diamond geezer

Monday, October 13, 2014

Somewhere at TfL Towers is a desk where you are the enemy. That's you the humble tube passenger who insists on taking the train all the way to your intended destination via the quickest route. In particular that's you if your final destination is Covent Garden, because a lot of problems could be solved if you got off one stop early and walked. They've been trying for years to get people to do it, and now, with two of the lifts out of action for repairs, they have a brand new tactic.

Covent Garden's long been a bottleneck station. It's one of the few deep tube stations in London where escalators have never been installed, necessitating the use of a bank of lifts or a challenging flight of almost 200 steps. And that was fine when the nearest big thing was a flower market, but as Covent Garden has evolved into tourist central so congestion at the station has become worse. People see the name on the tube map and assume the Piccadilly line is the only way to get there, never thinking it might be possible to walk from nearby.

TfL have tried all sorts of things to persuade people to travel differently. They're run a campaign entitled "Don't Follow The Crowd" to ward people off arriving here. They've pointed out that Leicester Square is only 300 yards away, making this the closest pair of stations anywhere on the network. They've added directional signs at street level to try to shepherd visitors from Leicester Square via an above ground route. They've even made Covent Garden station exit only at weekends so that the lifts only clog in one direction and passenger throughput is maximised. And now they've spotted another class of passenger they can divert, and are attempting to nudge them into changing their behaviour too.

Holborn station is the penultimate stop for many travellers heading to Covent Garden, in particular those changing from the Central line to the Piccadilly. They alight from one train, follow a lengthy subterranean trek to reach the next platform, and then take a one minute ride to their destination. What if, someone thought, what if these people could be persuaded to complete their journey on foot. Stop them from getting on the Piccadilly line train in the first place, ease congestion at Covent Garden, make life better for everyone. And so fairly recently this sticker has appeared.

Those exiting the Central line platforms see this black rectangle as they approach the foot of the stairs. There's no context, not unless they happen to have been fortunate enough to hear the relevant recorded announcement that's played out every ten minutes across the loudspeakers. This starts by explaining that Covent Garden is currently exit only, which may be true but is entirely irrelevant for those travelling towards the station. And then it goes on to say that at weekends westbound trains aren't stopping at Covent Garden, which is extremely relevant, and is the reason why you ought to leave the station now. None of this important backstory is evident on the black sign.

Another black sign appears at the foot of the main escalator, this time pointing upwards. It's been positioned at the entrance to the Piccadilly line portal, so you can't miss it, along with a map to show the suggested walking route. A red line shows which way to go (down Kingsway, then right into Great Queen Street and keep going), should you have the opportunity to take it all in. But to view the map you have to stand in the path of passengers descending from the ticket hall as they pour off the escalator, so hanging around long enough to memorise the route isn't really an option.

Ignore the black sign and you can carry on down to the Piccadilly line. On a weekday you could be at Covent Garden station in a couple of minutes, perhaps to join the queues for the lifts, but you're still going to get to the surface quicker than the 10 minute walk TfL are suggesting. On a weekday the black sign is best ignored. But at the weekend, at least until mid-November, you'd be best advised to take heed. Westbound trains aren't stopping at Covent Garden, remember, so you'd end up overshooting and having to come back, or getting out at Leicester Square and walking, and that's ten minutes plus.

Let's assume you do decide to follow TfL's black diversion sign out of the station. What happens at the top of the escalators? Well, here another black sign directs you left out of the ticket hall, but that's the sole extent of TfL's street level signage. There's no map, not up here, so if you didn't check the route earlier bad luck. There is one long-standing poster frame containing written directions to Covent Garden, but you'd never spot it, it's on the wrong side of the exit and faces incoming passengers only, so essentially you're on your own.

And there are no special signs along the walking route either. You might expect the occasional temporary fingerpost to point the way, but no. Instead you have to spot "Covent Garden ↑" and "Covent Garden →" on the black enamelled maps that now grace our streets. They're very good, if you notice them, and are present at all relevant points along the journey... except one. The offending junction is at Drury Lane, where the red line on the map said go straight on, remember, but visitors to our city aren't likely to be so certain and might well get lost.

I reached Covent Garden from Holborn station after an eight minute walk, not ten, because I know what I'm doing. That's still slower than taking the train would have been if it was stopping, except it wasn't, because it's the weekend, and sorry, see how complicated this whole mess is? But TfL's black signs admit no such complications, they just want to bump you out of the system at Holborn and abandon you to find the rest of the way yourself.

