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Last weekend, 20 and 21 July, Barking and Dagenham did the time warp back to the 80s with the One Borough Festival, followed by the Roundhouse Music Festival, which turned things all the way up to 11! 

The views of people living and doing business in Barking and Dagenham are being sought as the council is proposing to establish a policy which will guide its decision on licensing sex establishments.  

The council is currently able to licence sex shops and sex cinemas, but it has no ability to licence the most recently introduced category of sex establishment, namely sex entertainment venues – which include lap dancing establishments.

Last week Riverside Secondary School had a special visit as they welcomed students and staff from a school in China.

Visiting from Beijing Capital Normal High School, the Chinese students spent three days at the Barking School to experience English culture and school life.

As the students wanted to learn about life in an English school, each pupil was buddied up with a young person from the Riverside on their first day and spent a large part of their visit in lessons with their buddies. 

Residents in Barking and Dagenham can enjoy a free trip to Southend this summer.

A specially chartered C2C train will depart from Barking and Dagenham Dock stations on Sunday, 11 August.

The trip, which is being supported by the rail provider, will leave Barking station shortly after 9am and depart from Southend Central station just before 5.30pm.

The family-friendly event is being organised by the Dagenham group Reede Road Tenants and Residents Association (TRA).

Barking and Dagenham’s latest neighbourhood watch group hopes to utilise the powers of technology in a bid to create a network of crime fighters.

Marks Gate Neighbourhood Watch, which was originally formed in the 1980s, is undergoing a 21st century reboot thanks to new online crime alert system called Online Watch Link (OWL). 

The free service allows people to sign-up using their email or phone number and receive instant crime alerts, join in virtual police surgeries or see up-to-date fraud warnings. 

A distribution firm in Dagenham has been told to pay more than £1,300 after failing to produce documents showing how they dispose of their rubbish.

Enforcement officers from Barking and Dagenham Council carried out a routine inspection of HN Wells Ltd, which deals with importing and distributing food, in July 2018. 

However, the Wantz Road business failed to produce Waste Transfer Notes on request for how they got rid of their general rubbish and recycling waste – an offence under section 34 of the Environmental Protection Act 1990.

The first round of neighbourhood community infrastructure levy (NCIL) funding has been allocated, with a fantastic response from both the panel made up of volunteer residents and the number of applications received from local organisations.

The NCIL is a proportion of the fee the council charges developers when they are building new developments, to make sure any developments benefit communities across the borough.

Residents were joined by councillors, staff, faith leaders and students from Gascoigne Primary School to observe a minute of silence to remember the victims of the Srebrenica massacre and to fly the Remembering Srebrenica flag. 



The event, the fifth consecutive year it has been observed by Barking and Dagenham, took place today in the Town Square to mark the 24th anniversary of the Srebrenica massacre which took place on 11 July 1995, when Bosnian Serb forces marched into Srebrenica and killed 8,372 Muslim Serb men and boys.

A new policing team focused on tackling street crime in Barking and Dagenham has been unveiled. 

The Crime and Enforcement Taskforce will be based in the Barking Learning Centre and will be predominantly responsible for tackling crimes identified as a priority by the council, such as patrolling the borough’s housing estates, where they can utilise stop and search powers.

As well as this, the team will be tasked with:

Coming to Parsloes Park next weekend, we head back in time to the 80s with the One Borough Festival on Saturday 20 July before rocking your socks off, with the Roundhouse Music Festival on Sunday 21 July.

What is shaping up to be our biggest weekend of the year, we bring the borough not one, but two, FREE, fantastic festivals that will have something for everyone.