Waltham Forest Labour is consistently investing in our physical, environmental, community and social infrastructure. Here are a few recent announcements of these projects.

Lamp Column and Electric Vehicle Charging Points Programme

As part of the Councils Investment Strategy Cllr Clyde Loakes announced at a recent Council meeting a £4m injection of capital to help replace the last 1300 old tech lamp columns in the borough with modern LED equivalents over the next 2 years. This will reduce the carbon footprint of those lamp columns by 42 tons a year or over 650 tons over their 15-year lifecycle and reducing the operation and energy bills of those streets’ lights. As part of that programme, we are also investing a further £900K to install a further 300 Electric Vehicle Charging Points in these new columns where appropriate.

Government EVCP Funding

Waltham Forest has been successful in securing £2.5m in funding for East London from the Governments ‘Local Electric Vehicle Infrastructure (LEVI)’ fund. We wrote and fronted the joint bid for WF, Newham and Redbridge, working with Enterprise- car club and car rental provider- and Motability- the disability transportation charity. The £800K WF secured will fund a further 60 fast 22kW sockets at stand- alone EVCP at a further 15 sites across the borough.

Coupled with our existing network and committed funding for further EVCP’s, Waltham Forest, like wider sustainable and active travel, is now at the very forefront of providing public accessible EVCP’s in London, with our current 500+ sockets expected to double to 1,000+ by the end of the calendar year, helping even more of our residents decarbonise their transport.

Potholes

Waltham Forest, along with the whole of the UK, faces a huge road maintenance backlog estimated at £12.6bn nationally. Unfortunately, Waltham Forest, like the rest of London boroughs, receives no funding for road maintenance from Government. For Waltham Forest to stand still and prevent further deterioration of our road network would require £6.4m a year and to catch up and repair everything would require £75m. Therefore, we rely on our own funded annual £2m maintenance programme to do what we can. However, Cllr Loakes was able to announce an additional £100k investment which will be used to target pothole and patching repairs in key areas identified as a consequence of recent poor weather in particular in- Chingford Green, Larkswood, Hatch Lane & Highams Park North, Hale End & Highams Park South, Chapel End, Higham Hill & Grove Green Wards.

A drop in the ocean perhaps but recognising the importance of doing what we can.