Save Walthamstow Cinema!

Would you like to save Walthamstow cinema? Copy and paste the letter below (obviously changing my comments for your own marked in "**") and send to:

alan.ridley@pins.gsi.gov.uk

With the subject line:

APP/U5930/A/11/2165348

Letter:

Alan Ridley,
Temple Quay House,
The Square,
Temple Quay,
Bristol.
BS1 6PN.



Your address


XX February 2012


Dear Mr. Ridley,

Planning Application APP/U5930/A/11/2165348 The EMD (Former Granada) Cinema, 186 Hoe Street, London E17 4QH

I am writing to object to the above Planning Appeal. I believe the loss of Waltham Forest’s only significant entertainment building will have a disastrous impact on the economic regeneration of the area.

I support the more detailed objections submitted by the McGuffin Film Society but my own objections include:

• No change from the previous Appeal: In 2003, UCKG was refused permission for a change of use at the cinema by the Deputy Prime Minister. That decision should only be overturned if there has been a “material” change in circumstances and there has not: the EMD remains the only purpose-built multi-use arts venue in Waltham Forest capable of staging significant cinema, theatre and music events.

• Loss of the borough’s only significant entertainment venue: Despite the limited community facilities proposed in their application, UCKG’s plans will permanently deprive the 225,000 Waltham Forest residents of their only significant entertainment venue. The area already has over 200 places of worship. A number of alternative sites could be suitable for worship but the EMD’s loss as a venue for entertainment and culture would be irreplaceable.

• Economic vitality of the area: A re-opened EMD would boost Walthamstow town centre’s night time economy. UCKG’s plans will not. The Planning Inspector, in the 2003 Appeal, visited the UCKG’s largest UK centre in Finsbury Park and concluded: "Nothing in the commercial life of that area appeared to benefit from the UCKG Helpcentre".

• Listed status: According to government planning guidelines, the first option for a Grade II* Listed building should always be the purpose for which it was originally designed (i.e. a venue for entertainment and cinema). The historical importance of the building (in a borough which was home to some of the first British film studios and the birthplace of Alfred Hitchcock) makes it unique – its loss would therefore deprive Waltham Forest of a major part of its cultural heritage and potential tourism revenue.

• Viability: The building is viable as an entertainment venue. It did not close because of falling attendances – but because UCKG bought it and closed it. By their own admission, UCKG has received numerous offers from potential buyers and serious interest has been registered by cinema operators including the Picturehouse chain and the Genesis and Rex cinemas. Waltham Forest Cinema Trust has also offered to buy the venue and operate it on a not-for-profit basis to secure its long-term future.

• Access to the main auditorium: The most renowned feature of the cinema is the main auditorium. Non-UCKG members would have almost no opportunity to enter this area and it would never be available for public hire. UCKG state they will use it for special events and cite their use of the Finsbury Park Rainbow as an example. In the 13 years since UCKG has been operating at the Rainbow, only two films have been screened in its main auditorium.

• Transport and parking: With four services a day, seven days a week, the scheme could massively worsen traffic and parking issues in an already busy area. UCKG propose only to provide attendees with information on public transport and encourage use of the Selborne Walk car park – taking places intended for shoppers whose spending is essential to the local economy and who may go elsewhere if they are unable to park.


**As a former projectionist and film lover I know how important film is and how this area is deprived of a valuable and necessary form of communication. There are many and varied areas for religious practise that already serve the community but to not have an area for film entertainment in a part of the world as diverse and culturally rich as Waltham Forest is, I find not only ridiculous but culturally reprehensible.**


As a local resident, I hope all these issues are given full consideration by the Planning Inspectors and this proposed development will again be rejected.

Yours Faithfully,

Chris Simpson

Fancy Reading a Good Book of Short Stories...This One Includes One Of Mine

http://www.lulu.com/product/paperback/showtime-4/17146698?productTrackingContext=search_results/search_shelf/center/1

Go and buy (if you want to).

Chris

Second book. First draft. Done.

It took just less than nine months when I felt I could have done it in just less than six, but the first draft of "Ineffable" is done. Seeing that I thought it was going to be a novella it has taken me by surprise. Now I'm off to work on it to do a second draft, pass it around for criticism, get to work on editing the first novel again and then back to another rewrite of this. I have an idea for a third book, but I must promise myself not to get started until I've done more drafts of the two I've written. I don't like to talk too much about the work, so excuse this slim, hastily written, paragraph.

