As of today, Boris Johnson is no longer Mayor of London. Officially he is, in terms of title, and in case any 'situation' arises in need of response. But practically, politically, his era has passed. The Greater London Authority has just entered purdah, a state of incommunicado, so as not to influence campaigning for the election in May. There'll be no more policy announcements or kite-flying press releases, not until Boris's replacement arrives at City Hall and stamps their authority on the Authority. But there was just time yesterday to sneak out one last 80 page report, on a matter very close to the outgoing Mayor's heart. It's that bloody airport again.
Landing the right airport is the title of the report, in which "the Mayor's team set out the overwhelming case against the expansion of Heathrow." This is proper Heathrow-bashing, with the very idea of adding a third runway pooh-poohed over dozens of pages, the emphasis being on the untold impacts on London's health, transport and economic wellbeing.
Heathrow performs heroically in the circumstances but is prone to delays and ultimately struggles in a cramped urban location not fit to accommodate a world class airport. A third runway at Heathrow fails to give us the access to the world we need. This is borne out by the Airports Commission’s own evidence, which found that an expanded Heathrow would effectively be full shortly after opening.
And that's all well and good, you might think, because last year the Airports Commission merely proposed that either Heathrow or Gatwick should be expanded. If the two Heathrow options are so terrible, surely Boris would now be attempting to nudge the Government's final decision towards the lesser evil of Gatwick? Not so, because his report goes on to outline "the logic behind building a four-runway hub to the east of London". The estuary airport may be a dead horse, but Boris is still flogging it.
We need a long term vision for the right airport that sustains our economy and safeguards our public health. That airport is a new four-runway hub airport at the Thames Estuary or Stansted – one that can support a United Kingdom fully engaged with the world. I would urge Government not to turn its back on our future.
The introductory cartoon is almost sweet.
A 'typical' west London family are suffering the impact of an expanded Heathrow, with particular reference to noise, air quality and surface access. One can't sleep, one can no longer board her train, one has higher blood pressure, one coughs more, and one gets worse results in school tests because he can't hear his teacher, and all because nobody listened to Boris. Indeed the majority of the report is taken up by picking holes in the Airports Commission's data, debunking its conclusions and pleading with the government not to expand Heathrow.
Noise-wise, the first thing the Commission supposedly got wrong was not to model an expanded Heathrow consistent with today’s operations, and the second not to model a future two-runway scenario consistent with its three runway scenarios. It's all a bit technical, to be honest, but essentially Boris commissioned a new 'Alternative Future Baseline', and this proves that life would be a lot noisier under the pattern of flights he deems most likely. 46% more people would lie within the crucial 55dB Lden noise contour, including a significant number of people newly affected.
If you work for a media organisation who don't normally publish a news story until someone feeds it to you, then take a look at the map on page 34 of the report and see if you can wheedle a clickbait headline out of that. A red zone on the map indicates that residents of Wimbledon, Brentford, Acton, Ealing, Shepherd's Bush and Holland Park would suddenly find themselves affected by detrimental aircraft noise, under the new model, if a third runway goes ahead. Even the oligarchs in Kensington Palace Gardens would be affected, apparently, unless HEATHROW EXPANSION THREATENS PROPERTY PRICES AND MUST BE STOPPED... there, I've written it for you.
Long term health impacts would also cost billions. Boris argues that the DfT brought out brand new guidance shortly after the Commission's report was published, introducing factors for increased heart attacks and dementia, which might cost the NHS up to £25bn over 60 years. Equally rock solid predictions are made regarding air quality, which is never helped by belching jet fuel over built-up areas. This time new guidance from DEFRA's draft air quality action plan has caused recalculations to be made, with potentially disastrous consequences (says the man who scrapped the Western Congestion Charge Zone).
There is a real risk that, combined with increased aircraft emissions, locations on the A4 Bath Road near the third runway will witness increases of between 4 and 8μg/m³ NO2 - pushing concentrations above 40μg/m3 and so rendering the Greater London zone non-compliant.
Then there's the impact on transport. Road and rail links are forecast to be increasingly congested, the report says, with airport traffic clogging southwest London's roads and commuter services overflowing with luggage. More damningly it accuses the Commission's report of making inaccurate predictions regarding future mitigation, which would be far more costly than they suggested. Bus corridor enhancements, road maintenance costs and improved rail connections would land London with a massive £18bn bill, where the Commission had suggested merely £4bn.
What you might expect to see in a report of this size is a similarly detailed analysis of the alternatives. Not so. Gatwick gets a few pages of "it's not in a good place" and "it wouldn't be a proper hub", so is dismissed as an irrelevance. Instead the report suggests that an East-of-London hub airport is essential, be that at Stansted or in the Thames estuary, but fails to go into much detail. There is a fascinating map which purports to show a new direct rail link from Canary Wharf to Stansted, but no mention of this in the text, as if someone simply drew a straight-ish line in crayon. Similarly the transport map for an Inner Estuary airport indicates a mythical new connection from Waterloo to Barking Reach (construction of which would be wildly expensive and hugely disruptive), before continuing via High Speed 1 towards an ill-defined destination.
