Campaigners battle town hall plan to destroy community garden and replace it with homes

Council plans: Greenwich Community Garden faces closure
Russell Lynch5 April 2017

Residents are fighting to stop a London borough destroying a thriving community garden which sprung out of a derelict car park last year.

Greenwich council, which wants to put housing on the site, will face a storm of protest tonight over a plan branded a “cynical land grab” by opponents.

The founders of Royal Hill Community Garden, in West Greenwich Conservation Area, have amassed more than 2,000 signatures in support of the space.

It was created when locals Tony Othen and Jonathan Mantle began clearing the site last year.

Dozens of volunteers, schools and scout groups have helped to develop it and local businesses have donated to it.

Public outcry: Greenwich Community Garden faces closure

But the council, which owns the former police car park, has refused to recognise the garden and its planning department has applied for permission to build four homes.

The site would be worth about £1.5 million with planning consent and officers have recommended the proposal be approved.

Mr Mantle and other protesters will speak out tonight at a meeting of the council’s planning board. He called it “a cynical short-termist land grab”.

He added: “This will destroy a community that did not exist before; add little to the coffers of a council doing deals worth hundreds of millions on easily developed brownfield sites elsewhere; do nothing to alleviate the shortage of affordable housing; and further congest and pollute a borough already short on public green spaces.

Community garden: The area sprang from a derelict carpark

“We and the many hundreds we represent from every sector of the community say we have a better solution, which includes the financial dimension — maybe an eco-friendly home at the top, while the community garden stays at the bottom as a going concern.”

Volunteer Sheila Keeble said: “The council is always banging on about community empowerment but when it is actually confronted with local people taking on a project and making something out of nothing, they don’t like it at all.

“Royal Hill has supporters and volunteers from all over Greenwich, from scouts building fences and planters to older people who bring plants from their gardens. And all this has happened in less than a year with no real plan and no money.”

Other concerns over the housing include cars pulling out onto pavements in a popular area heaving with locals and tourists visiting shops and pubs.

The Labour-run council refused to comment ahead of the vote.

Its deputy leader Danny Thorpe has previously said it is “committed to creating new homes where we can”.

He added: “This pocket of land has been identified as a future site for housing and we must push forward to make this a reality.”

Council planning documents claim removing the garden would not harm local public space as “the site does not form a lawful area of community open space or green corridor”.

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