Can We Brighten Up the Underpass?

Everyone's favourite underpass beneath the South end of Highams Park Station is desperately dull, damp, dank, dim, dirty and dismal . And I haven't even referred to it's odour. 

I would like to suggest that something arty could be applied E17-art trail style or William Morris patterns to cheer me up and I head to E4's underworld.

Perhaps this is the start of a campaign.

Great Trees of Highams Park #1

or ... great trees of highams park that arent in the park.
This super cherry in blossom on The Avenue has splendid shape.

Coffee shop bonanza in highams park

Did you wake up and smell the coffee this morning? Highams Park is quickly turning into a coffee shop mecca, after the splendid Oh My... opened on Winchester Road last year, Highams Park has hit the mocha trail big time. Costa in Tesco's pocket followed and now we have another on Winchester Road - Tassili - and Poppie's bakery has been replaced with Coco Cafe.Pictures below:

Lonely Corner of the Month

I love this 6 x 7 foot wedge of the Highams Park Station Car Park. I walk past it twice a day and wonder what it covers, why was it never turned into a coffee kiosk or a flower bed, or a lamp post base, or a bike parking spot, or, or, or...

As far as I'm aware it's only ever been used as a Summer sandwich seat for the sandwich bar (Mario's it's called now) next it, or for Summer smokers waiting for the next Liverpool Street bound train. 

Should a campaign be started, or a business launched to maximise this poor little spot's superb location?

Earlier this year, the car park has received the great Park Mark honour for safety and security http://www.greateranglia.co.uk/about-us/news/2013/01/highams-park-rail-station-car-park-receives-award-for-security. 

Perhaps our sad corner of it, helps in some way, unbeknownst to us lay people, to deter crime.

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Highams Park Tesco and it's Quirks

The elephant in the room in Highams Park is the new Tesco development. It's a curious creature, featuring a shiny new larger-than-all-the-other shops, pleasant cafe and open new square area.

Sadly only http://www.rightchoicemobility.com/ is the accompanying unit currently open - while other shops in Highams Park are being opened and renovated quite nicely (I'll be plugging these plenty over the next few months). So, the Tesco development looks half finished from the front and the back.

It's also got plenty of quirks - the weird escalator positioning for walk-in customers (hint - always use the lift), the strange new magnetic trolley's that hold up everyone because they cant move on the escalators to stop them mowing people down on the downhill.

For me, the sign you see when you walk out, is the highlight of a visit to Tesco Highams Park:

Up and (pant!) Running

Yes, I'm up and running, jogging, walking and holding my side, etc. with my new blog, the Higham Spark, a jolly jaunt around E4's pleasant district of South Chingford, West Woodford Green, North Walthamstow, almost Chingford Hatch and Hale End and a bit North of it too.

I call it all Highams Park, but I don't want to get too bogged down with such malarky so soon in my first post.

I hope I'll be able to make regular posts and highlight some key matters for locals, some light-hearted trivia and some interesting sidepoints about life and in it's nether regions.

'til next time