In summary, the report affirms that "the Airports Commission has overstated the economic benefits of Heathrow" and hence a third runway there must never go ahead. All the evidence about the potential alternatives is woolly and vague, but that's not the thrust here, which is a Heathrow hatchet job, pure and simple.
It is clear from the Airports Commission evidence presented that Heathrow expansion is wrong for the economy and wrong for the environment... If we are to secure the connectivity that meets the UK’s long-term economic need, then the only option is a four-runway hub.
And somebody at TfL got paid to write all this. As chair of TfL Boris can ask them to do what he likes, including (if you've noticed) a dedicated Aviation page on the TfL website. This features background information on the need for a London hub airport, assorted pro-Estuary airport propaganda and a survey where you can tell the Mayor how much you agree. This latest TfL report is simply a parting shot, before the next Mayor likely bins the lot.
Indeed, there's only one way an estuary airport might ever get built, and that's if the man with the big idea suddenly becomes the man in charge of it. But for that to happen would require blustering Boris Johnson to somehow become Prime Minister, a scenario so ridiculously unlikely that... oh, hang on. If the Brexit referendum splits the Tory party and David Cameron falls, his successor might just arrive in 10 Downing Street with all the donkey work for an estuary airport already complete. And if that's the case, then Boris's final publication before purdah might just be his most important.
A new market has opened on Roman Road, E3. It's called the Yard Market and it will take place every Saturday. They may say 'yard' but what they really mean is car park. You can park in the car park on the corner of St Stephen's Road in the week, but you can no longer park here on Saturdays because there are stalls.
The Yard Market is not like the normal market. The normal market on Roman Road sells clothes and 'fashion' at knock-down prices from stalls all the way along the street. You can buy dresses and cardies and jumpers and shoes and handbags and that sort of thing. It is just possible that some of the clothes with labels are not entirely legit.
The Yard Market is different. It will sell Vintage and Collectables and Mid-Century and Unique Wares and Handmade and Designer and Local. Essentially it sells stuff you don't need, but is quite nice to have. You get a completely different type of stallholder at the Yard Market. And a completely different kind of punter.
Yesterday they held a Launch Party for the Yard Market. I got a leaflet through my letterbox and I live a good mile away. It started at eleven o'clock. A local councillor turned up and cut a ribbon tied across the entrance to the car park. A small crowd cheered and some photographers tried to capture the ideal shot.
Because it was the first day there was street entertainment. Two men with buckets of soapy water made hundreds of bubbles. This kept small children and the photographers very happy. Some buskers stood on a mat and played music. And two costumed superheroes made balloon animals, because obviously that's what superheroes do.
A lot of the things for sale had been made by the people selling them. There were brightly coloured yoga bags and African baskets. There were vinyl albums from the 1980s and old maps. There were eye cushions and handmade quilts. There were queer t-shirtdesigns and art featuring bicycles. There were no polyester blouses.
Altogether there were nearly a couple of dozen stalls. It only took a few minutes to walk around, just as it would only take a few minutes to walk round a small car park. But it took longer to walk round if you stopped and looked at everything. All in all it was a promising start for the Yard Market.
A decent number of people had turned up for the opening. Some were people who normally came to the market, looking around to see what the new market had. They walked round the stalls, or rode on their mobility scooters. They didn't buy much because they don't need bath bombs or E3 t-shirts or cacti in designer pots.
Other visitors wouldn't have been seen dead on the old market. They were smarter dressed, younger and less ethnically diverse. They came to see the special things, not the everyday things. I spotted the young thrusting project manager from work and his fiancé, who recently moved in round the corner. I was not surprised to see them here.
Three food vans turned up to give the Yard Market some bite. One sold buttermilk chicken burgers with bacon jam. One sold beef rendang and Malaysian noodle salad. The third sold grilledcheese, notably Queso Chihuahua, Chorizo and Rocket for £6.50. They don't normally sell posh grilled cheese down Roman Road. But they sold out by 3pm.
Mary Portas would have been delighted by the Yard Market. She came to Roman Road a few years back to give it an economic kick up the backside, and this is just the sort of project she'd have liked. As it is, the only remnant of her time here appears to be the pop-up streetfoodbakery on the corner. They sell three-bite lemon tarts for £3.50.
Because this was the launch party there were also some special events. Several free guided walks were on offer, including one for history, one for indie shops and one for lost boozers. These added genuine cultural depth, emphasising that the Yard Market is a community enterprise at heart. There will not be free walks next Saturday.
There was supposedly an additional Fresh Food Market starting this week. The weekday stallholders insisted that this was housed in their part of the market, so that not all of their trade leached away to the upstart across the road. So far as I could tell the Fresh Food Market contained only two stalls. They needn't have bothered.