A more nuanced information campaign would provide different recorded announcements on weekdays to weekends. A more nuanced information campaign would state that the black diversion was important on Saturdays and Sundays so you didn't catch a non-stopping train by accident. A more nuanced information campaign would cover over the black diversion sign on weekdays because it's unnecessary. But this isn't a nuanced information campaign, it's a blunt tool to nudge behaviour, introduced barely five weeks before the ten month lift replacement programme is completed.

And if you haven't bothered to read most of that, because it was a bit technical, sorry, simply know this. Somewhere at TfL Towers is a desk where you are the enemy. A desk where someone loves to misdirect you around the system, for example sending you all round the houses at King's Cross or taking the long way to Covent Garden, to make the system run better overall. And they don't do nuanced, they don't do time-specific, they just slap up signs in the hope you'll do what you're told. Your sacrifice is very much appreciated.

posted 01:00 :

Sunday, October 12, 2014

Once a year four of London's tourist guide associations join together to present Local London Guiding Day. Each offers a free taster walking tour, hourly from ten til four, and anyone in the know can tag along. This year's theme was the Georgians, so each guiding association had to throw together a 45 minute itinerary visiting whatever local sights they thought fit, some more successfully than others. And if you went on all four walks and got your programme stamped you could enter a draw to win another free walk, a proper one given that they normally cost. I ticked off the lot and had a most interesting day, discovering several things (and even the odd location) of which I'd not previously been aware. Here's what you missed. And, next year?

Westminster Guides: Through a Fanlight Darkly
Departing: Charing Cross station
There's a peculiar part of town between the Strand and the Thames, a thin strip of streets not usually visited, much of which has a Georgian tinge. There's Benjamin Franklin House, for example, where the great American spent 15 years of his life before dashing back across the pond to fight for independence. That's fun, if you've ever been inside, but we spent most of our time further along the embankment behind the watergate. Several grand mansions once lined the river here, all lost, including York House, Northumberland House and Durham House. On the site of the latter, in the mid 18th century, the Adam Brothers erected the Adelphi Buildings. These neoclassical terraced houses were supposed to make their fortune, but the rich and famous were slow to move in, and in the 1930s the block was knocked down and replaced by the Art Deco Adelphi we see today. Several original Adam terraces survive round about, however, some beautifully decorated with stucco, others rather more plain. And one of the Adelphi's riverside vaults remains, now a secret cabbies' cut-through to embankment level, and a tale to be told some other day.
Thing I didn't know before: When George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham sold York House, he insisted that the streets laid out on the site bore his name. They were therefore called George Court, Villiers Street, Duke Street, Buckingham Street... and Of Alley.
The best of the four tours for... a) smiling chirpiness b) taking the backstreets c) uncommon architecture
What the guides usually do: three walks weekly, one on Wednesday and two on Saturdays, £8

Greenwich Tour Guides: Inheritance, Indulgence and Infighting
Departing: Cutty Sark DLR
Of all the four walks, this one hit the Georgian nail on the head the best. And that's because, perhaps surprisingly, central Greenwich boasts several direct hits from the Four Georges themselves. "That's where George I first held his first reception on arriving in the country," said our guide pointing at the Queen's House in Greenwich Park. Inside the National Maritime Museum we saw Prince Frederick's gilded barge, built for George II's unloved son and heir (whose parents were both secretly pleased when he died young from a cricket ball injury). In the Old Royal Naval College, where The Madness of King George was filmed, we saw one of London's only statues to his father George II, alas disfigured by paint removal after a student prank. And at the back of the Painted Hall we saw an ingratiating tableau to the Hanoverian monarchs and had its deeper symbolism explained. All this and some general Georgian stuff elsewhere, Greenwich having more than its fair share of four-storey terraces to admire, splendid.
Thing I didn't know before: Stable Yard by the Greenwich Theatre, until recently the Spread Eagle pub, used to be a 17th century coaching inn.
The best of the four tours for... a) professionalism b) Georgian relevance c) crossing the road properly
What the guides usually do: daily walks at 12.15 and 2.15pm, £8

