Petition against waste site in Poplar handed to Tower Hamlets Council
A petition with over 1,200 signatures opposing a waste dump among social housing by the River Lea in Poplar has been handed in to the Town Hall.
John Baker, 76, a former director of Poplar Harca housing association leading a community campaign against the waste site, handed the petition over to Tower Hamlet’s Deputy Mayor Ohid Ahmed last Friday.
It came as the consultation for the site at Ailsa Street, near the Aberfeldy, Teviot, Brownfield estates, capable of dealing with more than 150,000 tonnes of rubbish ended.
Cllr Ahmed, independent councillor for East India and Lansbury, added his own signature to the petition making the total number of signatures 1,247.
The petition has been signed by residents, businesses, workers, landowners and regular motorists using the nearby Blackwall Tunnel Northern Approach Road.
In a statement accompanying the petition Mr Baker warned the council: “I do assure you, this is no nimby campaign. Many of your constituents, encouraged as they have been by investments in regeneration over several years, now regret bitterly that local improvements could be nullified by realisation of the proposal.”
Mr Baker heads up a community-led organisation called Leabank Project designed to safeguard and improve the life and prospects of the communities on the western bank of the Lower Lea.
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A spokesman for Tower Hamlets Council said the borough is required by the London Mayor to set land aside for a waste site to be build between 2016-2020.
Ailsa Street was left as the only site earmarked for the rubbish dump after plans for the site on Fish Island in Bow, undergoing development as part of the Olympics, were dropped.