And the normal market remained busy. Ladies who want cheap dresses and furry boots or colourful handbags already know where to come. And the traders know their business, keeping prices at rock bottom to shift as much gear as possible. In the normal market you can buy a dress for a quid or leggings for a fiver, indeed an entire outfit for less than a single Yard Market item.
Viewed one way the Yard Market is a great addition to Roman Road's retail offering. A triumph of diversification, it offers quality and originality, augmenting and complementing the original market. Neither market particularly competes with the other - you'll come for one or you'll come for the other.
Viewed another way the Yard Market is a telling sign of the changing post-Olympic East End. A kind of middle class annexe, it offers quirk and character for the trendier incomers, but very little for the poorer long term locals. You're either a polyester blouse person or a grilled chorizo person - so pick your market, and come buy.
Have you been up the Orbit recently? No of course you haven't. It does attract visitors - there were more than a dozen foreign tourists up there on my last visit. But at other times the observation deck is an empty void, indeed I've been up top more than once when the staff were desperately pleased to finally have somebody to talk to.
They're hoping to change the tumbleweed feel when a new slide opens, corkscrewing all the way down from the lower viewing platform, this game-changer currently scheduled for sometime in May. But in the meantime, should you choose to pay a tenner for the privilege of peering down over the Olympic Park (from the upper platform only), what might you see? [15 photos]
West Ham's new stadium, for a start. It doesn't have an official name yet, which still worries me, but it does now have a proper roof to keep the extended seating area dry. Those trademark triangular floodlights now point down rather than up, and the black seats are being swapped for claret replacements (you can see a lot of these stacked up behind Pudding Mill Lane station). A properly-sealed perimeter now surrounds the exterior at ground level, this so that Stadium Island can at last become a public space. And West Ham finally move in in mid-August, not that being up the Orbit will allow you to see anything on the pitch, so don't get any ideas.
The main spine of the Olympic Park stretches out to the north, with the tarmacky bit closest to, and the prettier parkland further beyond. They echo emptily on late winter weekdays, but not terminally so, and they'll be full enough as the weather finally warms up. That replacement bridge they were building in the northern parklands is now complete, and looks surprisingly like what it replaced. More companies have moved into the digital shed at Here East, which cringingly claims to boast "creative businesses growing in scale joining businesses of scale growing in creativity". Hackney Wick beware, you might just be swallowed whole.
Between the Park and Westfield a wall of skyscrapers is going up. This is the International Quarter, a permanent screen of business real estate as Stratford City edges outwards. We'll be allowed to walk between the towers once they're built, but for now the main pedestrian access point has been shifted northwards and you'll have to make do. Between the railway and the water's edge is the site of Olympicopolis, which if no better name turns up we'll be stuck with calling it forever, the eventual destination for the V&A, Sadler's Wells and the Smithsonian. A public consultation on the plans has just completed, not that I bet you noticed, nor that it'll make a blind bit of difference.
Another consultation was also held recently for the UCL East masterplan, which I pointlessly turned up to for an overview of scheduled plans. The featureless lawn to the south of the Orbit is destined to become a suite of campus buildings, just the one to begin with, while the two desolate spaces to the south of the Aquatic Centre will become student digs. They'll be expensive cramped blocks, obviously, but conveniently located for the shops should your massive student debt allow.
Beyond the railway (close to Pudding Mill Lane station) are half the replacement allotments for the pre-Games Manor Gardens site, a small hamlet of Toytown sheds with seemingly empty patches of earth alongside. I've never seen anybody using them, but apparently the first tenants are already tilling the soil to get it ready for vegetable production, with first fruits expected later this year. With Crossrail still faffing about on the adjacent land, two riverside pedestrian exits from the southern end of the park still aren't open to the public, and the Greenway is stillvery blocked beyond that. But the portal that Crossrail trains will one day emerge from is now very much in place, with twin concrete shells rising rapidly to a letterbox exit almost precisely where the old DLR platforms used to be.
Crossrail are also about to cause significant disruption on the River Lea towpath. A new electricity substation is being built to power future trains, close to the existing railway bridge, and this means shutting off access from Monday 21st March onwards. A floating walkway will be built alongside the disruption, meaning pedestrians and bikes can return from late April, while construction work continues for another year. Meanwhile Thames Water are taking the opportunity to work on some pipes under the towpath nearer the Greenway, which means the entire section from the Bow Roundabout to Old Ford Lock will be out of bounds for about five weeks. You can read all about this on East London's dullest website, puddingmilllanesubstation.com, and there's a Google map of the diversion too.
Meanwhile the Orbit had better get on with building its slide if it wants a flood of visitors to arrive. On my last visit earlier this month a ground level construction paddock was in place but no start on the upper access point had been made, and no twisty tubes were in place. If all goes to plan then by the end of May you'll be able to slide down for a fiver - that's on top of the cost of going up the tower anyway, a price which it was hinted might be increasing, for local resident rates at least. But come on, where else are you going to be able to look down on a park, a construction site, a claret stadium, a construction site, some allotments and several more construction sites? That slide had really better pull the punters, huh?
