'Save our safer streets in Tower Hamlets' petition

Citizen Journalist Ted Maxwell is calling on people who live and work in Tower Hamlets to sign a petition to ‘Save our safer streets.’

More than 1,300 people have signed a new petition to “save our safer streets in Tower Hamlets”, which was submitted by Simon Ramsay, headteacher at Oaklands Secondary School on Old Bethnal Green Road. The petitioners are calling on the mayor and his administration to STOP, LISTEN and IMPROVE our streets, rather than proceed with their rushed plan to rip up all of the improvements.

If you live, work or study in Tower Hamlets, please read and sign the petition now: https://democracy.towerhamlets.gov.uk/mgEPetitionDisplay.aspx?ID=184&RPID=52412098&HPID=52412098. You do not need to register – you just need to click ‘sign petition’, fill in your personal info, ‘continue’ to check the petition again and then ‘submit’.

The aim is to get 2,000 signatures by 21 September so that the mayor knows before the decision-making meeting on 28 September just how many people want to keep our safer streets. This will also trigger a 30-minute debate at the meeting of the full council on 5 October.

Think you’ve already signed this? No, you can’t have, it’s new! You might have signed an open letter to the mayor or a change.org petition or a previous e-petition on the council website, but this petition is the first one which has a borough-wide focus and is being held on the council’s official petition website with a view to triggering a council debate when it clears 2,000 signatures.

Why is this petition happening before the council makes its decision? Whatever the results of the public consultation surveys in Bethnal Green, Brick Lane and Wapping, the council has not shared any meaningful information to help people to reach an informed opinion of the proposals. And in the case of Bow, the council offered no consultation at all.

The people of Tower Hamlets, and their elected representatives, deserve more time and information in order to have an informed debate about the council’s proposals. That’s why it’s important to ask the mayor to ‘stop, listen and improve’ our streets.