Spoke ‘n’ words
There is a two-wheel paradox on the
estate. All around us are invitations
to get on our bikes. There are two
Santander cycle stations on Golden
Lane, barely 100 metres apart.
Other new bike-hire schemes seem
to be popping up regularly.
Nearby Old Street sees a daily rat
run of pedal pushers, speeding like
guided missiles to work and back.
They even have their own café,
Look Mum No Hands! And cycling
certainly fits the City Corporation’s
Air Quality Strategy.
Yet here inside the estate, there are
NO CYCLING signs everywhere.
The one on the wall of Hatfield House
is terrifying: “Action may be taken
against anyone ignoring this
request under the 1990 Environmental
Protection Act”.
The threat is backed by action.
Children on bikes are ordered to
dismount, and last month a bunch
of parkour stunt riders, having sneaked
onto the Great Arthur House roof
garden, were promptly marched off
the estate by police.
Draconian policies are unfortunate,
because the estate’s design is so
enticing to cyclists. It looks like an
urban playground, and despite
technically being a private estate, its
openness is one of its most attractive
features. It is built on a series of
raised platforms, so heavy use
impacts on the underlying structure.
This is why attempts to control the
footfall of marching City workers
and delinquent cyclists are not
entirely unreasonable.
Branch out…
A hint at a third-way solution arrived
last year when we got a community
cargo bike. Up to now it has been
used mainly as a fun ride for children
(and parents), but it has recently
come under new management so
maybe now it will be steered towards
more suitable activities such as
ferrying shopping, bits of furniture
and bags of waste to and fro.
The success of the cargo bike shows
how strict rules can, with measured
regulation and cooperation, be gently
broken with no great loss to public
order or safety. In time we might
even get a few NO KIDS IN CARGO
BIKE signs, but that would be a
small price to pay to see wheels
spinning freely around the estate.
On the move...
Other forms of transportation have
found a niche locally. There is the
Baltic Street Chapter, a bunch of
motorcycle couriers who hang out
in the no-man’s land between
Baltic Street East and Baltic Street
West, eating sandwiches and looking
tough; there is the early-evening
mass occupation of Kennedy’s fish
and chip shop on Whitecross Street
by black-cab drivers. And a yellow
minibus trundles around our streets,
leisurely picking up and dropping off
passengers.
This is the 812 hail-and-ride service
provided, strangely, by Hackney
Community Transport (hackneyct.org).
You wave it down like a taxi. Seniors
and children under 16 go free,
otherwise it’s £1 per journey. The route
takes in Golden Lane, then snakes
up to Sainsbury’s at the Angel and
onward to somewhere around
Haggerston. Its friendliness is one
of the service’s best-kept secrets.
Branch out…
The Tree Council’s National Tree
Week passed recently without much
fuss hereabouts, but for die-hard
enthusiasts Golden Lane does have
a few quality tick-list specimens.
At west end of Bowater House there
is a monster Indian Bean Tree. At the
other end of Bowater, on Fann Street is
a Canadian Sugar Maple. And in the
beds at Hatfield Lawn there is a
Judas Tree, the national tree of Israel.
Add others (Mexican Cherry, Cedar of
Lebanon), and on the Golden Lane
Estate you can practically travel
the world in trees. If you did so, it
would not be without controversy.
At the west end of Bayer House
stands what official documents say
is a beech tree. But one of my
Basterfield House neighbours is
adamant that it is not a beech but a
poplar. Now an expert has stepped
in to verify that the disputed tree,
planted in 1989, is in fact a
beech, Fagus Sylvatica, a “fastigate
form of beech that typically grows to
a height of 12 metres”.
Live and learn...
The Gresham College website
(gresham.ac.uk) is the place to go
for a juicy free lecture. There are
plenty on offer, both to attend at a real
college in Holborn and at other City
locations, or to watch online. There
was a good one recently about how
Scotland tried to ban Christmas carols
in 1582, but I have become hooked
on two in particular: ‘From Mr Pickwick
to Tiny Tim: Charles Dickens and
Medicine’ and ‘A World Without News?’,
by former Guardian editor Alan
Rusbridger. Bliss.
edition number 061.
