Support grows for allotments under threat from Olympics

[Mark]

On Tuesday evening, 16th Jan, over 100 people turned up to Manor Garden
Allotments in Hackney Wick to show their support for the campaign to
protect the 100-year old 1.8 hectare site from the 2012 Olympic
bulldozers. See News Report:
www.lifeisland.org/images/hackney-gazette-180107.pdf
 People were treated to food and drink courtesy of the plotholders, after
John Mattheson, Chair of Manor Garden Allotments Society bearing an
‘anti-Olympic Torch’ lit a bonfire on the idyllic plot of land next to the
river Lea. See photo at: www.lifeisland.org/?p=44
Guests included BBC TV Gardeners World presenter Joe Swift and
ex-BBC sports presenter and defender of allotments in West London -
Michael Whale, who spoke eloquently about the importance symbolism &
heritage" that allotments could have to earmarking the Olympic
development, evoking the Dig for Victory campaign of WW2, advocating that
"these beautiful allotments should not only be spared from the bulldozers,
they should be the centerpiece of the new Olympic development, seeing as
they present healthy-living, the very essence of what the Olympics is
meant to be about". He went on the challenge the GLA, LDA and ODA to
change their plans and safeguard the allotments.

Leading Barcelona Olympics architect David Mackay has written that he
regards the London Olympic Park design as ‘the silliest architecture seen
in years
.ignoring the history and legacy of the area’.
He agrees with UEL Senior Lecturer in Architecture, Tak Hoshino, that
there is no need to remove the allotments, they can be worked around. He
believes current plans will leave behind a ‘Hollywood set for a ghost
town’.

The campaigns petition doubled in size in one day and has gathered over
800 names in just over a week.


Holding a torch for the allotments
on Hackney Marshes by Juliette Adair

Manor Gardens Allotments is a 1.8 hectare site on the east marshes of
Hackney. It’s a wedge of land between the River Lea and Bully Point Nature
Reserve – and right in the middle of the 2012 Olympic site. For 100 years
this ground has been an allotment and was supposed to remain so in
perpetuity. Now it has a compulsory purchase order on it and it will soon
be bulldozed to make way for a concrete walkway. After the four week
Olympic period, this will be broken up and the area made into a reed bed.
This may satisfy some environmental concerns but the community - diverse
and layered as it is - will be destroyed. Far from dancing in the streets,
everyone is grieving.

Some of the plot holders have been growing food here for nearly sixty
years. Some came with their parents or even grandparents. Others are more
recent Londoners, coming to England from other parts of the world in times
of war. There is a strong Turkish community, from Cyprus and also mainland
Turkey. There is a spirit of welcome and support for newcomers who may not
speak much English. Seeds are swapped between the plot holders and often
have an international dimension. In fact, this is an example of a truly
diverse and multicultural community, growing its own food, supporting
wildlife and quietly creating something beautiful in an area more often
known for racial violence and urban blight. It could be held up as an
example of good living; instead it is to be destroyed in favour of a
temporary strip of concrete.

I became involved when a neighbour was telling me about her friend’s plot
and the amazing community she has at the allotment. I went to visit in
March and was treated to a delicious lamb and vegetable soup around the
table with a very friendly and remarkably diverse group of people. It
turned out that there was an empty plot, many of the plot holders having
lost heart and found plots elsewhere. And so, I fell in love with the
place and got involved 


Juliette Adair is a writer, artist and grower of a small number of pea and
spinach plants.

Support for Manor Garden Allotments Society
http://www.lifeisland.org