Manor Garden Allotments VS 2012 Olympics

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Manor Garden Allotments VS 2012 Olympics
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Leonie

Joined: 13 Sep 2005
Posts: 731
Location: West Sussex

Posted: Wed Jan 10, 07 11:25 am Post subject: Manor Garden Allotments VS 2012 Olympics

Hope it is okay to post this message here. I received this message today from Dan, Admin at Allotments 4 All forum. Please offer your support if you feel able to:

This issue has been brought to my attention, and I thought we as a community should offer our support.

Extracts from the press release:

Quote
David Mackay, Author of the original Stratford City plan and lead Architect for the Barcelona Olympic Village and Port - flagged up as the most successful Olympics for regeneration recently - wrote, 'Unfortunately London has lost this opportunity by deciding to agree to cover the existing recreation facilities with the silliest architecture seen for years with no real concern for a legacy. So far as Legacy is concerned we are being asked to look at the Emperor's New Clothes - so delicate that nobody can see them. If carried out, and with only five years to go, the Olympic legacy is more likely to be like a Hollywood set for a ghost town or an abandoned Expo site.'

The eviction date is set to be 2nd April at the latest.

Manor Gardens, bequeathed to be allotments 'in perpetuity' by their original owner the 'Right Hon' Major Villiers, sit in the North central section of the Olympic Park. The LDA plan to remove them to make a footpath to the stadia and now to house a screen, destroying in the process a century of devoted cultivation and a close-knit community rooted in this irreplaceable site. Old timers, Tom and Albert, have been growing veg and keeping fit here for 54 and 58 years respectively, taking over from their fathers. 10 year old Boris, whose parents are members, nags them to come to the plot and wants to hand his plot down to his son. Members trust in the permanence of the site led one plot holder to scatter his brother's ashes on his plot.

However this diverse community of Turks Cypriots, Greeks, Jamaicans, Africans and Brits welcome the potential for regeneration brought by the Olympic development. Rather than being moved out of the way they want to offer their contribution which seems to them to be entirely consistent with the Olympic and Government ambitions. They believe to remove the allotment gardens would be to rip out the 'healthy heart' of the Olympic Park area as well as to fragment the community.

Even if the Manor Gardening community could be protected by relocation there is growing opposition from people local to the relocation site on Marsh Lane fields. If planning permission is granted it would only be for seven years after which the Society may be moved again. Yet it would take at least twenty years, plus the right conditions, to re-establish our current food production levels and to create a similarly viable community.

As plot holder Armagan and her friend Cavide said, 'We could make the London Olympics different from all other Olympics. Having the allotments in the Olympic Park and preserving them for the Legacy Park would send out the message world wide that the UK really does care after all.'

But do the LDA and the Mayor care about local grown initiatives even when they are successful examples, like Manor Garden Allotments, of the Governments own strategies such as the London Food and the Biodiversity Strategies?

Writer and supporter of the campaign to incorporate the allotments, Iain Sinclair says, 'We don't want it (the Olympic Park) imagining for us. We don't want it over-imagined. We want to imagine it for ourselves. Please preserve the soul of the place as represented by the beautiful Manor Garden Allotments.

A petition has been set up, which I hope you will take the time to sign,

We the undersigned petition the Prime Minister to Incorporate rather than demolish Manor Garden Allotments within the 2012 Olympic site.

tahir

Joined: 28 Oct 2004
Posts: 45432
Location: Essex

Posted: Wed Jan 10, 07 11:30 am Post subject:
Done

Behemoth

Joined: 01 Dec 2004
Posts: 19023
Location: Leeds

Posted: Wed Jan 10, 07 11:31 am Post subject:
Ditto - these should be a showcase not an inconvenience.

sean
Downsizer Moderator

Joined: 28 Oct 2004
Posts: 42207
Location: North Devon

Posted: Wed Jan 10, 07 11:36 am Post subject:
Done. It's worth pointing out to him/them though that in planning matters a petition (No matter how many it's signed by) counts as one objection. They really need to get people to write individually.

Jb

Joined: 08 Jun 2005
Posts: 7761
Location: 91ï¿½ N

Posted: Wed Jan 10, 07 11:49 am Post subject:
Done. Though to put my cynics hat on I suspect that the whole petition site exists just so that they can pay lip service to democracy. If they want to do something then it would be done anyway and trumpeted as "government listens to 60000 signature petition" and if they don't want to do it then it will be quietly ignored as "our surveys showed only 0.1% of the public supported ..."

mochyn

Joined: 21 Dec 2004
Posts: 24585
Location: mid-Wales

Posted: Wed Jan 10, 07 11:52 am Post subject:
I've signed, and I'll be forwarding the link to people.

Leonie

Joined: 13 Sep 2005
Posts: 731
Location: West Sussex

Posted: Wed Jan 10, 07 11:56 am Post subject:
thanks everyone I'm trying to sign it but the confimation email won't come through. Those who have signed, did it come through quickly or did you have to wait?

Fee

Joined: 21 Mar 2005
Posts: 15922
Location: Earth

Posted: Wed Jan 10, 07 12:16 pm Post subject:
Done. So sad that what could be an excellent opportunity appears to be turning into a stageshow in a lot of areas

Fee

Joined: 21 Mar 2005
Posts: 15922
Location: Earth

Posted: Wed Jan 10, 07 12:17 pm Post subject:

Leonie wrote:

thanks everyone

I'm trying to sign it but the confimation email won't come through. Those who have signed, did it come through quickly or did you have to wait?

Well, I originally signed with an alias email I use, and it didn't come through, so I re-signed with my actual email (gmail), and it came through pretty promptly, say less than 2 mins.

Leonie

Joined: 13 Sep 2005
Posts: 731
Location: West Sussex

Posted: Wed Jan 10, 07 12:34 pm Post subject:
thanks fee, I've tried two different addresses but neither seem to be working. I'll try again later.

cab

Joined: 01 Nov 2004
Posts: 32429

Posted: Wed Jan 10, 07 12:35 pm Post subject:
Signed. This is the secnd petition posted here about this, the first threas (with a different petition for the same cause) is here: https://forum.downsizer.net/about16752.html A very worthwhile petition. If we were to each write individually to object, who should we write to?

Leonie

Joined: 13 Sep 2005
Posts: 731
Location: West Sussex

Posted: Wed Jan 10, 07 12:48 pm Post subject:
sorry cab, I hadn't seen that

Behemoth

Joined: 01 Dec 2004
Posts: 19023
Location: Leeds

Posted: Wed Jan 10, 07 12:50 pm Post subject:
There's also a good article in this months KG magazine.

cab

Joined: 01 Nov 2004
Posts: 32429

Posted: Wed Jan 10, 07 12:51 pm Post subject:

Leonie wrote:

sorry cab, I hadn't seen that

As far as I'm concerned hilighting another petition to save an allotment site is a bloody good thing to do. And when that allotment site is one with a rich and long history, and its going to be lost to create temporary paths for the olympics, its a national scandal. Allotments are part of our culture, if they're there near the olympics then during the games we should be hilighting them and showing them off to people from around the world; they're an excellent solution for producing healthy, local produce and they're fantastic excercise.

boisdevie1

Joined: 11 Aug 2006
Posts: 3897
Location: Lancaster

Posted: Wed Jan 10, 07 1:06 pm Post subject:
Another wonderful example of joined up government. Allotments allow people to grow food which means no air miles. They're also good for exercise. Makes me want to weep.

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