A public meeting was held at St
Matthias Old Church, in Kimberley
Road, on March 14 2000.
There were many local people at the meeting and representatives were expected from the two groups interested in developing the baths.
In the event ETHG were present so the chair decided to start the meeting with a presentation about their proposals. The meeting continued with questions from the floor. .
The Chair was firm that there would be one question from each person so that everyone would have an equal chance to contribute in a set order. Naturally those who had more to contribute pressed their contributions so there was a colourful and vigorous meeting. .
Trying to assemble the pieces together without an intimate knowledge of the principal characters has proved a challange.
To protect the innocent and in ignorance of all the names and to avoid libel I will not attribute quotes directly. If anyone reading this would like to provide corrections or add material then please e-mail the author
Poplar Baths have been closed for years but the building has been in use -- ironically for training workers to rebuild Docklands.
The Council own the building and seem to be allowing it to be damaged by mindless vandals.
Swan/LABO have been working on a scheme to develop the site in conjunction with an anonymous developer.
Apparently preparation of a scheme for planning permission would cost £100,000 and the not for profit organisation would be reluctant to spend this on a losing bid.
The funding for a pool was alleged to be via Sport England and the Lottery.
The cab firm would be accomodated in the new scheme without charge even though" their" office is not part of the baths. Many things were unspoken behind a wall of hidden agendas. The single speaker on behalf of Swan was reluctant to give ANY details from memory on the grounds that two weeks ago there had been a presentation and he recognised a lot of people at this meeting who had been at the earlier one.
As one who was not present I found this very unsatisfactory.
Apparently Swan have been working on the scheme for a couple of months and had only just heard of ETHG's plans.
These involve a fashionable "foyer" based on what has been done at Statford on a larger scale and apparently successfully. The difference in Scale between Stratford with its huge refurbished malls terminus of the Jubilee line with multi storey car parking and bus interchange was not even considered.
The scheme would have singles flats (bedsits?) for 115 short stay starter homes for teenagers who have nowhere to live and difficult (but not impossible) backgrounds. In charge of the hostel (hotel?) would be one project worker and one security person. (By my arithmetic on a 24 hour basis that would create 8 jobs.)
The drawings show a tall block between the station and the baths but the angle of the view is misleading and I do not think that the tall block could be built without (re)moving the old baths.
The new block would over shadow the existing Ennis House and the new monsters to be built on Chrisp Street.
The other part of the development is offices for ETHG conveniently opposite the new offices built on an open area and play area on the podium, about to be occupied by the much-loved HARCA team migrating from old council offices in Bow.
The need for the well intentioned Foyer scheme is being researched by an unspecified academic who has yet to contact more than one person in Blackwall and who has NOT consulted existing voluntary organisations .
STOP ANY MOVE AGAINST THE BATHS
Lobby your Councillors !