Caring about Wandsworth's buildings, open spaces, rivers and transport.
On the 13 October Bruce St.Julian-Bown made a presentation to Society members on the relatively recently formed Green Group, marking the Group’s first public step in developing it’s role.
The attached review of the talk gives an outline of the issues – and includes some compelling statistics.
During the fine weather at the end of June all the Coomons, including Wandsworth Common, have been invaded by sunseekers – often picnicking and leaving vast amounts of rubbish. The Friends of Wandsworth Common and those paid to empty bins have made a sterling effort to clean up but the littering shouldn’t be happening in the first place.
38 Degrees have set up a petition and you can add your name to that in the hope of effecting some important drivers including fining perpatrators to reduce the problem:
https://you.38degrees.org.uk/petitions/stop-the-trashing-of-wandsworth-common
Firstly, after thousands flocked to our parks over the Mother’s Day weekend, the takeaway refreshment services in the park cafes closed on Monday 23rd March. And then came the PM on the same evening, perhaps influenced the pictures of crowds on the commons and parks of South West London, restricting walking in groups and outdoor meetings. The latest position in Wandsworth is that although parks are still open playgrounds, outdoor gyms, toilets and other facilities are shut.
Although a day later there are lots of genuine exercisers including walkers, runners, cyclists, roller skaters, family ball game players and tai chi practitioners others read the single daily outing for “exercise” to mean sitting on a park bench enjoying the sunshine. But there is also some very foolish behaviour on display, like pairs of joggers coming from behind and squeezing between two walkers who have left a gap 3 metres apart and vigorous football played by a group of lads who are unlikely to all come from the same household.
It will be interesting to see whether we are to be asked to increase our vigilance over the coming weeks.
At the annual Wandsworth Council Civic Awards the wardens, an independent group of volunteers, won the new Environmental Category for their efforts to conserve, protect and improve the environment through the planting, care, nurture and cultivation of trees across Wandsworth. Our members include a number of the tree wardens and they are to be congratulated.
This small but historically important piece of open space will be given a new lease of life by the Council with work getting under way in the last week of November. The half acre Huguenot burial ground at the top of East Hill, home to a number of listed tombs and graves, will then be reopened to the public as a small “pocket” park .
To learn more about the Huguenots in Wandsworth we will have a speaker from the Huguenot Society in February.
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