Campaign meeting Wed 26 June

We have just over a month to organise opposition to the renewed Sainsbury’s /Wilmer Place development. The application is anticipated to go to the planning committee on Wednesday 31 July.

Hackney Unties and Stokey Local are therefore calling a campaign planning meeting on Wednesday 26 June, at 6.30 – 8pm, at the Methodist Church 106, Stoke Newington High Street, N16 (next door to the existing Sainsbury’s Local). Please come along and let us know your views about how we can alert our community to this planning application and publicise the opposition. If you can attend, please register here.

Activity proposed so far includes:
Starting an on-line petition (to supplement the letters of objection that have already gone in). We would really like this to be done through our existing (Word Press) website (as this allows us to ‘capture’ the contact details of supporters and inform them of future events; if an appropriate statement in included in the sign up, this is compliant with data protection requirements. 3,000 people signed our last on-line petition, but we do not know who they are. Does anyone have the technical know how to set this up?

Undertaking a door to door leafleting of the whole area (we already have 30 volunteers to do this, so it should not be too difficult to arrange, but needs to be done speedily.

A bug parade: one of the key (but far from the only) issues is the impact of the development on Abney Park and its habitat. It has been suggested that after the success of our previous ‘Zombie Parade’ that we undertake a ‘bug parade’ with people dressed as bats, and other wildlife which could be affected by the development. For this to work we need real numbers, and some advice on how to make effective costumes cheaply (particularly for children). We also need a soundtrack and some great posters. I would love a simple ‘blue peter’ style guide to how to make a bat/tree/bug costume for example. I am already in contact with the police over this.

A presence at the planning committee meeting. There is no doubt that the dignified attendance at the last committee meant the councilors on the committee found it easier to ‘do the right thing’. Developers can quite deliberately put pressure on councillors. On this occasion they have appealed the previous decision and have resubmitted an almost identical application (and are offering to withdraw the appeal if the committee agree the new application). We cannot blame them for applying pressure, but we need to ensure that we apply a suitable counter-pressure so that the right decision, on planning grounds, is made.

Come along on Wednesday 26 June, at 6.30 – 8pm, at the Methodist Church 106, Stoke Newington High Street, N16 to help us plan this campaign. This is not intended as a ‘speech making’ meeting, but a workshop to develop ideas which we will then put into action.
If you intend to come, please let us know by registering here.

Looking forward to seeing you there.

Finally
We need to ensure that there are more objectors to this application than there were to the last, so please, tweet, facebook, email and speak to people about this proposal.

Please encourage people to sign up to these email alerts by visiting: http://eepurl.com/mqRA9

We have already shown what we can do when we get our community organised, now lets get organised for ’round two’!

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