Chris

Odds & Sods of 2010

A lot happened this year, but I'll start with the books that I've read (placing titles in italics the ones that you should read straight away):

“Netherlands” - Joseph O’Neill

“Envy” - Kathryn Harrison

“An Education” - Lynn Barber

“The Diving-Bell & The Butterfly” - Jean-Dominique Bauby

“The Dying Animal” - Philip Roth

“Strangers” - Anita Brookner

“We Don’t Live Here Anymore” - Andre Dubus

“The Garden Of Last Days” - Andre Dubus III

“On Chesil Beach” - Ian McEwan

“The Humbling” - Philip Roth

“Must You Go?: My Life With Harold Pinter” - Antonia Fraser

“The Kiss” - Kathryn Harrison

“The Buddha Of Suburbia” - Hanif Kureishi

“The Spend Less Handbook” - Rebecca Ash

“The Reluctant Fundamentalist” - Moshin Hamid

“Death Of A Lady’s Man” - Leonard Cohen

“The Postman Always Rings Twice” - James M. Cain

“The Bridges Of Madison County” - Robert James Waller

“Homage To Catalonia” - George Orwell

“The Monk” - Matthew Lewis

“Apples” - Richard Milward

“Indignation” - Philip Roth

“Wetlands” - Charlotte Roche

“The God Delusion” - Richard Dawkins

“Exit Ghost” - Philip Roth

“A Jew Must Die” - Jacques Chessex

“The Finkler Question” - Howard Jacobson

“In Praise of Older Women” - Stephen Vizinczey

“Invisible” - Paul Auster

“Black Coffee Blues” - Henry Rollins

“American Pastoral” - Philip Roth

“No More Mr Nice Guy” - Howard Jacobson

“Intimacy” - Hanif Kureishi

“The Act of Love” - Howard Jacobson

“Room” - Emma Donoghue

“The Dwarfs” - Harold Pinter

“The Taxi Queue” - Janet Davey

“The Breast” - Philip Roth

“Becoming Strangers” - Louise Dean

“The Easter Parade” - Richard Yates

“Nemesis” - Philip Roth

“Young Hearts Crying” - Richard Yates

"The Fifth Child” - Doris Lessing

“The Prague Orgy” - Philip Roth

“Push” - Sapphire

Apart from these books read, cultural discoveries of the year included:

- Henry Rollins spoken word shows.

- Gil Scott-Heron's brilliant album "I'm New Here" which became my favourite record of the year.

- Visiting Ronnie Scott's to see Natalie Williams Soul Family, Georgie Fame and Liane Carroll

- Seeing "Manhattan" at Somerset House

- Good films: Whatever Works, Inception, Up In The Air

- TV had extremely little to offer other than a new series of "Curb Your Enthusiasm" and Jimmy McGovern's "Accussed". This year also introduced us to leadership TV debates which acted as more of a warning than a chance to experience something new. The riots and commotion on the streets of London were fine but not prolonged and so the turncoats helped the ubiquitious dark lords of conservatism to introduce higher rates for all. There is nothing new in any of this.

As for myself, I finished my first novel and over two thirds completed on my second. Next year and the work will start its journey to the publishers as I think of ideas and research for a third book.

All the good luck in the world for 2011 (we're all going to need it) and thank you for following this blog.

Life In 100 Words Or Less

The good people at http://lifein100wordsorless.wordpress.com/ have published one of my works. Go and have a look at it and the other fine work up there.

A Small Extract From My First Book

Lydia had got through the rest of her shift blocking out her husband and thinking of the three M’s, thinking of ways she could spend more time with them. She thought about hosting a party at her home, asking them to bring their husbands. The idea lasted a brief moment and then was discarded. She thought about hosting a party where it was girls only. She scrapped the idea faster than the first. She needed an entrance to her home for the three M’s, a reason to get them in, a reason for them to be in her home that she wouldn’t classify as ‘creepy’. She thought of a business venture she could hold at home, a reason to get people in on the pretext that it would be good for all involved. That it would furnish them with something that was beyond friendship, a legitimate twenty-first century reason to enter someone’s home. She took a post-it note and wrote down some suggestions, crossing them out at the instant they had been written; ‘sex toys’, ‘Tupperware’, ‘pyramid schemes’. The only suggestion she left intact was ‘candles’. She looked at the word. She stared at it, put the post-it note on her screen and continued with her work. The word seemed to be imbedded on the screen like a famous blue plaque on a house. After half-an-hour of trying to work past it, she took the post-it note from the screen, screwed it up into a ball, threw it across the room, hitting a pane of glass, the window into her office, at the exact moment that Michele was passing by. Michele looked at Lydia for a brief moment, before she started laughing.
“Work shouldn’t get you so stressed.”
“Not work, just wondering what shoes to buy.”
“Now, that I can understand.”
Michele walked off to Lydia’s laughter. Lydia stopped laughing, looked at her watch and was relieved that she only had a quarter of an hour to go.

Copyright of Christopher Alexander Simpson

Thought # Seven

Those without manners are the dullest of the dull. Criminals in bad clothes. Readers of "The Da Vinci Code" who then go off to masturbate to images of Jordan and bad soap-operas.


Copyright of Christopher Alexander Simpson