything We Do

@rokhsanafiaz

Summary of the September Drop-in Exhibition

ASSESSING THE 2019 STUDIES

At the end of our work in 2019 you told us you wanted to see these studies assessed to see what was possible. We have identified seven areas that will need to be assessed which take far more than cost into account, and have given each of the studies a traffic light rating against each category with red, amber and green. We have taken the items in the Residents’ Brief and your feedback from 2019 and developed assessment criteria for any masterplan for the Carpenters Assessment.

Red - does not meet this categories needs

Amber - has the potential to meet this categories needs but could be improved

Green - meets this categories needs

Our assessment:

YOU TOLD US:

'We want to know that things are realistic so can w e see new ideas against this assessment criteria and then w e w ill know what is and isn’t possible.'

'Some of the criteria feel more important than others, for example cost and number of new quality homes could be more important than sustainability.'

'We liked the central open space and this is in all of them so this doesn’t need to be amber.'

We really enjoyed talking to people about the assessment because it will help us work together with a shared understanding. Going forward we will continue to use these criteria every time we bring new ideas.

We’ve also heard regularly that the central open space is important so this is something that we will include but we still think there is room to improve the open spaces that are being shown and we want to work on that with you in November.

What does this mean for the masteplan?

Between now and January 2021 we want to work with residents to develop a preferred masterplan for the Carpenters Estate that includes the key ingredients you have told us you wanted and the features the Council is committed to providing.

We don’t think it is as simple as choosing one of the 2019 studies because we want to work together to develop a masterplan that has more green lights against the assessment criteria.

We used photographs of examples to find out what features you liked best. Below are the ideas you liked best. We will start to reflect these in how we develop the masterplan together.

Play for all ages

People thought having a variety of play and sports provision was important and it needed to be secure for residents.

Open spaces for residents

All the photographs of open spaces were popular particularly the ones that showed spaces you could imagine residents meeting each other in and bringing back that sense of shared resident space.

Community spaces

Community spaces and facilities were popular but we think we still need to find a better range of images to really describe what you want for the estate.

JAMES RILEY POINT UPDATE

We have been exploring whether it is possible to refurbish the towers to create homes that are fit for the future. We want to refurbish James Riley Point as a first phase of the regeneration to provide up to 132 high quality refurbished homes at low cost affordable rents.

We are looking at moving forward with an affordable option that would create homes that:

- are attractively designed with new flat layouts and ensuring all homes have balconies or access to private open space

- are highly energy efficient and affordable to heat

- have improved entrance areas and access arrangements, including new lifts

WE ASKED YOU ABOUT THE IDEA OF A NEW COMMUNITY SPACE AT THE BASE OF JAMES RILEY POINT:

You told us you liked the idea of James Riley Point being refurbished and of having a community space at the bottom but wanted to make sure the entrance to the homes was clear.

But what about now?

We know that all these ideas might sound nice but you want to see real change in the way your estate is maintained and cared for now. We have been pulling together a Maintenance Charter so we can agree what is expected; one of the jobs of your new Community Liaison Officer will be to make sure that maintenance and repairs are carried out.

Find out more about the projects that have been submitted for funding to LLDC to provide some immediate change in the areas you told us were most important.

Key fact:

You decide the future of Carpenters! Before any decision is made about replacing homes on the Carpenters Estate, it’s up to you to vote whether the project can go ahead.

This is called the Ballot process and currently we expect this will take place in late Spring 2021.

A message from your Ward Councillors

Hoping that you and your family are healthy and happy as you read this. It’s been great to catch up with some of you at the weekly dropins on the estate, and we hope everybody living on Carpenters gets the opportunity to pop down and speak with the team working on improving our neighbourhood. We know how important it is that your voices are included, so please take the opportunity to get in touch whenever you need us.

Building a community doesn’t happen overnight, and we understand the significance of the contribution this community on Carpenters brings the wider Stratford area. When elected, we pledged to do everything we could to maintain, support, and grow this community. That’s why this entire process is not only about building homes, but about creating the long-lasting facilities that help a community thrive.

Recently, we have worked a lot with residents who want to see less crime and antisocial behaviour on our streets. We want to create an environment hat discourages and disincentivises criminal behaviour; a new community centre could help us do just that.

Take care and remember, we are always just an email or a phone call away.

Yours,

Councillor Joshua Garfield Councillor Nareser Osei Councillor Terry Paul

Coming up

SURVEYS ON CARPENTERS ESTATE

As part of the restoration of the Carpenters Estate a series of surveys are being carried out to make sure the team have the most up-to-date information they need for their design work.

In the coming weeks a survey will be carried out to test the ground conditions on the estate to help understand what foundations would be needed for any new buildings.

There will be three types of holes dug across the site, as various samples need to be taken in order to be representative of ground conditions on the whole estate.

You will see this work being undertaken but please be assured these are part of the survey process and no further works are starting on the estate.

1. Borehole: Each hole indicated on the map will be dug one at a time, will measure 25cm wide and 30m deep and will take approximately 2-3 days to drill. The machinery used will be 7m high and will require approximately 5m square area round the hole, however the noise from this digging should be less than that of a car engine

2. Trial pit: A small excavator machine will be used to dig a shallow pit. This should take no more than 30 minutes at each location.

3. Window Sampler: A window sample is a short action that would take 2-3 hours on average.

Once the digging is complete, a small bore hole cap will be placed and the contractors have committed to returning the paving or surfaces to the same conditions that they were found. It has been agreed that digging time will be strictly between 8am - 4pm.

If you have any questions or concerns please contact Populo on 020 7112 8901

Source Partnership

Source Partnership are continuing to work as your independent advisor on the plans and programme. Rob Williams is your key contact for Source Partnership.

If you have any concerns or questions, contact Rob on 0800 616 328 or email rob@sourcepartnership.com