Saving Wanstead Flats

3:18pm Friday 4th July 2008

BY the 1930s, Wanstead Flats had become a popular destination for local people.

Events such as fairs, bands, music hall performances, boating and fishing on the lakes and sports such as football and cricket drew people from a wide area.

But the Second World War had a devastating effect on West Ham Council's housing stock.

A total of 14,000 houses were destroyed and many damaged - nearly a quarter of West Ham was designated as severely war damaged.

The bombing led to more than 10,000 people awaiting homes, and diaries from the period document the despair and strain of overcrowding.

The newly-elected Labour Government had pledged to build hundreds of thousands of homes. Health Minister Aneurin Bevan, who was responsible for housing policy, was determined to provide new homes quickly for the war-weary population.

In 1946 he told the House of Commons: "The people must have shelter....the Commoners of Epping Forest must surrender to the overwhelming needs of the people."

Two months later West Ham Council applied to compulsory purchase 163 acres of Wanstead Flats, most of which was outside the council's boundaries and would be used to build 7,000 homes.

The plan was opposed by all neighbouring authorities, including Wanstead and Woodford and Leyton Councils, as well as the City of London's Epping Forest committee.

A spirited local campaign was organised by a West Ham school teacher, Stanley Reed, who was acting as secretary of the Wanstead Flats Defence Committee.

A coalition of more than 160 organisations, including trade unions, religious groups, political parties and sports clubs came together.

It organised public meetings, canvassed and lobbied politicians.

Epping MP Leah Manning presented a petition containing 60,000 signatures to Parliament.

On December 2, 1946, a public inquiry into the compulsory purchase was opened.

The inquiry, at West Ham Town Hall, lasted four days and was punctuated by acriminous exchanges.

Cries of "shame!" came from the public gallery when Wanstead Flats was described as "an unattractive open space".

Eventually the application was rejected and Mr Reed went on to become a Wanstead and Woodford councillor and later became the director of the British Film Institute.

But he said: "My part in the saving of Wanstead Flats is the single achievement of my life of which I am unreservedly proud."

The Guardian is indebted to Richard Bolt's article Saving The Flats (Again): The Wanstead Flats Campaign of 1946.