Monthly Archives: February 2007

At six am yesterday morning, Met counter-terrorism officers stormed a house in Walthamstow and arrested a 27-year old man suspicion of the ‘commission, preparation or instigation of acts of terrorism.’ Supposedly the arrest and charges stem from the alleged plot to to blow up passenger jets flying from London to the US, last August. The suspect was not named, and is being held in central London. This arrest makes the ninth person from Walthamstow to have been charged under the Terrorism Act. Council leader Clyde Loakes said he was aware of the arrest: “The council and its partners are working very closely with the police to reassure the community and manage the impact of this incident” The investigation into the airliner bomb plot has so far cost more than £30 million and a total of 11 men have been charged with conspiracy to murder and preparing acts of… Read more

The Paragon Gym in Spitalfields brought home an unprecedented 5 Golds and 2 Silvers in the Kickboxing British Open Championships recently. WAKO, the worldwide governing body of kickboxing, held its British Open Championships on Saturday 17 February at the Hadden Leisure Centre in Nottingham and fighters from all over the UK turned up to compete in the annual championships…. Read more

Ilyena Vailievna Mironov, better known as Dame Helen Mirren, added an Oscar to her already impressive trophy case for her turn in The Queen. Ilford born Dame Helen, who plays Queen Elizabeth II in the British independent film about the Royal Family’s reaction to the 1997 death of Princess Diana, said “For 50 years and more, Elizabeth Windsor has maintained her dignity, her sense of duty and her hairstyle…. Read more

The idea of the 2012 Olympics was ‘sold’ to the people of London partially on the basis of cost, which was said to be £2.35bn ‘on the high side’. Now it seems that just the cost of construction in Newham before the Olympics begin will be more than £3.3bn alone. The total cost for the games stands, right now, at £9bn, or almost four times the original cost statement, according to the Treasury and the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS)…. Read more

The continuing saga of the relocation of Travellers’ from Hackney Wick to make way for the 2012 Olympics has a new chapter now as Hackney councillors decided to give Olympic chiefs the go-ahead to build seven pitches for the Travellers on Hackney Marsh. The Hackney Marsh Users Group (HMUG) protested the decision, citing promises made by the council that there would be no permanent construction on Hackney marshes as a result of the Olympics. So, assuming this decision stands, there are now only seven families left out of the original twenty who as of now have nowhere to go once they are forced to move from Millfields Road in the… Read more

Hackney The borough of Hackney borders Haringey and Waltham Forest. Newham lies to the East and to the South is Tower Hamlets and a tiny border with the City of London. Islington occupies the entire Western border. Along with Tower Hamlets, it comprises the only parts of east London that are considered part of Inner London, and as such, faces many of the same problems as any other inner-city area, and is known for being one of the poorest and most crime-affected London boroughs. However, Hackney is also the epicenter of the London art scene, and home to numerous clubs, bars, shops and restaurants, much of which is centered on Hoxton Square…. Read more

Seems that Hackney Council is trying to sell of about £50 million worth of land on housing estates, and no one likes it (except the council, of course – no word yet on how they’ll go about embezzling it). The Leabridge branch of the Labour Party is opposing it and 70+people organized at a meeting at the Trelawney estate community hall in Morning Lane to campaign against it, following a protest last October of Guy Fawkes masked residents of Gascoyne estate in Homerton. Let the backpedaling and ass-covering commence: “I think the residents have got the wrong end of the stick. Nothing’s been decided as yet. There’s going to be a lot of work done by our capacity consultants, work which is still waiting to be done. “The key thing is that any resources gained get ploughed straight back on to the estates. We would not be doing this unless it was about people’s homes and where people live.” — Cllr Jamie Carswell, deputy mayor of Hackney and the Cabinet member for… Read more