City of London Guides: Georgian Life in the City
Departing: Bank station
You'd think the City was rammed with Georgian treasures, but instead a lot is post-Fire Stuart, and a lot lot more is postwar redevelopment. Our guides therefore had their work cut out to find a circuit round Bank station that ticked all the right boxes. They sort-of succeeded. The Bank of England's curtain wall dates from the right period, as does the Mansion House, built in Palladian style on the site of a herb market. St Mary Woolnoth is about as early Georgian as you can get, Hawksmoor's only City church, with a most unusual columned facade topped off by twin turrets. And the Rothschilds' HQ on St Swithin's Lane may be as modern as they come, but the family rose to prominence during the relevant period so were duly included. Other than these highlights, this was more a tour round back alleys with a few supporting historical characters mentioned, plus a 1799 water pump thrown in for good measure. There was also competition from a City wedding emptying onto the steps of the Royal Exchange, although its attendees were easily distinguished from would-be walkers by their choice of non-sensible footwear.
Thing I didn't know before: The ticket hall at Bank station is located, near enough, in the former crypt of St Mary Woolnoth church.
The best of the four tours for... a) detailed historical information b) bustle c) brevity
What the guides usually do: numerous daily tours, at least two each day, £7 or £8.

Clerkenwell & Islington Guides: Bad, Sad,... and Mad!
Departing: Angel station
A slight problem emerges when trying to discuss the Islington area during Georgian times - it was mostly fields. Nevertheless Saturday's tour managed to connect various locations that did at least exist at the time. One of these was the Regent's Canal, which tunnelled in during George III's reign, and another was the New River, which had already been around for over 100 years. We stood by the former and in the latter, now a public park, as well as following the ex-waterway to its final stop. I'd been to New River Head before, obviously, but for most of the rest of the tour party it was an eye-opening find. Meryl Streep's been filming in nearby Myddleton Square, apparently, for a Suffragettes film due for release early next year. As for Sadler's Wells, even that's originally too old to be Georgian. Indeed the theatre had already descended to a "a nursery of debauchery" by the time George I came to the throne, so its ascent to a modern venue of high culture is somewhat surprising. Meanwhile Pentonville Road was a genuine 18th century intervention, part of possibly the world's first bypass, built to keep market-bound livestock out of central London.
Thing I didn't know before: One of Islington's two remaining wells can be found just off the foyer inside Sadler's Wells Theatre - just ask to see it.
The best of the four tours for... a) local insight b) friendly banter c) number of attendees
What the guides usually do: Supposedly a weekly walk every Saturday, although the website suggests fewer more irregular outings.

posted 07:00 :

Saturday, October 11, 2014

My phone goes unexpectedly at work.

On this occasion it's not number unknown, it's my letting agents. They could be calling about anything, perhaps a leaking pipe in the flat upstairs, perhaps a tedious document that needs signing, whatever. I slip away from my desk and answer.

"Hi it's Jason," says apparently-Jason. "Your landlord would like to do a valuation on the flat. It might be for the mortgage or something."

There is a pause while we both let the implications of that last little white lie sink in.

"Can I make an appointment to come over? How about tomorrow evening?"

When tomorrow evening arrives I dash home on the early side to make sure I'm properly prepared for Jason's arrival. The washing up is completed, a pile of trousers is relocated and some strategic dusting is undertaken.

The door buzzer goes as dusk is falling, and Jason makes his way up to my flat. He's young and dapper, maybe half my age, with a clipboard stashed underneath the arm of his jacket.

"Do I need to take my shoes off?"

Jason's brogues stay on his feet as I point him in the general direction of the first couple of rooms. A waft of something aftershave-y lingers in the hallway.

"The flat's bigger than it looks, " I venture, before realising I probably shouldn't be overselling the place, not in the circumstances. Too late, he's probably already converting my available cubic metres into equivalent property value.

"And is this the master bedroom?"

It's been a long time since any visitor to the flat asked that question. In this case the answer's no, it's bedroom number two, which again I realise is a black mark against the affordability of my rent.

He asks me whether I've been living here long, which compared to everyone else in the building I have. Indeed during that time I've paid my landlord a six figure sum, which ought to make me sob, but that's the reality of London life.

I briefly wish the lounge looked smaller as Jason gives it a brief once over.

"Well I think that's everything," he says, and within ten seconds we're shaking hands with pleasantries at the door.

It's possible that nothing happens next, that my landlord really did only want to know how much his buy-to-let investment is worth. But it's also possible that an email will arrive in the immediate future wondering whether maybe, possibly, thank you, I could stretch to another hundred or two a month.

