Anyway, the first council meeting I attended was the Modernisation Committee back in the year 2000 to question them about the make up of Area Committees. I particularly recall the antique furniture in the committee room on the first floor of the Town Hall. Also present were Cllr Ian Bond, Cllr Morris Hickey and Cllr Jim O’Shea.
Later, much later, there was the uproar when a council notice board appeared on the north side of Gants Hill roundabout proclaiming it was in “Barkingside”. Well it was, and still is, in Barkingside ward but the residents were not happy and it had to be changed to Gants Hill ££££££. There is also the long story about how we became to be known as Barkingside 21.
So, on Thursday I receive a request from someone by the name of Daud to give a link to his district map of Redbridge. It’s adverstising I know but it is also actually quite good, although I dare say some will take issue, particularly a certain local activist named Rick [with a silent “P”] who lives in IG8 but has been lumped in with the “riff-raff” in IG5. Nothing like putting boundaries on a map to get a bit of discussion going. What do you readers think? Have you been classified correctly?
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Very interesting post (apart from the proximity of the furniture reference). There's no doubt that location is important to identity, and in London the sense of place tends to be a mix of historical communities (London's old 'villages'), the tube station people use, and their postal address. London's postcodes are older than those in the rest of the UK and, unlike the latter, were devised with local communities at least partly in mind.
ReplyDeleteAn obvious flaw in the map is that 'South Woodford' clearly extends south of Hermon Hill - for much of the Nightingale Estate SW is the closest station and closest shopping centre. SW shades into Wanstead as you go south, but the E18/E11 postcode boundary - which is where the ward boundary got moved to in the 1990s re-warding, is probably as close as you'll get to a dividing line.
North of the A406 things are more interesting since the roads immediately north of the 406 clearly look to SW rather than Woodford for transport and amenities. The Maybank CA was formed when the A406 cutting demolished homes and separated the Maybank area from the 'rest' of SW, so I'd suggest that the Woodford Green area on the map extends too far south.
I'm not sure people would see a distinction between "Woodford" and "Woodford Green"? It's also arguable whether Snaresbrook is a separate area or a transition zone between SW and Wanstead - the Snaresbrook/Wanstead boundary on the map looks very arbitrary. I'd be surprised if residents would see Goodmayes starting as far west as the Ilford/Green Lane roundabout? And the debate about whether Gants Hill is a focal or a boundary point is ducked by giving it a tiny zone of its own. 'Redbridge' is the name of the Borough but is it also a distinct area as large as shown?
Anyhow, what's the map actually for?
Ian
It's a Cab firm called "All Redbridge Cars" and those are the areas they cover.
DeleteAh, yes. "Chipwell" - for some parts of which Spivsville might be appropriate.
ReplyDeleteAs to Ian's point about boundaries, I am sure he will recognise that some of these are dependant upon decisions made by the Boundary Commission, and often with little or nor regard to local history, geography, or communities. That is why we face the possibility that Redbridge's Town Hall and its principal police station could find themselves in the parliamentary constituency of East Ham - and Cranbrook and Valentines wards in Wanstead & Woodford. The Commission appears to have little regard for anything other than arithmetic.
It actually took quite a bit of time to put together. The idea being that the ward maps, miss out obvious locations such as Gants hill , snaresbrook etc. These are what Wikipedia calls districts. there was no Google map with redbridge boundaries , only the council website. So I traced the council map on to Google.I then put it on PhotoShop and started to trace out the districts. All I had access to was the boundaries of the wards, on the ward map, and the trying to gauge boundaries by looking at the addresses of streets. By the time I got to the woodford area was exhausted, hence the probable mess up . Will correct it as I get more feedback with evidence
ReplyDeletethere are only two districts in Redbridge - North and South.
ReplyDeleteOr East and West?
ReplyDeleteI thought I was in the Fullwell Ward (not Fullwell Cross).... now that Does make me ...er...cross.
ReplyDeleteI thought you were in Holywood. Who let you back in?
DeleteBloody UK Border Agency!
ReplyDeleteThere are folks who get incomprehensibly irate about these things, as I recall from the previous major Parliamentary boundary review.
ReplyDeleteSome residents of areas previously in Wanstead&Woodford became incandescent at the prospect of being in Ilford North (so lower-class, doncha know?), whilst some others insisted that the new Chingford constituency had to be titled Chingford&Woodford GREEN - the omission of the last word would apparently lead to the end of the world.
Some regard the position relative to the conjunction as indicative of importance - like Hertford & Stortford.
ReplyDelete