Waltham Forest's head of regeneration Cllr Terry Wheeler is criticised for backing a plan by the United Church of the Kingdom of God to turn the EMD building into a church (From East London and West Essex Guardian Series)

Waltham Forest's head of regeneration Cllr Terry Wheeler is criticised for backing a plan by the United Church of the Kingdom of God to turn the EMD building into a church

10:29am Thursday 25th June 2009 in

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I WAS under the impression that planning applications had to be judged on their merits, but councillor Terry Wheeler’s comments at the overview and scrutiny management committee last week would appear to indicate he’s determined to bully through the plans to rob the people of Waltham Forest of their only cinema.

“The only proposal I know will work is the UCKG church – they will restore it,” he said, ignoring the fact that at least two cinema operators have said they want to reopen the building as a cinema – and the fact that hundreds of local residents have made it quite clear they don’t want a church in the building.

And laughably he declares that a church and so-called community centre in the building would be “more attractive, to particularly young people, than a modified cinema.”

I’d like to challenge Cllr Wheeler to ask any young person in the whole of Waltham Forest if they’d like an addition to the 200-plus tally of places of worship in the borough, or whether they would prefer that we stopped being the only borough in the whole of London without a cinema. I’m sure he’d be surprised at the answer – but none of the rest of us would.

There will be no permanent development on the arcade site until at least 2012 – there will be next to no benefits from the Olympics for Waltham Forest, as Boris Johnson’s public meeting confirmed earlier this month and the last cinema in the borough is due to be turned into yet another church.

As cabinet minister for regeneration, Cllr Wheeler should hang his head in shame. He has achieved nothing and he has no prospect of achieving anything. As Walthamstow declines ever further, much of the blame rests at his door.

He should resign now before his inevitable humiliation at the ballot box.

Amanda Leyland, Hatherley Road, Walthamstow.