Bow's gone up a bit in the world since the Olympics, somewhat beyond anything I might have expected when I moved in. Indeed I'll soon have near neighbours from Malaysia who've never even set foot in East London, let alone their new penthouse flats overlooking the roundabout. Jason, I suspect, still lives rather further out.

So I'm not expecting anything awkward to transpire following his visit, to become one of those edged out of a neighbourhood by property's rising tide. But I will be giving my inbox a sideways glance over the next week, just in case an unexpected demand fires in. In London these days it costs more simply to stand still.

posted 07:00 :

Friday, October 10, 2014

When TfL announce a New Tube For London you can sit at home and read the press release. Or you can go to the exhibition at King's Cross and discover what it's all about for yourself.

Depending on when you turned up yesterday you might have met Boris, or the MD of London Underground, or a bunch of news crews, or the design team that came up with the specification. Or you might have met nobody. The exhibition is basically some information panels and three screens, very nicely done, but with no real need for anyone official to stand around nearby. It is essentially a driverless exhibition, because driverless is the future, and why employ expensive experts if you don't need to?

The plan is for sleek new trains to replace all the existing stock on the Piccadilly, Bakerloo, Waterloo and City and Central lines. But not just yet. Train number 1 isn't scheduled to arrive until about ten years time (or, if you want the current official behind-the-scenes delivery date, 2023). The Piccadilly line is due to get them first, replacing rolling stock by then over 50 years old, and only after the first 100 trains have been delivered will any of the other lines get a look in. There's nothing in any way imminent about the New Train for London, we're merely at the electronic mock-up stage.

The key challenge in designing a new train for these four lines is the narrow width of the tunnels. Most underground railways elsewhere in the world have a broader bore, but those who dug London's deep tube lines over a century ago were thinking small. This limited cross-section restricts the amount of technology you can cram aboard, hence it was long thought that adding air conditioning units was one step too far. But the new trains will indeed contain the Holy Grail of underground travel, made possible by cramming the additional air cooling technology into gaps below the carriages between the bogies.

One important break from the past is that the New Tube won't have separate carriages, it'll be a walk through train. This allows the doors to be more equally spaced out, and wider, which will decrease boarding times and speed up travel. It also means greater capacity inside, which is PR-speak for fewer seats, although at peak times those struggling to push inside will be more than welcome of the additional space. Floor levels will be better aligned with platform heights, which will allow step-free access at a far wider range of stations than is possible today. And all the displays inside will be electronic, even the route maps and adverts, which will open up a whole new dimension of information transfer as you travel.

In some ways the New Tube for London is like the S Stock recently introduced on the Metropolitan and Circle lines - a long snaking train with aircon and plenty of standing room. But while the S Stock is mostly functional, plans for the NTfL reveal something rather better looking. There'll be an emphasis on quality of style as well as capacity, a nod to the design rhetoric embodied by London Transport in the days of Frank Pick, indeed a hint of the 1920s in the 2020s. The roof will be attractively grooved, the interior lighting refined and retro, and the front of the train streamlined to resemble a glowing horseshoe as it approaches. All budget cuts excepted, that is.

In other ways the New Tube for London is like the New Bus for London. A private design team has come up with the look and feel of the new trains - in this case a West End company called PriestmanGoode - and now all that's needed is a company to build them. Only when the end product has finally been delivered can we truly judge whether today's high hopes and expectations have truly been met. It's no good the travelling public adoring the exterior design if the aircon doesn't work, the inside smells and the rear doors don't open.

And the new trains are only the half of it. The other crucial part of the project will be the unseen upgrade to the signalling, requiring a brand new system to be tried out, tested and verified all along the line. It's going to be a real challenge to get this right, not least because old and new trains will need to run together throughout the changeover period, and also because there are sections of lines where NTfL and S Stock need to share the same track.

And don't get too excited by the thought of driverless trains, because that's a loooo-ong way off, if indeed it ever happens at all. All the new trains will have a driver's cab, despite Boris's pledge he'd never buy a new train with such a facility, because it won't be technically possible to run entirely automatic trains from day 1. Indeed there's a major expense with going driverless, the elephant and castle in the room, which is the need to install platform edge doors at almost every station along the way. Health and safety dictates no risk of passenger bugger-up, which'll mean glass walls need to be erected everywhere from narrow crowded platforms like King's Cross to open air beauties like Sudbury Town. Installation and maintenance costs will balance out any initial savings to be made from removing the driver - a policy borne purely out of political expediency, and requiring massive additional investment to complete.

