Objection to MBDC lodged with House of Lords

The local Campaign to prevent the Metropolitan Police using Wanstead Flats as a base (MBDC Mustering, Briefing and Deployment Centre) during the 2012 London Olympics has moved to the House of Lords.

To enable the base to be established lawfully, Parliament has to amend the 1878 Epping Forest Act which does not allow any non-recreational or leisure based activity in the Forest (which includes Wanstead Flats).

Instead of promoting an amending Act, the Government has opted to use the device of a Legislative Reform Order, made possible by an Act passed by the last Labour Government in 2006, which was intended to address minor issues in current legislation without requiring full debate in Parliament.

The Legislative Reform (Epping Forest) Order 2011 is a draft order which would enable the Metropolitan Police to build a temporary muster station on land in Epping Forest (Wanstead Flats) and use it for the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games. The MBDC would be dismantled after the Games. The order has to be approved by both Houses of Parliament before it can have effect.

Objectors have lodged eight petitions for consideration by the Hybrid Instruments Committee of the House of Lords which consists of eight Peers.

  • Two petitions are from local councils - Newham and Waltham Forest.

  • One is from a local conservation body, The Wren Conservation and Wildlife Group.

  • Three are from individuals.

  • One is presented by 36 residents who live in the roads next to the designated area for the MBDC.

  • One is from the Save the Wanstead Flats campaign group, which organised a petition signed by 1600+ local people, which was presented in December to Redbridge Council, the planning authority for the Flats.

You can read the petitions on the House of Lords website at the following link http://www.parliament.uk/business/committees/committees-a-z/lords-select/hybrid-instruments-committee/

 

The petitions had to be lodged in the House of Lords by Monday April 4. The Home Office has to respond to the petitions by today Monday April 18. Petitioners will have then till Monday May 9 to respond in turn to the Government's response to the petitions.

The main objections to allowing the Police Base on Wanstead Flats are:

  • It would cause unacceptable noise and traffic and other nuisance to local residents and pose a serious threat of a terrorist attack, being a more vulnerable alternative target than the Olympic Site itself, as it is surrounded by open land that will be difficult to police. It is a “sitting duck”

  • It would damage severely the breeding and feeding habits of protected species of birds- skylarks and meadow pipits- the risks to which were inadequately assessed by government-commissioned research. There is a strong likelihood of the permanent destruction of this irreplaceable habitat, the closest to the centre of London.

  • The police base would create an easy precedent for an unknown range of future requests for non-leisure use of the Flats and Forest .

  • The police made inadequate efforts to find a more suitable site more distant from residential areas, presumably for economic reasons, and falsified the risks to local residents in their consultation events.

  • The Home Office consultation in 2010 was delayed, shortened and quoted the wrong section of the 1878 Act and so is invalid.

Petitioners would be appalled if the House of Lords failed to give these objections full and serious consideration and look forward to the opportunity to press their case in person to the Hybrid Instruments Committee or a Select Committee later in the summer, if the HIC itself does not refuse to approve the order forthwith.

From Press Release - Monday 18th April 2011