Westfield, Stratford City

A lot of the houses along that stretch are delapidated and a real eyesore with dead fridges and stained mattresses rotting in the front gardens. Further up, behind the Ivory Mansions asian wedding venue is a row of derelict garages stuffed with rubbish. The council offered to pay to remove it and the landlord refused. Whatcha gonna do?

Further up again, nearly under the railway bridge, was a nail bar that turned out to be a highly successfull brothel:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1384487/Lyubov-Clyde-How-Ukrainian-nail-bar-blonde-English-beau-68-millions-brothels.html

Stratfords been famous for it's sauna's for years. My 2nd job in London, the guy I used to sit next to knew all about them and lots of City types used to head there for weekday evening action.

the infamous stratford sauna one of many tempting me each and every night on my way home NOT

The area from Chobham Rd to Stratford proper needs some serious redevelopment.
Same for South Leytonstone. It's all nice in the "leafy" Bushwood area with privately owned semis.
Even CCTV coverage ends at Cathall Ward.

It has a lovely new betting shop and tescos! :(

I ve known E15 and E numbers eastwards for over 25 years. I live in E10 and for work purposes WF is now part of my patch..

Its truly a much changed area, rough but on the whole peaceful if you are a civilian or not a male under 20. Mind you I do worry about the possibilty of tension between the East Europeans and other local communities.

In my view, the far east numbers suffers not from white working class flight but from the absence of affluence ; communities and individuals now just pass through on their way to the delights of Braintree and other "affordable" parts of Essex. Like many other parts of London its now got more small shops than it needs which, when combined with the short term private rented sector and mattresses in the gardens, means its looks scruffy. The same is true for Ilford and B & D.

However, its not all bad , why else would I live and bring my children up here...

Good things;the mix of people, some shops, the emergence of a music scene(eg Birkbeck, pubs I want to drink in ( eg Rose & Crown) and Asda Leyton..
And you can ride out to the High Beach Tea Hut..

It has a lovely new betting shop and tescos! :(

That betting shop... I'm disappoint.
It used to be a proper rough pub, but with nice features (victorian tiles) which gave the name to the whole area - Thatched House. The the puv was turned into that ghastly unsuccessful Nigerian wine bar with purple facade and neon signs (ffs!). And then it was empty for almost two years. Someone removed that awful purple textured plaster and cleaned up those green Victorian tiles - only to paint over with a navy blue paint. Vandals, I tell ya!

where was this ? right on maryland point ?
that sucks i've been in the area for 14 years and never had any issues walking back from strattie

i hope she's OK EEI

She's tough (someone with mental health problems stabbed her in the chest back in the late 80s, in the club), but without her mobile and daily take from hairdressers.

The Forest Gate side of the High Rd (between Maryland and Jason Rd). There's few depressingly dull blocks and a residential area with mainly rented accommodation.
Recently the whole area become gang infested and there's a drug related turf war which rarely hits the headlines - mainly local press.

EEI & others, fancy a ride out to Essex over the weekend ? Out to where ever and then back to the Nags Head?

Depends if my wife's working or not.
If not this weekend, maybe next one? Oh, I don't have a road bike at the moment, so it's. 10 mph for me until I fit the front brake.

The Forest Gate side of the High Rd (between Maryland and Jason Rd). There's few depressingly dull blocks and a residential area with mainly rented accommodation.
Recently the whole area become gang infested and there's a drug related turf war which rarely hits the headlines - mainly local press.[/QUOTE]

Shit, right near mine!

EEI & others, fancy a ride out to Essex over the weekend ? Out to where ever and then back to the Nags Head?

Sounds good to me, I may be up for this!
I missed the 'Joy' rides from before.

Loosing track of the days at present- but what about monday? Say Whipps x to High Beach & back to the Nags Head in the Village .

I wouldn't dream of shopping at Westfield Stratford City. It's an appalling development, incredibly misconceived. There's nothing wrong with the principle of developing a much larger town centre at Stratford, as it is undershooting its potential, but it should categorically not have been done by means of a complete disjunction between historically-grown public streets and a private development featuring 10,000 car parking spaces (Westfield somehow got away with this despite Stratford's very high PTALs; TfL tried very hard at the time to have the number of car parking spaces reduced but no dice). In terms of spatial structure, the development is absolute rubbish, not to mention the ghastly 'architecture'. It provides none of the connections that were needed in the area and is a gigantic step backwards. Newham failed to provide a cogent development plan for the area. We'll suffer from its 'legacy' for decades to come. A low point for London.

I tend to agree with Oliver. It looks like absolute hell. Some of the housing in the olympic legacy masterplan will be nice though.

I'm at work now and it's dead. Deader than a dead thing from Deadville that's won an award for being dead.

Wests is dead.

I was in Stratford today picking up a bike - I walked through Westfield to get from Stratford regional to Stratford Intl. since there's apparently no way of walking around it (the signpost out of the station pointed left... I go left and there's just a building site).

There are some bike racks at Stratford regional but they were packed. There were no racks at Stratford International.

Also on the way home a guy noticed my bike, walked up to me and offered me 'bike lights and saddles cheap if you know what I mean'.

And the toilets smell.

I understood that the shopping centre was planned before the Olympics as part of Stratford City master plan. However, the intention for was a development over 10 years that would not be dominated by a big mall and would be mixed use Then we won the Olympics and there was Westfield owing the main entrance to the site.. So Westfield had every one over a barrel.

Newham ,GLA and TFL could have tried harder, especially Newham, but it was not "new labour" to be against big retail. So we have a big Mall which will be the 1st thing you will see as you enter the park. Indeed, you will have to go through it and past a 24 hr casino to get to the park.

That said , its nice to have a John Lewis in East London .....

Details of new improvements here - https://westfieldavenue.commonplace.is/proposals/westfield-avenue-overall-proposals/step1

It looks ok - can't be any worse than what there is at the moment