Why do councillors want to rip town's character apart?

3:31pm Wednesday 20th August 2008

MRS O’Sullivan (Guard-ian, July 14) says working class folks are being ignored and that the current protesters fighting the Walthamstow town centre screen, to save the EMD/Granada and against a Primark “want things to stay exactly the same”. Hardly!

I’ve been accused by councillors, council officers and members of the public of being a middle-class incomer to the area. And I’ve protested about all those things. Why? Simply because without them, Walthamstow could be just about anywhere.

Scrapping the Stow, decimating the market by plonking a gigantic rival to its clothes stalls next door and leaving a beautiful Art Deco cinema to rot literally tears any personality out of Walthamstow.

Middle class people like me (I was born fairly poor to two immigrant parents) come to live in Walthamstow precisely because of its character.

But hey, instead of trying to maximise this, let’s turn the roads of pretty Warner flats into high-rise housing, stick a Starbucks in The Village and be done with it.

With Ilford, Stratford City and Wood Green already all providing far better high street chain destinations, why do so many councillors and council officers want to tear down everything good with Walthamstow and replace it with what we already have right next door?

Simon Munk, Cleveland Park Avenue, Walthamstow.

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