For the next five weeks you'll find the NTFL exhibition parallel to the top of the escalators in the Northern Ticket Hall at King's Cross. Don't come along expecting to see a walk-in prototype, we're absolutely nowhere near that stage yet. But a model pair of carriages is on display and you can peer inside, like playing with a train set of the future. Quite a long way into the future, at present, but all the initial signs are that it'll be worth the wait.

posted 07:00 :

Thursday, October 09, 2014

Concealed in the woods on Shooters Hill is a building with a peculiar past and a brighter future. It's a 60 foot brick tower called Severndroog Castle, built by a grieving wife to commemorate her husband's military exploits, and not so much a castle as a widow's folly. Given its height and location it's incredibly well hidden, revealed only when you're right up close (or, in winter, from slightly further away). The building has an approximately triangular footprint, consisting of one central hexagonal tower with three smaller hexagonal towers on alternate sides. Sorry, that's probably over-explaining it.

Severndroog Castle honours Sir William James, one time Commodore in the East India company, who died suddenly at his daughter's wedding in 1783. His greatest maritime success had been to capture a fort off the coast of Malabar by the name of Severndroog, hence this was the title Lady James gave to the folly she had built in his honour. Sorry, that's probably under-explaining it - the full story has rather more to it - but I don't want to tell you everything you'll discover if you turn up.

The tower passed into the hands of various owners before ending up in the care of the GLC, then Greenwich council who planned to lease it to developers. Stuff that, thought a bunch of interested citizens, who promptly set up a Building Preservation Trust and raised the money to take over the lease. Their efforts and a half million pound lottery grant restored the fabric of the crumbling building, and earlier this summer they opened the place up to visitors for the first time in years. It was great to be back.

And very popular too. Perhaps it was Sunday's splendid weather, but quite a crowd had mustered around the foot of the tower, plenty enough to justify the tower's rebirth. One reason for the swarm was the tearoom located on the ground floor of the tower, spilling out onto sun-dappled tables in the courtyard. But the main reason was the 40 minute wait to go up the tower, which meant there was a pressing opportunity to visit the tearoom in the meantime.

On busy days the tower has to operate strict timed entry because only ten visitors are allowed on the upper platform at any one time. Admission into the building comes ten minutes earlier, allowing about five minutes on each of the two floors stacked above the tearoom (plus longer if you want to look again on the way down). The first floor contains the Lady James Room, an impressive chamber with painted ceiling and central brass light fitting (although LJ's original plaster designs are alas mostly lost). Then it's up the spiral staircase for a plainer room named after her husband, this filled with historical and heritage information, plus to one side an unexpected pair of toilets.

But it's the roof you'll really want to see, assuming it's a fine day, and quite frankly you should wait until it is. Initially it seems as if you'll only see treetops, but another set of stairs leads up onto the top of a satellite tower... and from here, suddenly, wow. The treeline means it's not a 360° panorama, more like two hundred and a bit, but the visible sector faces the City and the East End and opens out to reveal the majority of London spread out below. It's the tall towers that draw the eye, but in good visibility the hills of Harrow and masts of Croydon are clearly seen, and Wembley's arch, and the Olympic Stadium, and Dartford Mental Hospital, and that must be somewhere in Barking, etc etc.

The allotted ten minutes simply fly by, especially if you've spent most of the time taking photos and selfies. But how much better to simply stare and absorb the vast low-rise glory of the capital, before the kitchen pinger rings and the rooftop volunteer ushers you back down. The trust are looking for more volunteers, by the way, because they currently only open on Thursdays, Fridays and Sundays and would quite like to add Saturdays too, but only if they get more help. The £2.50 entrance charge only goes so far, so donations of small change and time are always very welcome.

