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| Cheap Hotel |
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| LVRPA is trying to get a cheap hotel built in front of the ice rink and riding stables in Lea Bridge Road. It appears to have already got some backing from the local planning authority, the London Borough of Waltham Forest, who have recently (October 2010) scheduled the area as a priority site under the Northern Olympic Fringe plan.
In mid 2010 rumours started to circulate about the involvement of a cheap hotel group in plans to construct yet more buildings on Lea Marshes. This was related to LVRPA's appointment of a head of commercial development in spring 2010. LVRPA's plan is to halve the precept by 2020 by raising money from assets, as if LVRPA privately owned the assets rather than managing them on behalf of the community. It has drawn up what it describes as a ten year business plan. Extraordinarily, considering that LVRPA's mission is to expand the green space, LVRPA thinks it might be a neat idea to build a cheap hotel in front of the ice rink and the riding stables. As Sir Patrick Abercrombie, whose report led to the creation of LVRPA, said: "No open land, whatever its present use - should be built on." LVRPA is probably wasting its time and money pursuing this idea since it probably doesn't own the entire strip of land and is very unlikely to be able to get wayleave even if it could get planning permission (see 1904 Act). Even if LVRPA did get wayleave it is certain there would be a legal objection and this would probably go all the way to the European Court. Lea Bridge Road is more or less permanently jammed with traffic and the idea of having dozens, perhaps hundreds more cars piling onto the road is absurd. Anyone who thinks there is simply no alternative (costs have to be cut and that's it) should take a look at Epping Forest. This is minimally managed by the City of London Corporation. There are few fences. No high profile loss making facilities like the riding centre. Little gardening or lawn mowing. Few new ditches. Hardly any signs. Just a fierce determination to resist any development and so preserve the forest. The result is cheap and it works. |
 Image downloaded from Google Earth in November 2010 (probably about three years old at that time). |
 | According to a LVRPA release dated April 26, 2010, the head of commercial development is a hard core Tory activist called Adam Pritchard.
He started his working life as an estate agent, then worked in sales in the motor trade progressing to sales director of VAW Motorcast (now owned by EON). In December 1999, Pritchard became a full time Conservative Parliamentary Candidate for one of the Tory's top 50 targets, Leeds North West. Failing to get elected he joined Yorkshire Forward (a regional development agency abolished by the Tories in 2010). At Yorkshire Forward he was a member of a team set up to cash in on London's successful Olympics bid. He also managed a project that brought the International Indian Film Awards to Sheffield in 2007. That same year he joined Opera North as development director responsible for all of the company's private sector fund raising. He has also been a public speaking consultant. Married to Jane, with four children and two step-children, he lives in Bedford. |