Legislative Reform Order (Epping Forest)

Clive Efford Excerpts

Thursday 30th June 2011 Commons Chamber

[Clive Efford (Eltham) (Lab)]

I congratulate my hon. Friends the Members for Leyton and Wanstead (John Cryer), for West Ham (Lyn Brown) and for Walthamstow (Stella Creasy) on the way in which they have represented their constituents’ views on this matter. Anyone who has had a conversation with them about the issue is left in no doubt about the strength of the opposition locally to the proposals.

I am sure that we all welcome the fact that we have the Olympic games coming to London. We also understand that it is impossible to have the world’s greatest sporting spectacle take place in our great city without we, as hosts, accepting some inconvenience if we are to put on a safe, efficient and enjoyable games. Our aim must be to showcase our city and country and confirm our status as one of the world’s leading nations, a place that people want to visit and do business in. However, we must also remember that foremost in the minds of local people is the legacy. One way that the success of the games will be judged, when the pomp and fanfare has been and gone, is the legacy left for the people of London, particularly those who live in and around the Olympic boroughs. We all understand and accept that in order to deliver a safe and efficient games the Metropolitan police must be free to make judgments and decisions on operational matters, and the Minister has our full support in that, but it is unfortunate that this decision is being made in the face of local opposition. I am sure that the Minister will want to reassure local people that their concerns about the future of the site will be considered.

Wanstead Flats is a highly valued and essential open space in that part of London. In the short time I had to prepare for the debate, and being that sort of anorak, I decided to look up the history of Wanstead Flats and discovered that attempts to enclose it and restrict access for the common people have long been a source of controversy. In 1871, Henry Wellesley, Earl Cowley, attempted to enclose another piece of the flats. An advertisement with the headline “Save The Forest” encouraged working men to “Attend by Thousands” an open air meeting on Wanstead Flats on Saturday 8 July 1871 and protest against the enclosure. We are dealing with a highly sensitive site in east London that has a history of local activism to protect it. As that piece of history demonstrates, it is clearly because local people have campaigned effectively to protect it that it is still there for us to debate in the House today.

According to the briefing paper provided by the Residents of Leytonstone and Forest Gate campaign, to which I am grateful, the site is designated as green belt and green corridor land, as heritage land and as a site of metropolitan importance for nature conservation. To of the north of the site is a part of the flats that is designated as a site of special scientific interest. As a veteran of the campaign to stop the east London river crossing and protect Oxley woods, which is also an SSSI, I sympathise with the people who are sensitive about the use of the site and wish to protect it for the future.

The Epping Forest Act 1878 lays down a legal framework for the preservation and management of Epping forest, requiring its conservators to keep it for local use. I will not list the six requirements set out in the Act because I want other local Members to have enough time to speak. Suffice it to say that the previous Government introduced the Legislative and Regulatory Reform Act 2006, which gives the powers to set aside the 1878 Act, which is what the Minister for Policing and Criminal Justice is doing. It is a little churlish of me, but I thought I should point that out as another U-turn.

When we deal with local communities like the one in east London, we must remember that they will still be there when everyone has gone home, waiting to see whether the organisers of the games have proved as good as their word and delivered on their promises. The people opposing these plans feel that insufficient effort has been made to find alternative sites and there is concern locally that it could set a precedent for future events. I welcome the comments that the Minister has just made to give reassurances on that.

Will the Minister clarify the position on the future use of the 2006 Act? Is it the case that to use this site in the same way in the future, the same procedure will have to be used and Members of Parliament will again have the opportunity to bring the matter to the Floor of the House if there is strong opposition? Will she also give an assurance that the corporation of London will consult the local community and involve it in future decisions on this site? From the conversations that I have had, there is a feeling that the local community has been left out of those discussions.

[Lyn Brown]

Notwithstanding what the Minister said about the site being restored following its use as a muster site, I know from my time in local government how much argument there can be about whether there has been true restoration of green and open spaces. There are inevitably arguments about how much restoration will cost and to what standard it should be done. Given my fear that the £170,000 will be used to restore the site, rather than to enhance it, does my hon. Friend agree that the police are getting the site rather on the cheap and that they should up their cash so that local people really have something to invest in the site at a later date?

[Clive Efford]

I am not qualified to say what the true value of the site is and what a proper rent would be. However, I do not think that the £170,000 should be used to restore the site. It should be available as a legacy and be spent in consultation with local people. I was just about to make that very point.

[Stella Creasy (Walthamstow) (Lab/Co-op)]

To be clear, we are talking about a large structure, stables for up to 54 horses, an area for dogs and parking for 375 vehicles on a site that has dense vegetation. Many of my constituents very much enjoy going to the Wanstead Flats. I hope the shadow Minister can understand why we are concerned about the restoration of the land, not just in its quality, but in its content. That is vital to the future of the site.

[Clive Efford]

Absolutely. People will need reassurance about the management of that process and should have some input into it to ensure that the standards are not diminished, that the site is restored to its former state and that the damage is not permanent. The only way to reassure the local community is to involve it in the process. I ask the Minister to clarify who will ultimately be responsible for overseeing this. Does she have any influence over the body that will be responsible so that she can ensure that it involves the local community?

I am grateful for the Minister’s unequivocal statement that the £170,000 is for the restoration of the site and not its repair. Will she guarantee that it will be spent in consultation with local people, who have demonstrated through their campaign a great love of and commitment to the site? From their experience of living near the site and visiting it regularly, they will have essential expertise and ideas on how the money can best be spent.

I hope the Minister agrees that when it comes to the legacy, it is issues such as this that will determine in the long run whether local people and communities in the Olympic boroughs feel that the Olympic games have been in the interests of ordinary people, their local communities and London. I hope that the Minister will do everything in her power to ensure that those communities are involved not just in planning the legacy on this side of the games, but in delivering it post the games.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lynne Featherstone]

I am happy to do that, but may I suggest to the hon. Lady that photographs would be useful in that regard?

I was asked whether the legislative reform order procedure would be required if ever a proposal were made to put something similar on Wanstead Flats, and the answer is yes. As I explained during my opening remarks, we would have to go through all this all over again—there is no question about that.

The hon. Member for Leyton and Wanstead asked why the facility was not part of the local Olympic park itself. There will be facilities for the police and emergency services, including front-counter services, on the park, but we are talking about different things here, as there are operational reasons why a briefing centre needs to be a reasonable distance from the park. Obviously, if anything happened in the park, people would need to come from outside to deal with it.

Redbridge council considered the traffic problems as part of the planning application and was content that the proposals would not damage the local environment. Transport for London raised no objections, and the location was chosen, in part, to avoid potential traffic nuisance.

[Clive Efford]

Before the hon. Lady wanders too far from this subject, may I take her back to the issue of the site? It is not good enough just to say that the City of London corporation is responsible for restoring the site for the local community. After all, the previous Government and this Government have been all over this project of delivering the London Olympic games; no doubt, Secretaries of State and other Ministers will be posing for photographs with famous sports personalities and so on as they arrive. So it is not good enough to say that all this about restoring the site is a local skirmish between the local community and the City of London corporation. Does the Minister not think that the Government have a duty to ensure that the corporation is as good as its word and to represent local people who have these concerns when the site is being restored?

[Lynne Featherstone]

The hon. Gentleman does the corporation a disservice, because its reputation is generally very good and people would often like it to take things over.