And what of the tearoom? It's compact and cakey, with a menu ranging from frothy drinks to jammy toast. I plumped for tea and a panini, the latter properly baked and served up with coleslaw on a wooden platter. The sandwiches looked less special, and the service could perhaps best be described as bustlingly inefficient, although I'm willing to put that down to sheer numbers of orders. If you do pause here while waiting your turn up the tower, don't necessarily assume that your order will be ready in thirty minutes. But do come, because Severndroog's combination of heritage, rooftop views and cake are a definite winner, if you pick your time right.

posted 07:00 :

Wednesday, October 08, 2014

You can walk almost all the way down the river Lea to the Thames, but just past Bromley-by-Bow the path disappears. At Bow Locks a dead-end track heads half a mile more to a disused dock, while walkers and cyclists are diverted off down a separate canal. The dock is Cody Dock, recently reborn as a community hub under the guidance of guru Simon Myers, and now decked out with a collection of houseboats, geodesic domes and workshops. It sits in an unforgiving and relatively remote spot round the back of an industrial estate, and faces out across the Lea towards gasholders and Canary Wharf. And now they're planning to branch out along the riverbank to create a linear wetland park, except whether that actually happens is down to you.

Cody Wilds is one of this year's finalists in the Grow Wild England flagship competition. Five projects are up for the cash prize, including competition from Plymouth, Bristol, Sheffield, Liverpool and Manchester. London's offering is a kilometre long stretch of wildflowers and woodland stretching up from Cody Dock towards Bromley-by-Bow, currently a quiet commercial fringe on the fasttrack to nowhere. There are plans to extend the reedbeds and replant the clipped grass verge, creating a ribbon of green bursting with wildlife and colour. Workers at the adjacent Amazon shed will benefit from a nicer place to eat their packed lunch, but it's also hoped that local communities will be brought together by the creation of a new link.

We've sort of been here before. Five years ago this link was to be called the Fatwalk, a ludicrous name for a much needed path, zigzagging from Three Mills down to East India Dock along Bow Creek. It never happened. Full planning permission and £28m of funding were in place, but when the London Thames Gateway Development Corporation was wound up in 2012, all that was lost. The project is now the responsibility of the London Legacy Development Corporation, and they've resurrected things under a much more sensible name, the Leaway. A linear park is planned, completing the last link along the river from Cody Dock to Canning Town, with one key aim being to promote its use as an off-road cycling route.

Also due to arrive here shortly is The Line, a crowd-funded sculpture trail approximately following the Greenwich Meridian. Various artworks will be laid out at regular intervals along a trail between North Greenwich and the Olympic Park, the hope being that a much wider cross section of Londoners and tourists will be drawn into an area of the capital they'd normally overlook, and take a ride on the cablecar into the bargain. The Line was due to open in the summer, so its grandees told us, then early autumn, and now appears to have been kicked wilfully into next year.

Also due to arrive here shortly is a new bridge connection near Twelvetrees Crescent. At present there's no direct link from one bank of the Lea to the other, so walkers have to loop half a mile out of their way to cross Bow Locks and head back up the A12. Now finally Newham council have granted planning permission to add a staircase from the medial towpath to the upper road bridge, no longer with a lift for disabled access, but it was the expense of that lift which had held back previous worthy projects from completion. Once the staircase is in place, I dunno, possibly next year, it'll suddenly become hugely easier to follow The Line, the Leaway, Cody Wilds, or any other pipedream some public body plans to create.

I walked the Cody Wilds footpath to Cody Dock the other weekend, and I walked it alone. Nobody goes this way, despite the presence of an expensive promenade with street lighting, and despite the abundant birdlife in the water beyond the reedbeds. The industrial estate was silent, the only human activity along the way being the bloke in the scrapyard on the opposite bank yelling at me for appearing to take his photo. This kilometre of waterfront would indeed look lovely with woodland and wildflowers, but the nearest local residents live too far away for them to come flooding in, and I fear the improvements might be under-appreciated.

If you want to come and see for yourself, a Cody Wilds campaign launch party is planned for Sunday afternoon. Turn up at Cody Dock from noon for a day of workshops, music, food, drink, merriment and dancing (it's that sort of place), including locally-mulled cider and a proper hog roast, plus the opportunity of a walk round London's largest former gasworks. Or it's ridiculously easy to vote from home, no registration or email required, just click here before November 4th and pick wisely from the shortlist.

The money in these online funding contests rarely goes to the most deserving project, but instead to the one that shouts the loudest and energises the most supporters. But if you could vote for Cody Wilds it'd be deeply appreciated, and you might help the area succeed where a succession of other projects haven't quite made good. Even better, I won't end up writing yet another post about this dead end path on the river Lea, and will be able to tell you instead that it's reached its full potential. Accessibility unlocked, connection achieved, and it's all down to you.

Cody Dock: website, facebook, twitter, location
Cody Wilds: campaign, campaign video, launch party

posted 07:00 :

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