A new Vision for Christchurch Green: Community events and sustainable café coming to local park
Published: 6 March 2021
Redbridge Council's Leisure partner Vision has this week announced plans to deliver Covid safe community focussed meetings, events, and family activities at much-loved Wanstead Christchurch Green, making the most of the 2021 summer weather.
A new licence, applied for in February, will enable Vision to work with local groups and residents to host a range of activities in the park-like children's storytime, poetry readings, outdoor book clubs, and potentially small film screenings.
Vision was originally granted a similar license in 2011 and organised popular events, including Wanstead Festival on an annual basis, the Olympic programme, funfairs, and smaller Adhoc cultural activities. The new licence will build on this success, giving more flexibility to work with local groups and providing a café kiosk to act as a focal point and meeting space.
The new sustainable café kiosk will be carefully designed in conjunction with residents to fully integrate into the park and serve locally sourced coffees, teas, and cakes. The café will be run with thought to the environment, avoiding single-use plastics and using local supply chains.
There will be limited seating outside the single-story structure, which is expected to be located near the bathroom block along Woodbine Place's boundary.
Cllr Kam Rai, Cabinet Member for Finance, Culture and Leisure, commented,
"With summer approaching, we want to support local people to enjoy our parks and green spaces as much as possible.
"Wanstead benefits from such an active, creative community, and our council wants to engage with local people and groups to help organise activities from craft workshops, talks, Sunday afternoon Jazz all the way to puppet shows and school choir performances, all centred around a small café space serving locally sourced products."
To support the café kiosk and small events, there will be a daily staff presence on-site, additional bins located around Christchurch Green, and litter picking patrols will be expanded.
The café kiosk will have an alcohol licence providing a limited offering, allowing the kiosk to complement events. All staff will be fully trained in managing public behaviour to ensure the Green remains a welcoming family-orientated space.
